had to be rescued. it happened during practice jumps by a combat team based in alaska. seven were hospitalized. to our viewers, thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." erin burnett "out front" starts right now. out front next, breaking news. president trump says it, ukraine and china should investigate the bidens and we have more breaking news. we have found out trump brought up biden during a june phone call and the breaking details are next plus the first witness in the impeachment inquiry still behind closed doors in capitol hill and we are learning tonight of revealing texts he provided and a second whistle-blower complaint about the trump administration and this one from an irs official regarding tax returns. let's go out front. good evening. i'm erin burnett. out front tonight, breaking news. trump's quid pro quo. the president's own special

envoy to ukraine who resigned just days ago is providing the text messages to congress. kurt volker and i just mentioned this and he's still there behind closed doors on capitol hill and he is now in his ninth hour of a deposition. he has handed over encrypted texts that he received and here's -- here's the key thing. the top u.s. diplomat to ukraine in one of these texts writes he was very concerned about the president withholding aid money from ukraine. that career state department official wrote and you've got to quote this, i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. so you can't get more clear than that. this is according to multiple reports this evening. and the text came in early september and the reason i want to emphasize that date and that means that text was sent before the news broke that there was even a whistle-blower. trump's diplomat believed that the president of the united states was withholding security assistance for help on his re-election campaign.

trump has denied time and time again that there was a quid pro quo. >> there was no quid pro quo at all. there was no quid pro quo. >> if you take a look at that call. it was perfect. i didn't do it. there was no quid pro quo. >> the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine obviously believed otherwise, and of course, the transcript of the president's own phone call asks him asking for a, quote, favor from the ukraine president when the president brought up military aid. today to make it seem that his actions with ukraine were okay, trump went out publicly and asked another country to interfere in the u.s. election. this time it's china, a country the united states is currently negotiating a trade deal with. >> 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. >> by the way, as i said much more on that breaking story in

just a moment. i want to point out the irony of what the president said there because it is quite something. the reason is because here's trump talking about china interfering in american elections just last year. >> regrettably, we found that china has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election. >> we learned that they are trying to meddle in our elections, and we're not going to let that happen. >> unless it's to help him. i mean, here's the thing, trump may be doubling down on asking foreign countries to help because he knows the facts on ukraine and they're in black and white and he can't hide that. it could be with china, too. he may want us to think this is all okay despite the hypocrisy that you just heard, but president trump knows that asking a country for help. remember this. >> russia, if you're listening,

i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. >> he is talking about hillary clinton's e-mails and his words then might have mattered because the mueller report concluded, quote, within five hours of trump's remark a russian intelligence service began targeting e-mail account for hillary clinton with possible hacks and talk about speaking publicly and getting private gain. trump asked china to investigate his political rival publicly and as we said we have breaking details this hour about what he did privately. the president is doing this well aware that the biggest trade deal in history is on the table. everything matters with china right now, and american consumers are paying higher prices as a result of that trade war. the president may be asking china to investigate biden, maybe to give himself cover for a call that he knows the public may find out about with the presidency or the cover with the private call with the president of ukraine because remember, the

bottom line here is this crucial text tonight. when the president asks the top diplomat in ukraine described it by saying, quote, i think it's crazy to withhold assistance for help for a political campaign. that text was sense by an encrypted server, a text nobody ever thought would see the light of day and it is a text that kurt volker showed congress, as i said, he is still behind closed doors and we are going to get to everything we know about the crucial testimony in just a minute on capitol hill with manu raju. first, though, the breaking developments on china. kylie atwood is out front in washington. you have breaking information about a phone call that president trump had with the chinese president xi where he talked about biden, a call that was also stored in that super-classified system which would not fit with protocol? >> reporter: yeah, that's right. so over the sumner june,

president trump spoke over the phone with president xi of china, and he did bring up joe biden, the former vice president, who is now his most formidable democratic opponent leading up to 2020. he also brought up elizabeth warren. he brought him up in the sense of his political prospects. warren was rising in the polls at the time and he talked about them politically. he did not, at that time according to sources familiar with this call encourage the chinese to investigate biden, but that is what he did publicly today, and we should note that he came out to reporters and encouraged china to investigate joe biden. now this phone call back in june, it did go into that secret, that highly sensitive server that the ukraine call went into. it's a place where the white house stores these conversations that they want to keep particularly away from most people's eyes. they don't want them to get out. the other thing we should

