a shifting situation with moderate democrats moving towards this impeachment inquiry, all over president trump's phone call with the ukrainian leader. a phone call which is alleged that he said that joe biden, the former vice president should be investigated, and that he wanted the ukrainians to do it. the alleged phone call interaction was that he was holding back money for the ukrainians. military funding for the ukrainians, calling for this investigation. however, we don't know what exactly is in that phone call. we don't know exactly what the whistle-blower and the intelligence committee has set in the complaint. and now, nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house. >> nancy: last tuesday, the adoption of the constitution on september 17th. sadly, on that day, the

intelligence committee inspector general formally notified the congress that the administration is forbidding him from turning over a whistle-blower complaint. on constitution day. this is a violation of law. reports began to break calling upon a foreign power to intervene in his election. this is a breach of his constitutional responsibility. the facts are these. the intelligence committee inspector general, who was appointed by president trump, determined that the complaints were incredible dominic. on thursday, the inspector general testified this

was the house intelligence committee stated that the director of national intelligence blocked him from disclosing. this is a violation of law. the law is unequivocal. the dni director of national intelligence shall provide congress the full whistle-blower complaint. for more than 25 years, a search on the intelligence committee member, as a ranking member as part of for, even before i was a part of the leadership. i was there when we created the office of the director of national intelligence. that did not exist before 202004. i was there one we wrote the whistle-blower laws to ensure the security of our whistle-blowers.

i know what their purpose was. we proceeded with balance and caution. i can say with authority the trump administration's actions undermine our national security and our intelligence, and the protection of the whistle-blowers. this thursday, the acting d and i will appear before the house intelligence committee. at that time, he must turn over the whistle-blower's full complaint took committee. he will have to choose whether to break the law or honor his responsibility to the constitution. on the final day of the constitutional convention in 1787, when our constitution was adopted, americans gathered in the steps of independence to await the news of a government our founders had crafted. they asked benjamin franklin, "what do we have? a republic or a monarchy?" he replied, "a republic, if you can keep it."

our responsibility is to keep i it. because of the wisdom of our constitution. three equal back to dull my branches of government seriously violated the constitution. article two says, "i can do whatever i want. for the past several months, we have been investigating and litigating in the courts. so the house can gather all of the relevant facts and consider whether to exercise its full powers, including a constitutional power of the utmost gravity, approval of articles of impeachment. this week, the president has admitted to asking the president of ukraine to take action, which would benefit him politically. the action of the trump presidency revealed dishonorable

facts of the president's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. therefore, today, i'm announcing the house of representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. i am asking are committees to proceed with their investigation under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry. the president must be held accountable. no one is above the law. getting back to our founders, in the darkest days of the american revolution, thomas paine wrote, "the times have found us." the times found them to fight for and establish our democracy. the times have found us today, not to put us in the same category as our founders, but to place us in the urgency of protecting and defending our comp, constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. in the words of ben franklin,

"to keep our republic. i think our chairman, chairman nadler, chairman schiff, chairman engler, chairman cummings. the master of so much, but including inspectors general. congress richie neil, congresswoman maxine of the financial services committee. i commend all of our members, our colleagues, for the thoughtful thoughtful approach to all of this paired god bless them and god bless america. >> what has this accomplished? >> bret: house speaker,

nancy pelosi on capital announcing the formal impeachment inquiry. moving forward after questions about a phone call with the ukrainian leader by president trump. noticeably, the speaker said it was a violation of law with respect to holding back the whistle-blower's complaint to capitol hill. she said a breach of constitutional responsibility as far as the president's actions on that phone call. we mentioned earlier, president trump has authorized the release of the transcript unredacted with ukrainian leader. he is saying that this is another witch hunt, according to the president's words, speaker pelosi saying that she has activated and asked all of her committee chairs to come forward in this process but now will be a formal impeachment inquiry. joining me here, martha maccallum and chris wallace, who just wrapped up an interview with the iranian

president. martha, your reaction to what the speaker said. >> well, she zeroed in on calling a foreign power to intervene. she feels the president has overstepped his bounds. she is saying that it happened here and it happened in a much more clear way. as you said, the violation of law from the dna locking the whistle-blower, which we mentioned before, it's not a done deal. there are different interpretations of that, given the responsibilities of where they live. there's also the question that has been very obvious, which has to do with whether or not every conversation about the president has had with a foreign leader has the right to remain confidential. but she laid out her committee leaders, to some extent, the with us, don my process is going to go.

