historians to write one, two or hree sketches of that many presidencies and i was chosen to be one. we had eight weeks to do it and it was before fax and email and done by telephone and mail and weeks. to do it in eight and six weeks later the president resigned. >> watch sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's exunche and a. approved

because it would h one favor was to investigate biden. what a quid pro quo would mean, i am requesting you do me a favor and what is implied is if you don't do this favor, you are not getting the money. host: what is this whistleblower complaint that was released yesterday, where is it leading you next in terms of who you want to talk to? guest: the whistleblower complaint was very detailed and

what was -- the whistleblower complaint identified the call between donald trump and ukrainian leader, all of the elements and was verified by the transcript the white house put out. that put credibility towards the whistleblower complaint. the inspector general deemed the complaint urgent and credible and the whistleblower complaint lays out not justice call for trump essentially tries to get the ukrainian leader to investigate his political opponent, it alleges a massive cover-up. they put it into a different lockdown system for sensitive information related to national security. this call did not have to do with security, it had to do with security. host: putting your prosecutor hat back on, does it weaken your case that the whistleblower acknowledges they were not a direct witness question mark

nedler: it would have weake the case if the white house released its own transcript. ae whistleblower provides roadmap for congress to investigate. the house intel committee will track down all of the different witnesses. the administration can provide information if they have nothing to hide or american people can figure they are hiding a lot. host: what is the judiciary committee's role? judiciary had taken the role -- the lead when it came to the robert mueller investigation and other aspects. what you do now? will lookuse intel into the investigation of ukrainian scandal. at some point they will conclude and send the information to judiciary and we will look at it. if necessary, we will hold a

hearing for articles of impeachment. host: that is because articles of impeachment have to go through the judiciary committee? caller: if there were going to be articles of impeachment it would first come through the judiciary committee. host: do you think those articles will be narrowly focused on ukraine? caller: i don't know the answer to that. evidence andat the make a decision. liket to say impeachment, the power to declare war are two of the greatest powers. it has to be -- two of the gravest powers. it has to be our last option. to make a decision based on our constitutional duties. host: do you have any sense on how long the process could take? something that might happen

before the end of the year? caller: i believe if there would be articles of impeachment passe d, it would happen before the end of the year. host: congressman ted lieu taking your phone calls for the next 22 minutes. a republican, you are up first. are you with us? anita and severna park, maryland, a democrat, good morning. caller: hello. everyone keeps talking about biden calling for the firing of the prosecutor and how his son is under investigation. as i understand it, it has spent an entire year senses -- sense his son had been under investigation before he called

for the resignation of the prosecutor and he was not alone in that. there were several people in the european union calling fort. last may, ukraine said the bidens were cleared of wrongdoing. i don't understand why they keep picking on him. it is what they did with hillary. the republicans won't admit that the president was asking for interference in our election. guest: thank you for raising those points. people are entitled to their opinions but they are not entitled to their own facts and you are absolutely correct. the ukrainians came out and said hunter biden can't be held responsible for acts of the company that occurred two years before he went on the board of the company. the ukrainians said they did an investigation and found nothing improper for hunter biden and

joe biden. at the time, it was not just joe biden calling for the prosecutor to resign, it was the european union. many people said he needed to go because he was not doing what you need to do. there was no evidence there was any wrongdoing by the bidens, this is simply a political hit job. remind people. personhe is a corrupt who both biden and the european union wanted to be removed. host: the washington post reporting on some of his comments. this is from a washington post story yesterday, he is also the former ukrainian prosecutor. he said from the perspective of

ukrainian legislation, hunter biden did not violate anything. because biden was calling for him to be removed, it would put more light on this company that he was allegedly not investigating. it was going to be against biden's own self interest to do that. host: brian in michigan, independent, good morning. topic, i want to stay on but the representative said the man was corrupt, you have no proof of that and you know that. some principles that are still involved in all of this, meaning ,obert mueller, shawn henry this is all heading back to

uranium one. this is all heading back that way. you cannot sell your itched -- you cannot sell enriched uranium. uraniumot sell enriched and turnaround a few years later and act like russia are the worst people in the world. you can't do it. guest: you are entitled to your opinions, i have no idea what you're talking about. i have a couple questions. prosecutorou are a and as a prosecutor you should know that the information that the whistleblower put in his complaint is all hearsay. how can you base that trump did something wrong in the conversation when you have someone who is making a claim

that he never even heard the conversation? host: thank you for your question. guest: you are entitled to your opinion but not your own facts. as a former prosecutor i know that when a suspect makes admissions against his own self interest, that is totally admissible. that is a classic hearsay exception. yes, the whistleblower said he did not have firsthand knowledge of the phone call but the white house released the rough transcript of the phone call that verified exactly what the whistleblower said. it is irrelevant what the whistleblower said about the phone call because we have summarized notes of the phone call. get it? the headline of this column, he is guilty but