mention, however, is that the chinese were thrown off guard today. i spoebke with the chinese diplomat after the comments were made with friday, and it was quite chaotic. trump wanted the chinese to invest gate joe joe beaden via the report and the chinese had no interest in getting involved in the u.s. political process. we'll see how this plays out. we haven't seen a formal response from the china ease yet. >> thank you very much. significant in light of the request to china to investigate joe biden. i want to go to capitol hill with manu raju with the crucial testimony still unfolding where you are. that text that i was just sharing and you know so much more. what are you learning about what volker has been telling congress today? >> reporter: right. he's been in there for nine and a half hours and we are told that he actually just left. it appears that it finally

wrapped up after a full day, a marathon testimony behind closed doors getting questions from republicans and democrats alike. we've learned some aspects of what he has told these three committees that are pushing forward on this impeachment inquiry. in the aftermath of that phone call between president zelensky of ukraine and president trump in which trump asked zelensky to launch an investigation into the bidens, we are told that volker testified that he actually urged the ukrainian government not to go forward -- not to interfere with the u.s. politics, and he also made clear that there were questions that were raised by the ukrainian government repeatedly to him about why military aid had been withheld, u.s. military aid that had been approved by the u.s. congress and why was that not provided to the ukraine. he had no good answers for the officials when he was asked. also, was there a planned meeting that had been in the works and that had been

discussed in washington, with the new ukrainian administration and prdz. that meeting had been put on ice about why that meeting had been put on ice and in the transcript they do reference a meeting that zelensky was eager to have in washington and there had been questions internally in ukraine about why that wasn't happening and volker behind closed doors said he couldn't answer that and he also raised concerns about the source of rudy giuliani's information about joe biden and other matters. he said that volker told giuliani that source was not credible. so those are among some of the headlines and there were a lot more details to learn about this unfolding day-long testimony marathon that happened behind closed doors. >> manu, thank you very much. i want to go out to democratic congressman jerry connolly and he attended kurt volker's deposition today. a nine and a half-hour marathon,

congressman. what did you learn? >> i wasn't there for the whole nine and a half hours, unfortunately. poor mr. ambassador volker was. i -- let me start by saying what i learn side this ambassador who was very forthcoming essentially corroborated the essential facts of the whistle-blower complaint, and that was a very important piece of testimony to hear. >> and when you say corroborated the fact, you know, were you able to -- to ascertain that the president had explicitly linked aid to biden investigation and perhaps that had even happened before the phone call over the summer, obviously? >> i would say that the -- that the ambassador was careful with his word, but he admitted that he was never provided and he had the title special envoy -- envoy to ukraine. he was never provided with any

explanation for this sudden, mysterious suspension of as much as $400 million worth of military aid that ukraine desperately needed to be able to defend itself that's occurring as we speak, and i think that was very important corroboration that clearly something was afoot and there had been a planned trip and an invitation to the new president of the ukraine to come to washington to meet with trump. that also was put as manu just said on ice until and unless the ukrainian government cooperated in digging up dirt on a political opponent of trump. >> and so this text which he provided which started with the other top u.s. diplomat with ukraine, i think it is

ridiculo crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. did he give you any color on that? his opinion on that? >> he confirmed that text, and i think also confirmed that this was a point of prikz with the new ukrainian government, but you have to remember it was an unknown quantity and quality. we didn't really know what zelensky was going to be like or what his policies were because he'd never been in public light before so it was in our interest to establish early on positive relationships and instead, we suspend military aid. we suspend the invitation to come early to washington to meet with the president and we basically put a demand on him that they call crazy. i call that extortion which is

not only wrong and an abuse of office, but a krim. >> he knew it was suspended, but you're saying he never explicitly was. why? >> he told us he was in the dark and no one ever explained to him why he did it and he was at a loss to try to e plaxplain it ts ukrainian counterparts. you say you learned a lot and he provided the crucial text and there was a suspension and you don't know what it was. you're clear with that. >> that's right. republicans are saying this and they had said this long before he had concluded and here is jim jordan and lee zeldin. >> not one thing he said comports with the narrative. >> the administration is in an each stronger place as a product of ambassador volker coming to testify. >> did you hear anything -- did