>> bret: chris wallace who just wrapped up an interview with the iranian president. chris, we are told that the whistle-blower want to testify in front of the house and intelligence committee. your thoughts on what the house speaker just said and your formal investigation of his inquiry. >> chris: well, i think that the most interesting aspect of this is, we are talking about what the whistle-blower knew or didn't know. but the fact is that president trump and his staff have really said quite a lot since sunday in trying to explain or defend what they did. that puts a lot of meat on the bones. the fact that the president says that in that congratulatory phone call with the president-elect at that time of ukraine. he did talk about joe biden. he did talk about joe biden at

his son and possible corruption corruptions, and expressed concern about wanting the ukrainian president to look into that. we also know, because it was admitted today by kellyanne conway. the president did ask acting chief of staff, mick mulvaney, before he made that phone call in july, to stop the provision of military aid to ukraine, which had been overwhelmingly passed by congress. everyone seemed in the government. the president said that he wanted it to be stopped. and so, the two parts of the basic story here, that the president wanted bided investigated, and that he had previously stopped aid that had been approved by congress for ukraine. those had been confirmed by the administration. the president denies that it was

a quid pro quo, saying, unless you investigate, you won't get that money. he gave a different answer than he did originally appeared he said, it was because i was concerned about crops corrupti. it may not bear fruit, but there is some meat on the bones here, both in terms of what the president said to the ukrainian president and the actions he took to stop aid before he made that call. so, there's going to be something here for congress to investigate, whether it ends up rising to the levels of articles of impeachment, we don't know. andy mccarthy made a very good point, saying that just starting a process does not mean that you are necessarily going to end up with an impeachment. it's a big story. it will be the headline of every paper tomorrow. congress, the house, begins a formal impeachment inquiry. but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to go all the way. >> bret: exactly. chris, stand by if you would. the president tweeting "such an

important day. so much work, so much success, and the democrats purposely had to demean it. so bad for our country." john roberts, it's worth noting here that nancy pelosi did not schedule a vote with the house to authorize an impeachment inquiry. she talked about her committee leaders. if she had complete confidence, with that beat the procedure that she'd use to move forward formally? >> chris: i think she's gone off the 1 meter board. she hasn't gone off the 3-meter board, if you will, in terms of taking the high dive. we need a more exact transcript of what the president said a short time ago. we are still awaiting the video from that. the president said that she hasn't even seen the phone call. the phone call was perfect. the good news is that voters get it. this is why they say it's good

for the election. but you know what, it's bad for the country. what she's doing is very bad, if it's true, because he didn't know at that point that she was going to go ahead with it. "i can't to even believe that s true." it was secondhand or thirdhand knowledge. so, she has tasked her committee chairs with looking into the impeachment process. well, we've got two very big holes in this story. what exactly did the president say to president volodymyr zelensky of ukraine? we know that there is some reporting on it, but we don't know the complaint. >> bret: a lot of this will come out in coming days, and we'll have you covered. i'm bret baier in new york. please stay tuned to fox news channel for continuing coverage of the story. with "the five" and special report coming dominic. come back to fox with all your

news. joining us now as we continue our coverage on fox news channe fox news channel. you listened to the speaker. you heard what we've just been saying about a lack of a vote in the full house. your thoughts on what she said. standing by, we've got martha and john. i think it's interesting to see how nancy pelosi, who has been so reluctant to go down this road has decided that this is the time. what specifically changed over the last 24 hours on the data that we know about this call and what the president said? >> martha: she claims that it's the two factors that she just pointed to, in terms of what tricked the wire. she says that this is not politics. this is about the constitution. she seemed, at one point, when she was quoting thomas paine, to actually get teary, as she

talked about the importance of this, as she sees it constitutionally, and moving forward. going back to what chris wallace was talking about in terms of meat on the bones, you do have rudy giuliani, and what he has already admitted to in this process, and what we know about what his role was. he wanted to go over there initially. he made it very clear. i want them to investigate joe biden and his son, hunter biden, and what their relationship was, and why the decided to push to have this prosecutor fired from one hunte hunter-biden was working at this company. that got recalled. he admitted in a very strange interview that he did with chris cuomo that he didn't push them to do it. and then he said, subsequently, of course i did. this has been a desire on the part of president trump and a desire of rudy giuliani to push the envelope here. they want this investigated. they want more people paying attention to the joe biden part of the story. that is the flip side of this.