impeachment is a mistake. focusing on the politics of it for a second, one thing david brooks writes is that democrats are playing president trump's game. he has no policy agenda, he is incompetent of improving people's lives but he is good at tv warsg, waging against political elites. he get to have a personality war against nancy pelosi and jerry nadler. this is what democracy is supposed to look like. why they would want to distract from that is beyond reason. trump against nadler is the contrast trump wants to drop. if we dohave no idea articles of impeachment if it would help trump, hurt trump or be neutral. my belief is we should not to

impeachment for political reasons. not dold also not impeachment for political reasons. it should be based on facts. we need to look at the evidence and it should be our last option. but if we conclude the president of the united states halted political aide to a critical ally at a critical time and also had a conversation with a ukrainian leader to investigate a u.s. citizen for political purposes, that is a high crime. host: anthony, louisiana, independent, hello. caller: it is not working. what you are trying to tell us -- i used to vote democrat -- it is not working. you are trying to tell us that all of the stuff trump is saying , he was trying to get the people -- no, sir, we are not believing that. host: what do you believe?

trump: i don't believe was doing the things they are trying to say he was doing. guest: you are entitled to your opinion. i am just going to tell you what the transcript said. it shows after ukrainian leader raised the issue of military aid from the united states that would help the country push back against its adversary, trump immediately asks him for a favor. one of the favors trump asked for was to investigate trump's political opponent, biden. this is done in the context of donald trump having halted military aid that congress approved to ukraine one week before this phone call. none of those facts are disputed. you can draw up whatever conclusions you want but the facts are staring you in the face.

democrat,ton, texas, good morning. caller: oh my goodness, i can't begin to tell you, mr. lieu, it is my absolute pleasure to speak with you this morning. john, i will let you know what i am done. , you tell all of your other congressmen and women that the american people support you, you stand with you, he is going to fight dirty, you stand tall because god is with you, because you have the truth on your side. let us know what we need to do. get to the different organizations to get out to the different communities, what you want us to do to support you. retired, i you, i am will do whatever you need. republicans, trump

supporters, there is a silver lining and it is donald trump beat president obama. he is going to be impeached and president obama was never impeached. thank you very much for taking my call, have a great day. guest: thank you for your call. i want to note that this is not a partisan issue. what we have here is the american president soliciting foreign interference of our elections of a foreign power. he did that in the context of halting hundreds of millions of dollars of critical military aid that congress had approved. this is an american issue. that is why you see two republican governors come out and say they support this impeachment inquiry. saidessman turner of ohio in an open public hearing that what the president did was not

ok. host: clarksburg, maryland, democrat, good morning. caller: i have been a democrat for 36 years and i have never been more disgusted with my own party. it has been hijacked by communists and socialists. it is no longer the democratic party of jfk or my parents or my grandparents. , you should be ashamed of yourself. when did hearsay become the measure by which we destroy people. this is just ridiculous. credibility, you have no integrity, sir. you have no integrity because you turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to what biden did with ukraine. son was fired. that is quid pro quo. guest: thank you for your call.

admissibleabsolutely if it is an admission against self-interest. when donald trump said he is asking for a favor of ukrainian leader to investigate his political opponent, that is admissible. it is an exception to the hearsay rule because it is an admission against trump's own self interest. let's take the hearsay thing away, we have the actual summarized transcript of the phone call. it says trump did exactly what the whistleblower said trump did. thank you. host: angela, oklahoma city, oklahoma, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. i am still for trump. they have been after him ever since he got into office. angela, you have to listen to your phone and talk to your phone, turned on your television.

we will let you figure that out while we go to wyoming, a republican, good morning. caller: all i have to say is thank you, mr. lieu. you for your head up and you be proud. guest: thank you for your call, i appreciate that. host: less than 10 minutes before the house comes in for the day. after today, the house is heading toward two weeks of congressional recess. i wonder what your plans are during recess. committee house intel is the lead on this issue and they will continue investigating. majore introduced a lowering of prescription drug prices. this is something we will talk about in the next two weeks. we have introduced legislation on background checks for guns that we have already passed,

bipartisan, before the u.s. senate. have those on election security -- we also have bills on election security. legislation, in wonder what your thoughts are about cooperation on some sort of strengthening of background checks in the wake of this story and how the president has responded to congressional inquiries. guest: for a long time, the nra would say background checks would never have stopped any of these gun crimes. it turns out the last mass shooting, background checks would have stopped it. host: which one are you referring to? guest: the very last one where the person tried to get a gun and was denied by a background check and then got it through a