you hear what they heard? you guys were all in the same room. >>. >> i can only say the power of rationalization and the power of delusion to hold sway here in washington in certain quarters. i don't think any rational person listening to that testimony today could remotely come to the conclusion those two gentlemen came to. >> before we go, one last question, trump publicly asked the chinese president with whom he is engaged in a massive trade war to investigate joe biden today. we have now learned that in a phone call in june with president xi the president raised joe biden although we do not understand with a direction request for an investigation. that call was also housed on the same top secret server that the ukraine call was housed on. what do you make of that? >> i think this is further evidence that gives a lie to what you just heard from those

two gentlemen, my colleagues and from the president himself. so when he says there was no quid pro quo, what he really means by projection there was a quid pro quo. when he says there's no collusion, he means there's collusion, and now we have the evidence. remember, we were debating not long ago was there collusion with russia. now we know there was not only collusion with russia. there was attempted collusion with ukraine and attempted collusion with china and this is what we know about and this is deeply, deeply troubling that the president would use the apparatus of our foreign diplomacy for narrow partisan political ends. where does that end? that is not tolerate in a democracy. >> i appreciate your time tonight. >> vice president peps all in for his request to investigate biden. >> the president is raising

issues that were appropriate and of genuine interest to the american people. >> plus breaking news and now there are two. we are learning much more now. there is a second whistle-blower complaint tonight. this one is about a different thing. it is alleging interference with audits of tax returns belonging to either president trump or vice president pence. and how the impeachment probe could affect the 2020 election of the president? >> are you still just as happy with him? >> no comment. plants capture co2. what if other kinds of plants captured it too? if these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon like trees we could help lower emissions. carbon capture is important technology - and experts agree. that's why we're working on ways to improve it.

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to his violation of his oath of office right then and there. so it doesn't need too much inquiry. it's sad for our country that we would have a president that would put us in this situation. no one is above the law and the president will be held accountable. >> out front now, cnn's chief political analyst gloria borger and patrick healy, former counsel to the u.s. assistant security general and former director of the nixon look raer. >> you have some breaking news at the new york times right now about exactly how far this went and trump's involvement went. >> that's right. we are reporting that two top envoys to president trump, the ambassador to the european union and kurt volker drafted a statement in august with the help of rudy giuliani that committed ukraine to basically

doing the investigations that trump wanted, investigating hunter biden and that ukraine had interfered in the 2016 election ask debunked the conspiracy theory that rudy giuliani and the president continue to push. it's more evidence of the degree to which top administration officials were bending and frankly warping american foreign policy to carry out the political directives, the interests, the political interests of the president by drafting a statement for a foreign power. >> they drafted the statement. the statement explicitly gave the investigations that trump wanted and the ukraine government was going to put it out? >> correct. >> rudy giuliani helped write it. >> it didn't come out while this was blowing up. >> this was in august and internally, as we know, within the administration they realized that there was a whistle-blower complaint. this was going to be unfoaling any that never came out. >> what do you think, tim?

>> we have become the super corrupt power. we are the center of corruption. we're asking foreign governments to participate in our domestic corruption. when the president goes and asks a foreign country for dirt on a political opponent, i think we have to tell americans this is not just about democrats versus republicans. imagine, would you like your president to go to foreign countries to ask for their secret information which, by the way, they can invent to make you happy to destroy the character of an american citizen? doesn't that scare you? that is an abuse of power that fits neatly in article 2 of articles that were passed by the house judiciary committee against richard nixon. i consider that the gold standard for impeachment and it's an abuse of power and the president did it publicly. so what do i think this means? this means, first of all, we are terribly vulnerable. i'm not just saying at home, abroad. the chinese now have a great opportunity and they're negotiating with us a new trade

agreement and they now have an opening and they know he's vulnerable and they'll give him some nonsense. >> it appears that trump will give things up for trade in exchange for an investigation into the bidens and it looks that way. >> i want to give you a chance to respond as patrick is reporting that rudy giuliani worked with the envoy, the u.s. envoy and the president of ukraine to draft this statement in august which would have announced that ukraine was launching an investigation into hunter biden. what's the legal implication of that as the story develops? >> well, i think really, we're out of the realm of technical staff nor violations. i mean, we can come up with the the theory potentially that bribery statutes are implicated if they're offering a thing of value or they're trying to get something in return for something else, but i think we're way out of the realm of technical statutory violations and tim is exactly right that

what we're dealing with is a constitutional issue. here you have as is being reported, at least, rudy giuliani who does not work for the united states of america. he work, he purports to work as the personal attorney for donald trump, not president trump, donald trump, and so to have him inserted, he who represents someone as an individual inserting himself into the foreign policy machinations of a foreign country affects whether or not the state department is conducting foreign affairs on behalf of a person, the person of donald trump or on behalf of the united states. so while we can talk about specific statutory, potentially violations for rudy giuliani, i think the more important principle is the abuse of office issue that tim was describing. >> gloria, does this all start to become, you know, an avalanche or no?