all of this involvement is going to keep coming out. it's going to give both sides continue in the joe biden part of the story as well. >> bret: owned and operated by ukrainian oligarchs, who was being investigated for money laundering, among other things. emmanuel is up on capitol hill. it is a formal inquiry now with the announcement of the house speaker moving forward. see five i expect that what you will see is essentially nancy pelosi asking them to looe facets between our relationships between the u.s. and the ukraine. how long it was withheld. who made the orders. that sort of thing. to go through every little piece of what is known about the stor story. and what we've yet to learn about the story, and funnel it through jerry nadler.

the top lieutenants will have a conversation about whether or not to go forward on the house floor with what they consider high crimes and impeachable offenses. so, essentially, some folks have analyzed this as nancy pelosi is having it both ways still. basically, all of these committees were investigating all things president trump and his administration up until now. now, she's calling it it a forl impeachment inquiry. for those districts that game ge them a majority, she's not putting a gun to their head and saying that you have to go to the floor and impeach or not. it's an investigation. it continues as it has for months here on capitol hill, with all these committees trying to dig into all things that the president, his finances, et cetera. this time, it will be about his conversations with the ukrainian leader. it sounds like she's buying

herself months after facing intense pressure from the left, alexandria ocasio-cortez. she said that the shame of this is not what president trump have done, but the shame is that democratic leaders have not impeached him. she says, "fine. formal impeachment inquiry." >> bret: mike, standby. he worries publicly that impeachment could "harm the country." he has one of the most conservative democrats. he was elected in a swing district last year. that is what you are going to see happen. reporters up on capitol hill, asking different members on the democratic side what they think specifically of the launch of this formal impeachment inquiry. joining us on the phone, i think we have him. senior analyst. >> well, there is some back fir

fire. fire, potentially in all of thi this. it's possible that when the transcript comes out and whatever else information comes out, it will appear to be much to do about not very much. if i mentioned to you earlier, i can't imagine the president being able to put this out if it were incriminating. people look at this and say, these people can't stop trying to impeach. they wanted to impeach the president over russian collusion. now, they want to impeach brett kavanaugh. now, they are trying to impeach the president over something else that turns out to be not very much. this is kind of the scenario that nancy pelosi has been worried about all along. the pressure within her caucus became so great, that she couldn't hold it back anymore.

that's not to say that when all is said and don, the president had no business into trying to pressure a former leader. those are the two possibilities. but they seem to be not clear on either side as to how this is going to turn out. >> bret: yeah, that's the other part of the equation that we don't know. the ukrainian president, even though he did an interview with voice of america wasn't asked. we don't know what that side of it was either. to chris wallace's point earlier, what about the policy that nancy pelosi lets out some steam here in her caucus, announces this formal inquiry, figures out that they don't have the articles of impeachment to move forward, but they go down the investigation, and that's really what this is about? >> brit: well, i think that's right. there's a lot here in the sense

that the democrats look at this, and they say, "look what the president has already admitted to. it's good enough for us. he's already said that he's on the phone with a guy and he encouraged this investigation. at the time, he had been withholding this money, and after that, he released it, and so on. all of this creates a scenario instead of facts. but if you look at the other side of the equation, you have something quite similar. joe biden goes over to the ukraine. he's got this money that's been held back. he says he'll never get it unless they fire a prosecutor. the prosecutor gets fired. the vice president's son is implicated in the prosecution. that looks bad. obviously, what's required here as more facts on all sides, and what's also likely is that as we get more facts on the trump-ukraine side, we are going to get more facts on the

biden-ukraine side of it. >> bret: standby if you would. andy mccarthy. and he, your point earlier, this is different. this is an impeachment inquiry. it is not impeachment proceedings. it is not a formal vote in the house to move forward and authorize impeachment. impeachment is a political process, but it's not even to that voting part of impeachment. >> andy: yeah, that's right, bret. it's not even that different from what jerry nadler has been saying up until now, that he's been doing. i just really don't see, other than having speaker of the house take a podium and say, we are now doing an impeachment inquiry. i just really don't see how this is different than the situation we had a half hour ago before she began to speak. the standing committees are pursuing various aspects of what they regard as a potential impeachment case. the head of the judiciary

committee has said that he is doing an impeachment inquiry. and when speaker pelosi spoke today, as you pointed out, she's not putting this to a vote. she conveyed at least to those of us who have been watching and have speculated that she doesn't want to put the 41 or so democrats who are in trump favo favor, she doesn't want to put them to the difficult vote of impeachment. that doesn't seem to have changed either. so basically, she took the podium, and she said, we are now formally doing, what, if you were listening to jerry nadler, you thought they were formally doing. i just don't see how it's different. >> bret: what about, andy, the call itself a question mark we are going to get the transcript, according to the president tomorrow. what about the apollo, possibility of there was this withholding and the conversation about joe biden and investigation of he and his son?