sale that was not covered by current background checks. what we have now is not only bipartisan support, we have a case where if background checks or universal it would have worked. host: the other question about government funding, the senate passing yesterday at continuing legislation to keep the government funded for another six weeks. what are your thoughts on being able to come up with a bill that can pass the senate and get signed for the president to fund the government for fiscal 2020? guest: i support the short-term cr to have the government funded. i believe when we come back we have to focus to make sure we have a longer term funding strategy because it makes it difficult for agencies, for military and other stakeholders to plan when we only have short-term crs. host: can congress focus on that

when there is focus on and impeachment inquiry? guest: yes, we have an appropriation committee, we have a budget committee, house intel will take a lead. all of this other work in terms of making sure we reduce health care costs for american people, we increase wages and put people into good jobs, that will continue. host: about five minutes before the house comes in. new mexico, a democrat, good morning. caller: thank you c-span, i love your coverage. i appreciate you guys for doing this and it is nice to talk to someone within the reins of our congress. i think you are playing into trump's hands because attention is attention and when he gets

attention he thrives on it, whether good or bad. we need to do something about the infrastructure of our country. our roads have potholes and our bridges are crumbling. we are in new mexico and we are going to get the last dollar and that is how it is. trump is going to win if they keep fighting each other the way they are. all of the democrats raising their hand saying they will give illegal immigrants free health care but we have to pay for our own health care, that is playing into trump's hands. stop all of the bickering and fighting and talking about donald trump. guest: in terms of infrastructure, last term i introduced legislation that would fund our infrastructure needs. it involved $2 trillion. even some within my own caucus said that was too much.

it turns out, according to the american society of civil invacare's -- civil engineers, we have a $4 trillion infrastructure problem. unfortunately, the white house earlier this year walked away and took all of their marbles and went home. committeestime, our will work on these infrastructure bills and will be passing those later in the year. republican,irginia, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. am 89 yearsto say i old. seene never in my lifetime our country in the shape it is in.

if people don't turn back and pray and ask god to straighten us out, the democrats are going to bring our country to disaster. guest: thank you for your comment. democrat,adelphia, good morning. caller: i am all for impeachment and impeachment should be the constitution of the united states. he is being impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. as far as the democrats -- the republicans keep calling in on the democrat line, they call in on all three lines and c-span does not do anything about it. they start to go on and talk about -- it is just ridiculous. trump said he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and get away with it.

people on 5th avenue say it is ok, go ahead and shoot me. host: this show only works if people call in on the correct lines and we try to rotate through the lines and we hope callers play by the rules. guest: thank you for the question you raise. this is not a partisan issue. it is an american issue and a constitutional issue. the president cut off critical military aid to ukraine, which was helping to push back one of our adversaries. nobody disputes donald trump halted the military aid, that is a fact. one week later there is a phone call where donald trump, right after ukrainian leader raises military aid, trump requests a

favor to investigate his political opponent, joe biden. the transcript says exactly that. these are facts you can't dispute. that is why you have republicans supporting the impeachment inquiry. when you ask the american people this question, a majority do support the impeachment inquiry because they were reading these documents themselves. they can read the whistleblower complaint, it is online, you can read the transcript of the phone call, it is online, and you can make your own decision. host: congressman ted lieu >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. and coming up saturday morning, vaping association

will discuss health concerns related to vaping and e-greats. and the relationship between the united states and ukraine. then in our spotlight on magazine segment, bloomberg "business week's" susan berg field will discuss the oversight of generic pharmaceuticals. watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. saturday morning. join the discussion. >> tonight on c-span, watch president trump deliver remarks at an event for hispanic heritage month. live coverage starts at 6:30 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> i need one of those -- >> now we take you back to the texas tribune festival in austin, texas. coming up, we hear from former national security advisor for president obama, susan rice. you're watching live coverage on c-span. >> thank you for being here. this is important.

what we are doing today. this whole festival is about the idea that we all have a stake in government.of our and we as citizens should be more engaged and better informed as a way to motivate civic participation tams complicated and simple as that. for 10 years, the texas tribune's journalism, we have tried to give all of youened everybody else in texas and elsewhere, a way into that conversation. it is public service journalism in the ideal. we believe in it, we believed in it then, we believe in it now. your being here makes an enormous difference. it tells me that like all of us at the tribune, you care. and you believe. so it is not insignificant that you're here. we love it. my job today is to say thank you. this will be the second time ambassador rice has been at the tribune festival in three years. honestly, i can't believe we get her to come.