obviously you just heard a republican still defending the president. patrick is reporting things that some of them weren't aware of and you would presumed if they listened they would have heard some of this. does this start to change? >> well, we don't know. well, if you talk to republicans privately, they'll tell you they're upset about this and publicly no. the president has 75% popularity in the republican party and cross him at your own risk. i think at a certain point, though, republicans have to say who is the secretary of state? i'm old enough to remember when rudy giuliani wanted to be secretary of state, remember that? and they were told the president actually stayed away from that because people were saying to him, look, there are too many conflicts of interest. rudy giuliani is not -- is not dependable enough to be your secretary of state, and so they took him out of that pile during

the transition and lo and behold it actually looks like rudy giuliani is the secretary of state in so many ways now because he's become zelig everywhere, talking to mike pompeo about ukraine, dealing with official envoys on this particular issue. does he have his own self-interest at heart here in addition to the president's self-interest in getting re-elected, but is his own self-interest a part of this in terms of his own potential business dealings now that paul manafort's out of the picture and in jail, maybe rudy giuliani wanted some business for himself. this onion has got to be peeled and i think that's what congress is going to do and clearly question the role of rudy giuliani. >> so -- so that's crucial. i just want to raise china again

because the breaking news at the top of the hour. the president was talking about the polls from what we understand in this call about biden and warren with the president of china. that gets put in a super secret server. you now have the president saying to xi -- i want to hold upholding military aid and this is something that could affect every american. this is the question putting out the concept and you can peel back theon one, but it's okay because you gave me what i asked for. >> tim's point here is right on. this opens the door to all kinds of behavior both on china's part and also where you have to wonder as an american citizen, what is president trump willing to give away to serve his political interests. >> his personal and political interests. there's trade.

there's national security issues. there's north korea, and what we're seeing now from the president is that in the middle of a trade war that is causing real pain for some americans he's essentially willing to say, hey, china, will you do me a favor basically further my own political interests which raises questions. you know, we've known there's no real, concerted strategy for a long time and this is a deppepl impulsive president that often times makes things up as he goes along and is putting his political interests at the top of the pyramid that includes trade and national security and others that really stands out. >> that's what's stunning about it, tim, because you can imagine. people have a negative view of politicians and there may be people out there that go, okay, what's the difference in a trade negotiation. if i go you this over here, what's the difference, they say? there is a difference. >> president trump has

successfully convinced a large percentage of our population that everybody's a crook, that every institution is crooked. >> yep. >> that nobody plays by the rules and if you play by the rules you're a sucker. he has successfully conned a percentage of our country to believing that. >> by going public today and saying that he is doing exactly what is an abuse of power upon about china and about ukraine. >> he's actually daring the american -- richard nexton said i'm not a crook and donald trump says to americans i am a crook and you don't care. >> carrie, can i ask you this call with china as we're developing the reporting here. obviously the president trump today explicitly said investigate hunter biden and in june he raises elizabeth warren and the bidens.

we do not believe there was anything there asked about the investigation and this call gets put on the super code word server like ukraine, a thing that doesn't happen except it does seem to happen with president bush. why do you think they would put a call like that there? have you -- with you thinking about this legally and the national security background, why were the calls put there? >> from the whistle-blower complaint so far, it appears they were doing that because they knew people in the white house knew that this would be really bad if it got out and so they were trying to segregate it into a system and so a safe place, if you're in the government, a safe place to segrega segregate something and try to protect it better is a chase that protects classified information. that's why they did it. your question about china more generally and now that we know he is raising the issues with china is something even different than raising the

issues with ukraine and it is a really important question because china is a repeat offender and constant national security threat when it comes to cyber security and when it comes to economic espionage and when it comes to competition with the united states on defense issues. i mean, china is a -- -- trying to be an emerging power globally in the world in competition with the united states and so to ask that country, it's different than asking ukraine. he has basically invited now a country that has been prosecuted. we have justice department, national security division indictments against chinese officials and he is now inviting this government contrary to u.s. national security interests to