>> andrew: yeah, well, i think you can do abusive things as president and not necessarily be impeachable. i mean, obviously i think gerald ford said in 1970, and impeachable offenses anything the house of representatives decide is and impeachable offense at a moment in history. so if they had the votes, you could make anything into an impeachable offense. but in terms of whether you really have high crime misdemeanors, i think we all used to know before trump was president that presidents can do things that are outside the bounds of what they ought to do and still fall well short of committing impeachable offenses. it seems to me that unless they can show, and this is even beyond, i think beyond that. but if they could show that trump said to the ukrainian president, if you don't open an

investigation of biden, you are not getting the $391 million, then you might have something. but if he had done that, as brit said, i can't imagine him releasing the transfer. >> bret: i understand. you're looking live on the senate floor. since we've been talking, the president has tweeted twice. of course, maxine waters. "can you believe this x stomach?" dana perino and williams of the fine. the five. >> we are chomping on the bit to get in here and talk about it. this is no different after pelosi's statement, then what we had earlier today. now, they are going to think about and inquiry, think about doing an inquiry. it goes on and on and on.

it takes longer than an "american idol" contestant reveal as to who is the winner. i think that right now, you will have congressman scalise and. they are going to try to find a way to get republicans to unify behind this. look, president trump has already said that he is going to release a transcript. why do we have to go down this road? they want to figure out a way to just keep drawing this out. wall-to-wall coverage. every time they take a half baby step towards impeachment means that they are not able to talk about anything either. i think about how nancy pelosi wants to tap the brakes on this for months. she does not want to go down this road, because she knows that politics will be very bad for them. but also, bret, this is very interesting part 16 of the 31 congresspeople that won in trump districts, that are democrats t.

i think that she saw the writing on the wall. she couldn't quite get there today. >> bret: juan, your thoughts. >> juan: i want to pick up on what dana was talking about. you saw the piece in "the washington post" where you had moderate democrat people from districts where president trump won in 2016, coming around and saying, it's reached the point where we feel we have no choice. i was particularly taken by the statement by a democrat from michigan, a+ 7 district. she doesn't see that there is an alternative. so what we know about nancy pelosi, the speaker, is that she keeps a very tight rein on her caucus. at this point, we know that more than two-thirds of the democrats in that house caucus say openly that they favor impeachment. >> bret: one of those democrats is alexandria ocasio-cortez peered

she gets a lot of attention up on capitol hill. she speaking now. let's listen in. >> what is going on is that the president has commuted several impeachable offenses. he, himself, what he has admitted to his already impeachable, regardless of future developments. what he has already admitted to is an impeachable offense among others. i anticipate and i believe there will be discussion as to when we draft or when the judiciary examines the articles. they could include several different offenses including acting foreign assistance. with that consideration, i do for those to the chairman of the judiciary committee. >> if congress were not to move forward. you said it would be a bigger scandal. why did you say this question mexico i think we have to hold

the president accountable, and we have to protect our democracy. i believe that we will be doing so. >> thank you. >> bret: this woman, alexandria ocasio-cortez, obviously gets a lot of attention. one of the people pushing nancy pelosi to make this formal inquiry announcement today. let's talk with trey gowdy. he joins us on the phone. congressman, your thoughts. >> trey: i think impeachment is. speaker pelosi's speech was pure communication. they want the president impeached. democrats voted to impeach the president before the report was made public. legally, they've been investigating president trump since they took over in january. so that doesn't change. from a political context, she still is going to have to deal.