interfere in our election. >> right, as i showed. he called them out for doing now what he's inviting them to do. gloria, you had a point to make about the calls. >> this is reminiscent, him coming out publicly saying if i were china, i would -- i would look into this. it is very reminiscent of what we went through with the whole mueller investigation, where the question we all asked was can you obstruct justice in public and here we are having the president effectively abusing his power in public and the answer that mueller gave us on obstruction is yes, you can obstruct justice in public and so i think we have to go back and think about this and say the president is doing this again. only this time he's abusing his power and he's saying, you know, china, we are about to sit down and trade negotiations, but if i

were you, maybe i would look into joe biden. >> and who knows? maybe i'm more favorable. it certainly a pers that way. this also comes when you talk about the whole hunter biden situation, as he's pushing the conspiracy theories about hunter biden and urging foreign governments and ader hava governments and adversary to investigate hunter biden. upon. >> one of the many reasons we were elected to 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. >> okay, tim, it is incredibly brazen or brain washed to say what he said, right? because if pence truly cared about this particular issue he would want an investigation to be pounding the table for an investigation into president trump and his children who are profiting every single day from

office and receiving the money from these hotels. so what is it? brain washed or brazen? it is hard to know if the vice president is a non-entity or absolutely cynical and waiting for his chance at the brass ring. it's not clear. what it is -- what is clear is that he has now embraced president trump completely. there is a certain point when gerald ford started to distance himself, he was vice president at the time from richard nixon, this was a full-throated defense of bad behavior of an abuse of power from someone who theoretically could become president. he is now endorsing a theory of presidential action that the founders would have found completely abhorrent, but i'm not sure he understands that. >> so, carey, let me ask you, he was briefed the day after the

president's call with zelensky. we are told he was not briefed verbally about the biden part of the call, but he was provided with the transcript which he may or may not have read, how does this pertain to what pence knew and when he knew it in his role. >> i'm not sure that report gives us quite enough to understand exactly what vice president's pence's understanding and role has been in the president's efforts to solicit foreign assistance to solicit his political prospects. if the vice president read the transcript that has now been released that we all can read, it's pretty clear from that transcript itself or the summary of the call that the president was asking the president of ukraine to conduct this investigation and to do him a favor and to follow up with rudy giuliani and attorney general barr on it. so -- i think there still

remains a question as to what exactly the vice president knows. >> thank you all very much as this story moves so quickly through each hour. we have more breaking news next and the details of a second whistle-blower complaint of the trump administration. this one about tax returns. plus support for impeachment picking up steam and this is a new poll coming out and does it make a difference in say, michigan which trump won by a razor-thin margin? er... you're . remember, carl, we haven't been investing with you for a while. hmmm? because schwab makes planning for things like this easier. yeah, with schwab we get automated investing and integrated planning help. for a low monthly subscription price. why would schwab do that? they help you plan for the things that matter. subscription pricing... ...schwab! introducing subscription pricing with one-on-one guidance. schwab intelligent portfolios premium, a modern approach to wealth management.

hey. ♪hey. you must be steven's phone. now you can take control of your home wifi and get a notification the instant someone new joins your network... only with xfinity xfi. download the xfi app today. breaking news. another whistle-blower complaint tonight. this one from an irs official. according to "the washington post," the whistle-blower claims he was told at least one political appointee with the treasury department tried to

improperly interfere with the annual audit of either president trump or vice president pence's tax returns. keep in mind, president trump as we all know has refused to release his returns, doing obviously interfering with that audit could be a serious violation of the law. lauren fox is out front. so, lauren, what else do you know, have you learned about this whistle-blower complaint? >> erin, we do know the presidential audit program is an automatic program when a new president and a new vice president come into office their taxeser audited, but one of the concerns that house democrats have had for a while now and this stretches back to when they filed to get the president trump's tax returns one of the concerns is whether or not this program is being administered properly from administration to administration. there's concern about potential political influence and so what the washington post was reporting is basically this person is saying there may have been at least one political

appointee who was seeking to improperly influence the presidential audit program and that would be significant because again, back in the spring when richard neil requested the president's tax returns he did so under the guise that they needed to learn more about how the presidential audit program was being audited. we do know there was this whistle-blower because back in court documents there was a letter to steve mnuchin and it said that a person had come forward back in july expressing the concerns about the mandatory audit program. so we did know this person existed, but "the washington post" with more details tonight, erin. >> and the whistle-blower did express some concerns. what do you know about them? >> given what the president has been saying about the national security whistle-blower there has been concerns about basically protecting the identity of people who come forward with concerns about what's going into the government. you're talking about a massive government. you're talking about an