you just heard the congressman from new york wants to impeach him over the clause. i can't wait to hear the opening statement from the american people. i don't think that this is going to her based, but that's what they're looking for. >> bret: it is seeming to have shifted in the democratic caucus, to get to this point. what about the whistle-blower and nancy pelosi, the speaker, saying that it was against the law for the whistle-blower's complaint not to be up on capitol hill? >> trey: yeah, bret, i paid really close attention to that. this can't be because of the contents of the phone call, because no one knows the content of the phone call. the statute does say "shall

peered" but there are a lot of statutes that say "shall peered" they don't say if you feel like it. they say "shall and must." the failure to put those documents to congress as a coequal branch. look, in the interest of fairness, there were republicans that wanted to impeach for failing to produce documents to congress. i thought it was a wildly crazy idea then. i think if you're going to begin to impeach presidents of whom they have a privilege or some other legal reason for not producing documents. if that's now an impeachable offense, then every president for the rest of my lifetime needs to be on impeachment watc watch. >> bret: what is your thought of the underlying issue about

the bidens and ukraine that the president keeps on coming back to? obvious, the focus is what he said or didn't say to the ukrainian leader. but he continues to tweet and talk about joe biden and hunter biden and what happened and the prosecutor that was let go in ukraine? >> trey: one of the things i like is that you are a fair person. i think your viewers also consider themselves to be fair people. i think that if you're going to investigate part of the fact pattern, you need to investigate all of the fact pattern. two wrongs don't make a right. hypothetically, with the president said was wrong. two wrongs don't make it okay. but what's also not okay is to engage in duplicity and say that because you are a political enemy, we are going to investigate this fact pattern, because you are a political front, we are not going to.

i hope regardless of their political orthodoxy will reject, because that will really be the demise of our republic. >> bret: trey gowdy, thanks for the time. chris wallace, again, just wrapping up this interview with the iranian president. chris, you've been listening to what we've been saying. some of the response. thoughts. >> chris: well, it's interesting, because we have done this interview 20 minutes with the iranian president, hassan rouhani. that's why we were all in new york, because the president and the united nation's general assembly are meeting here. he has basically tied up in new york with all the world leaders. that was at the lobby and the hotel where we did the intervie interview. the japanese prime minister who walks by. it was quite a scene. in terms of at least the american public, american

attention has been swept away by the extraordinary developments today. i think that what andy mccarthy says really stands, that when you look at it, yes, it was pretty dramatic to hear nancy pelosi for the first time talk about a formal impeachment inquiry. but in the end, what does that mean? it means that all the committees that were investigating the president are going to continue to investigate the president. and really, what we have to wait for, and much more important are tomorrow when the transcript is released. we note the president, he has set himself that he talked to the president-elect of ukraine about a biden. let's out how many times he pressed him to investigate joe biden. how much pressure was put on him. we also, obviously, are waiting to hear from the director of national intelligence and the inspector general. they are going to testify on thursday before congress.

i think it's of inoperable ine. we are going to know pretty quickly whether there's any they are or not. there still may be a huge debate as to whether or not it rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, which is whatever the house think that means. whether there is a plausible case to be made from impeaching the president. what is striking to me is the degree in which for two years, during the mueller investigation, all of this was kind of kept under wraps. and in the last week, that it is all just really kind of blown away. the other point i want to make is, look at the history of this. robert mueller testified on jul. i think come on most people's account, it was a very disappointing appearance by robert mueller.

it was on july 25th, the very next day, that president trump, who basically was free and clear from any movement by congress, called the ukrainian president-elect and made this phone call, and now we are in a whole new mess. you just got to wonder, why didn't the president, if he was going to press for an investigation, why didn't he have someone else like rudy giuliani do it? why didn't he get on the phone and do it himself? >> bret: rudy giuliani and the president have talked about what they have talked about with ukrainians back with martha maccallum and john roberts. martha. >> well, we talked about how they are up for real reelection 2020. one of the moderate democrats who changed her night. she acknowledged, yes, it could

hurt her. she believes that they will understand and that a line was crossed. that's the beginning of the argument for these members, who are trying to hold onto the district, where people may be frustrated by this effort that's been going on for over two year years. >> bret: the trump campaign, wayne and with its own statement. john. >> yet, they think this is going to be good for them. democrats can't beat president trump on his policies. he has a record of accomplishments. trying to turn a joe biden problem into a trump problem. this is the way that they try to paint the democratic party. it will only energize president trump's supporters and create a landslide victory for the president. this is the irony. tomorrow, the new president trump meets with

vladimir. i expect they will probably release the transcript. >> bret: we hope that someone asks him about that end of the phone call. see for and then, the president has a press conference. in terms of where we go from here, rudy giuliani tweeted that today was all about iran. but tomorrow, they are getting such to unload a whole bunch more evidence. it will be written and video evidence about joe and hunter biden. so, the battle is on. >> bret: let's join dana perino and juan williams. we have intruded in "the five" " in the meantime, we see new poll. how do you think this factors politically for the former vice president? >> dana: i think it's super

interesting, just because bernie sanders, who is not getting a lot of attention lately, because he is going down in the poll. he was asked today, do you think that this hurts joe biden customer he declined to answer. he says, "i'll let you make that determination. it will be interesting to see how this plays out. with elizabeth warren on the right, but all of them defending biden in a way. who will be the democrats on the 2020 side that decides it's their turn to take a shot? there are lots of other democrats, not just elizabeth warren. she is not the anointed nominee. is there anyone else in that area, in that race, that would be willing to take him on on this? we'll see if that happens. the other thing is, just on politics, you are about to see the impeachment turf war on the democratic side. it will go on and on, and there will be leaks about each other. you are going to see who is going to get it?

will it be mark willoughby . it completely clouds their ability to talk about anything else legislatively. they are now going to be talking about impeachment and not trade, for example, passing the new nafta. their constituents really want that. that's not a partisan issue. they need to get that done. they would like to do something on gun control. they might have been able to do something with the president there. what are they going to be able to campaign on to say that it was worth putting them in power? may be enough of the democrats out there in the country will say, well, and impeaching the president is important enough for me to turn up and vote for you. but this is high-stakes. remember, the last two presidents to go through this, richard nixon and bill clinton, they have already been reelected. we haven't actually been through this in an election year. this could take several months. you could end up at probably march or april, where you have

this occurring going forward. in which case, you are right in the middle of a presidential election. none of us have been through that before. >> bret: juan, there is a sense on the left side of the party, the progressive side of the party, that this is it. they finally have their teeth in this and they are not letting g go. >> juan: i think that what they are seeing here is a hunger for those specifics. you have not only the director of national intelligence coming up, but you have the inspector general coming up to capitol hill. it's not just at the transcript or the phone call that the democrats are seeking. they would also like to see the complaint from the whistle-blower. the whistle-blower, apparently is also coming up to capitol hill. there are a lot of blanks to be filled in here. what you've seen, though, and i'll give you the contrary position to dane's, which is look at the division amongst the

democrats. look at what the democratic leader in the senate said today. he said that republicans in the senate have been silent and submissive. you see people like mitt romney saying, "we need to find more. we need to get more information." even lindsey graham said that it's not good. it's not good if the president was seeking some kind of quid pro quo, in terms of american foreign aid to ukraine in exchange for dirt on his political opponent. at what point do start to see republicans say, "hm, this is not good for republicans." the question is, from a political perspective, going into 2020, when bill clinton was impeached, it rebounded against republicans at that time. is it the case that this is the

democratic argument, that democrats won, because voters including voters in trump's district, wanted democrats to act, and some way to hold this president in this administration accountable, and expect them to fulfill that mission. if that's the case, then you're going to see, i think, a different play out. but the politics of it are going to be very intense. i think that's why it's not just a matter of policy or mitch mcconnell. it's also a matter of how we in the media deal with this. the democrats are already making the argument, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by joe biden or his son. and yet, we hear that the trump campaign is already going to be pushing videos and arguments about corruption by joe biden. that's why i don't think you are going to see any democrats on the campaign trail, even elizabeth warren come at this moment, where she's rising, use this to go after joe biden. it's either well, i will see

that "the new york times" did a big piece. they say that nothing came of that story, but there was more to come, and it didn't look good to the former vice president or his son. they are continuing that reporting. i want to add, juan to your comments about al green, democrat from texas, his long pushed impeachment. he just told us "i am vindicated." this is being driven by history now. events have taken control. at the top of the hour, 6:00 eastern, we will bring you a news conference with republican leadership. they will speak about what the speaker of the house has said and the next step forward. let's bring now our panel, steve, national political correspondent heard stomach. >> what i thought was really significant about today is that democrats, certainly

nancy pelosi, seemed to be treating the so-called "transcript of the call" as a shiny object. it's not the main event. they are focused on the whistle-blower complaint. we don't know exactly what whae president means when he says a transcript. was there a verbatim or is there going to be a summary, kind of bill barr style summary? >> bret: i think they have said that there is -- >> that's what the president tweeted. but we don't know exactly what he's talking about. we interpret that as a verbatim transcript. every single word that was audit on that call. i'm not sure that is exactly what it does. there are people in the white house that take notes on these calls, but we'll see what happens tomorrow. but i do think the democrats are very focused on this whistle-blower come dominant complaint. the fact that there was. also, that the freshman majority