administration that a lot of people here are claiming are doing things that break a lot of norms and basically, what this person told the post is those people who have concerns who have the way that the government is operating need to feel comfortable to come forward and that's what was being expressed in this post story. >> lauren, thank you very much. i appreciate that. next, the impeachment effect onnent tw 2on 2020. we are in michigan. what is the story going to mean at the polls? and guns in america. is it an issue that will help or hurt democrats, presidential candidate beto o'rourke is out front. vere rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. humira can help stop the clock. prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections.

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tonight, a new poll shows growing support for impeachment. this is a usa today/ipsos poll. 45% votes to impeach trump and

38% votes no. it's 17% are trying to figure out what they want to do. one of the places on how people vote is michigan. it is a state president trump won by just 11,000 votes. miguel marquez is out front. >> all-important mccomb county, michigan, has impeachment dented the president's support here. >> reporter: did you vote for the president or clinton in 2016? >> the president. >> reporter: the president. are you still just as happy with him? >> no comment. >> reporter: some of the president's supporter on the fence, but most we spoke to see impeachment is little more than politics. >> i think it's a lot of just people don't like him and they want him out of office. the left and the media. >> reporter: john scans voted for trump in 2016 and had concerns early on. six months ago he thought joe biden might be an option. now he says the push for impeachment has him supporting

the president more than ever. >> they're there for one thing now and one thing only and that's to try to impeach the president. >> reporter: democrats here say moving forward with the impeachment process could sway voters to their side. >> it doesn't help in mccomb county? >> i think so. i think so because i think people in mccomb county want to see what's being done and see the right thing being done. >> reporter: obama won mccomb and michigan twice. trump easily won mccomb and flipped the state by a razor-thin margin. >> who won the state of michigan after decades? >> reporter: the county critical to both parties. >> republican strategist jamie rosss rosss rosss says it -- >> if they're trying to impeach him on the ukraine business they're driving themselves

straight back to the minority. >> while impeachment is important, democrats also need to keep their focus on the issues. >> we need to be talking about what affects people on a day to day basis and that's those blue-collar pocketbook issues. >> reporter: now another thing that republicans tell us they're worried about is the economy. even though that are striking, they are concerned that the strike could negatively affect the economy here and possibly negatively affect the president's chances of being re-elected. erin? >> miguel, thank you very much. and i want to go to van jones, host of "the van jones show." you've talked to so many voters and what you're hearing a lot like what miguel is hearing? >> yeah. it's a tricky thing. the impeachment process because for some republicans it makes them want to rally around the flag. when i was anti-bill clinton from the left in the '90s and then they tried to impeach him

and suddenly clinton was my best friend and i was, like, leave bill clinton alone and you get crosscurrents in this thing and at the same time the democrats are in a lose-lose situation and if they don't do something their base will feel like trump get away too much and you divide the country further and you still don't stop the problem of interference. it's a big mess. >> it's a big mess. it's possible that just everybody comes out of the works for wear. one point over the ukraine business. it's clear to explain, but it's ukraine. >> yes. >> china, now the president is asking for help publicly in investigating hunter biden. what's at stake for china and his leverage for michigan and across the country. could china be different? china could be different. you have to remember that for a

lot of red voters they do feel that trump has been persecuted the whole time and the problem with impeachment is it's not like i don't like he did. i don't like the president, you're going to take him out of office. the bar to go i supported him to i want him impeach and thrown out, that's a high bar. even voters who don't like what he is doing, so ask for impeachment is a whole different level. >> so people who could stay home or not vote for him. >> that's what you want to look at. it's a reduction of enthusiasm for republican voters in the industrial. those are the numbers you want to be watching for is those enthusiasm numbers come back, that's how democrats have a chance to win. but you're never going to have republicans saying let's impeach the guy. you're not going to have that. >> thank you very much, van. and next, more on the breaking news and cnn's exclusive reporting, president trump talking about biden with china. 2020 candidate beto o'rourke is my guest, next. ica's most loved. hot and fresh, and right to your door.