making freshmen, these are people who flip to red dress dis to blue. if the allegations are true, it would be impeachable. that's important, because they are taking a political risk to do this. >> bret: steve hilton, it is the republican senate that has voted to have the intelligence committee, this whistle-blower complaint up into the house and senate intelligence committee. it seems like he is going to testify. your thoughts. >> steve: well, i think first of all, on the whistle-blower point, i think we are using the wrong term. it reminds me of that anonymous op-ed that we saw in "the new york times," almost a year ago, where we heard about this resistance inside the government of the trump administration. people actively working against the administration. i think this whistle-blower, as they are called, sounds like it's, they are really a leaker, not a whistle-blower.

whistle-blower statutes don't really apply. if you look at when nancy pelosi said today, one of the most revealing things is not what you said just within the last hour, but actually earlier this morning added an event in d.c., where she said, she talked about all the details of this impeachment process. she hadn't quite made the announcement yet. and then she said, was more serious is that he can't win. that really gives the game away. what this is all about is the democrats's utter contempt and hate for donald trump. they have been wanting to impeach him almost from day one. she has resisted it. they have had a rush of blood to the head, and they finally pushed her to take a few steps forward. but if you look at the details, look at the elements they are focusing on. first of all, the phone call. why would they be releasing it if it's fine?

in terms of the quid pro quo, we also have some interesting new information today. the alleged quid pro quo. the president says, "the reason i held it off was because i'm generally skeptical of giving out all this money to other countries. they should play don might pay their share." that's consistent with his position and a whole of other areas. today, we found of who that was. portman said, he called the president and said you really need to release this aid. the next day, it was released. >> bret: you are right. the phone call happened with rob portman. are we going down a road that may be hunter biden is going to get called out by some senate committee? >> i think so. dana says that this could take a

long time. a very well could. but at the same time, if you go back and you look at 1998, it was almost exactly this time of year. late september, where they green lit the impeachment process. it snowballed very quickly. by december, they were launching the full-blown, even though there was an election in between. it's entirely possible that this keeps accelerating. i have a lot of disagreements with what steve said about the whistle-blower. right now, we do not know what the whistle-blower's motives are as reported. i think it's really important to point out that the whistle-blower actually went through the proper channels and did this the proper way. to say that they are a leaker, and it finds the report credible, it does a disservice for future whistle-blowers. i think the most important thing tomorrow is that this is going to be a transcript, which could

be telling. if they release what they call a transcript cooperates with the washington journal. at least by implication, this is what was motivating donald trump, that in and of itself, you don't need the quid pro quo. that will be enough, certainly for democrats. now, if the transcript comes up and ends up undermining that reporting in a significant way and doesn't seem the dominic like the white house is hiding anything, it is going to be very easy for republicans to start shouting. we just don't know right now. >> bret: i guess the question is, we don't know until we see the transcript or whatever is put out by the white house. why would the president be that confident to put out an unredacted transcript of a phone call if, in fact, it didn't back up what he was saying? >> i agree. i agree.

if it is truly an unredacted transcript and it doesn't show that he mentioned joe biden eight times, if it doesn't back that up. if it does back that up, it could be. >> bret: is this just turning the focus of, if you are in the middle of a primary, in which biden in some states is slipping a bit, iowa and new hampshire. does this affect that dominic n some way? >> that's a really interesting question. i think that's a gift and a curse for joe biden. he knew that attack was going to come in dominic.

this was kind of forced upon him. he had an opportunity. i don't think he took a great advantage of it, but he had an opportunity to do what he wanted this race about which is him versus trump. that's his whole message. i can take this guy on and beat him. so he gets an opportunity to do that. i thought his appearance today was pretty restrained. but in terms of the democratic race, you've got elizabeth warren saying that the president should be impeached. she's been saying that for months. joe biden didn't go that far. the policy hasn't changed, which is that if the president is impeached and the house, acquitted in the senate, it will help him win the real action. >> bret: morrow, steve, jonah, thank you. >> the inspector general has said that this is an urgent

concern, it has accelerated the pace of how we go forward. it's really a sad day for our country, actually. i feel very sad about it, and i hope that the republicans will join us as they have in the senate, passing a resolution for the release of the information. i hope they will join us in doing that tomorrow. but this is a sad day, but again, it is focused and accelerated. >> can you describe the difference? [laughter] >> bret: nancy pelosi on capitol hill. answering some of the questions of reporters, very quickly saying that it is inspector general's concern that pushes us forward. that's basically what she said peered that's what kind of generated it.