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learning president trump brought up joe biden in a call with the chinese president back in june. a president of course with whom he is involved in a trade war. the white house moving the record of that call to the highly secret code name only server. this reporting comes as the president publicly asked china and ukraine to investigate the biden family today. joe biden firing back in a tweet, quote, mr. president, you cannot extort foreign governments to help you win reelection. it's an abuse of power. it violates your oath of office and it jeopardizes our national security. i know you want to rig the primary and pick your opponent, but i'm not going anywhere, and that is the state of that back and forth. i want to go now to democratic presidential candidate and former texas congressman beto o'rourke. congressman, i want to give you a chance to react to the new reporting. we understand the president raised biden's polls on a call put on a secret server. today the publicly asking ukraine and china to investigate the biden family. your reaction to that.

>> this is another criminal effort on the part of the president to involve a foreign power in our elections, and to do so by offering a quid pro quo. unprompted, the president today brought up the trade deal, the tariffs that have been imposed on china, and seemed to imply that if china were willing to dig up dirt on joe biden then those tariffs would be eased. perhaps a trade war would end. he did the same thing with ukraine with $400 million in military aid. and nothing about the fact that he is doing it out in the open for all the public the see makes it any less criminal. so we have to hold him to account. there has to be impeachment, or else there will be impunity, and that will set the precedent that some people are above the law in this country. the moment we do that is the moment we lose democracy and lose this country. full speed ahead for those investigating the president and holding him to account. >> do you think any republicans in congress will vote for his impeachment? so it's not all democrats?

>> i do. >> you do? >> i do, because i believe in their constituents, the people of this country, who are going to put america before any loyalty to party, their personal careers, the next election. they're going to do right for their kids and for their fellow americans at this defining moment of truth. we saw this before in 1974. no one thought at the outset of that investigation of richard nixon that it would lead to impeachment. but when the writing became clear, republican senators sat down with the president and helped him to make the decision to resign. we need that kind of leadership right now from republicans, from our fellow americans at this moment of truth. >> you are explicitly now i know taking on pete buttigieg for opposing your mandatory assault weapons buyback plan. you tweeted "to those in our party worried about polls and listening to constituents, and i'm thinking about mayor pete, let me tell you that assault weapons buybacks are supported by the majority of americans." he of course called your idea, mandatory buybacks a quote, shiny object, and he said it

could distract people from things that really could be done on gun control, in his opinion. what do you say to him, shiny object? >> i just find that term and that kind of calculating politics the way that you triangulate your position based on which way the wind is blowing so offensive to those who have lost a family member to gun violence, or who live in constant fear of being shot and killed by a weapon of war that we freely sell in this country and we allow our fellow americans to possess so that there are 10 million of these potential instruments of war. offensive to march for our lives and those student leaders who survived gun violence and now have a very bold peace plan to ensure that we save the lives of tens of thousands of our fellow americans. they're deciding that this is possible. they're deciding that we're going to be able to do this. a majority of americans agree with us. so let's find the right thing and then get after it and do it. that's what i want to do as president. that's what i'm doing as a

candidate now. >> you've supported joe biden and how he has handled this situation with the president with ukraine, now with china. he released his plan. it doesn't call for mandatory buybacks of assault weapons either. you feel not doing so is going to the wind in the polls. joe biden also doing that, guilty of that weakness? >> here's the distinction. when mayor pete is taking potshots at a plan proposed by the student leaders in march for our lives, when he is disregarding the very real pain that the people of el paso, or midland, odessa or sutherland springs in texas, four communities that have suffered shootings, acts of terror in one state alone, that's what i find to be so offensive and so galling. and for someone who said that we should decide what the right thing is to do and just pursue it, regardless of republicans and what they say, toe allow the talking points to be defined by the nra and the republican

party, to limit us in what we are able to the and the lives we're able to say, that's what's offensive to me. >> all right. i appreciate your time. thank you very much, congressman o'rourke. >> thank you, erin. >> and thanks to all of you for joining us. "ac 360" begins right now. good evening. there are multiple breaking developments -- developments and revelations i should say in the impeachment inquiry, many of them involving president trump's repeated attempts to get ukraine and now china to interfere in the 2020 election by investigating joe and hunter biden. there is a lot to talk about tonight. so we just want to put it up on the screen so you can get a better sense and keep track of it all. these things -- these stories are breaking fast and often. "the new york times" just within the last hour reporting, and i'm quoting from it now, two of president trump's top envoys to ukraine drafted a statement for the country's new president in august that would have committed ukraine to