>> you can't help when you watch her that she would rather not be going through this. it raises a real question about how much control she has over her caucus and how much perhaps some of that has gotten away from her over the course of all this. she knows that now there is an albatross around the neck of the democratic party as they continue to move forward through the selection process. we are 4 months away from the first voting in iowa. this is all anybody is going to be talking about. nobody is going to talk about gun control, nobody's going to talk about trade, nobody's going to talk about the other issues that they will want to point to. it's going to become everything. every part of every breath that gets taken on most of the nation's cable network is going to be all about this. i don't know how much the american people are going to want to put up with this. >> they own it. >> bret: here's something that

has stuck in my mind. why would president trump agree to put out a transcript that condemns him? i don't think he would. there's something that the president said that's been sticking in my mind since last week. when people first started asking him about this, he said keep on climbing up this latter of the story, because you are going to fall a long way when the truth comes out. there's a little piece of me that's wondering if this is all orchestrated to bring everybody down who is seeking impeachment. that may be giving him too much credit. i don't know. but stuck in my mind when he talked about keep on pursuing the story. when that transcript comes out tomorrow, i think that's going to tell the story of whether the president really did something wrong or everybody was just chasing a ghost. >> bret: mccarthy is still with us. it is not just a phone call.

it is what rudy giuliani has said in interviews about his talk, even though we haven't seen the transcript where the phone call. they say there's much more and that they want to see the full complaints of the whistle-blower since the ig of the inspector general, who said it was an urgent matter. >> yeah, well, i think the fact that he said it was an urgent matter connected to the statute. what i think is striking is that he said the complaint is credible. i think that's what is giving it a little bit of oxygen. as you listen to all of this, it strikes me, having looked at impeachment for a long time, you don't need a crime to impeach, but it really helps to have one, because a crime is really clean. you either have all of the elements or you don't. in terms of judging that, it becomes the offense.

it becomes whether the proof is there. if you're going to do a political crime, that is to say, an abuse of power that doesn't rise to the level of a penal offense, that's a much tougher not to crack. it brings in not only a bunch of aspects of this particular episode with the ukrainians that we don't know about yet, but also, you will have to compare how trump performed here to situations with other president presidents. so, i just think a political impeachment as opposed to a straight up legal impeachment in the sense that you actually have a felony, is a much sharper one. >> bret: quickly, the inspector general for the intelligence community, we are told now will be up on capitol hill testifying to various committees, talking about this. we should point out in

right now, where the progressives are really pushing speaker pelosi towards this place where she's tried to avoid going, we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be talking about impeachment right now. so obviously that is going to play into this equation because if it's about politics and it's not about a crime, it's not about "do you have the elements of an offense," then that will all come into the mix. >> bret: standby, if you would. we are looking live on

capitol hill, expecting republican leadership, mccarthy, the house minority leader and steve scalise to go to those microphones and give us their take of this latest announcement by the house speaker nancy pelosi. an important nomadic formal impeachment inquiry is moving forward. we are up in new york covering the united nations. this was supposed to be the news of the day, big interview coming up in its entirety, chris wallace sitting down with the iranian president hassan rouhani. i sat down with the turkish president today, we will give you a piece of that tonight and we will air it in its entirety tomorrow, a fiery interview with the turkish president on a number of fronts. we are going to air the iranian president's interview today but obviously a lot of news today with the formal moving forward of impeachment inquiry by nancy pelosi. we are still awaiting the g.o.p. is to look at the senate floor there in the microphones they are the house side. we are expecting that they are going push back very hard and

they are going to say, as they have been saying, that this is a witch hunt, echoing the president's words. mike emanuel has been following all of this up on capitol hill and he has got the behind the scenes of what we expect from the republican leadership. >> good evening to you. we respect republican leaders to come out inside of the democrats have gone too far, that this is all pure politics, it's all about the 2020 campaign and trying to make sure president trump is not reelected. this comes of course after an action-packed day here on capitol hill with house speaker nancy pelosi announcing her intentions to go forward with a formal impeachment inquiry of president trump. >> the actions of the current presidency reveal dishonorable fact of the president's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. therefore, today i'm announcing the house of representatives moving forward witanff