robert: president trump's use of power ignites the impeachment debate. president trump: they've been trying to impeach me from the ey i got elected. robert: president trump remains defiant and unapologetic, amid unting scrutiny of his administration's pressuring of foreign leaders, from ukraine to china, to invtigate political rivals. president trump: china should start an investigation into the bidens because what happened in china is just about as bad what happened with -- with ukraine. so i would say that president zelensky, if it were me, i would recommend that they start an investigation into the bidens. robert: he attacks the whistleblower and congress. president trump: this country has to find out who thaterson wa because that person's a spy,

in my opinion. robert: house democrats warn the white house it needs to provide deanswers and evidence. >> the whitese needs to understand that any action like that that forces us to litigate or have to consider litigation, will be considere further eviden ofevid obstruction of justice. robert: next. announcer: this is "washington week."is funding provided by -- >> there's a moment, a moment of realization, of understanding, a moment w everything is clear. at fidelity, wealth planning is about clarity, knowing who you are, where you've been, and where you want to go. that's fidelity wealthna

ment. >> additional funding is provided by -- koo a k patricia foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.mm the corporation for publ broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs thank you.om viewers like you. once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. robert:good evening. as psident trump openly encouraged foreignovernments to investigate the bidens this impeachment probe, aim batch of text messages released late thursday night revealed the trp administration pressured ukraine far beyond the president's july p call with president zelensky. peter baker o"the new york times" writes, envoys representing mr. trump sought to leverage the power of his office to prod ukraine io openingat investns that would damage his democratic opponents at

home. and karoun demirjian of "the washington post" reports that a top u.s. officialtoe texted, are now saying that security assistance and white house meetings are conditioned on investigations and i think it's crazy to withhold security hsistance forp with a political campaign. these text messages underscored that the president is facing hallenges, not only about the whistleblower complaint but about hisla use of power in american diplomacy. joiningjo me tonight, karoun demirjian, wh "the washington post," susan page with "u.s.a.be today," tim a with "politico," and peter baker wit the "nework times." peter, take us under thete hoodf what these text messages reveal about president trump and how he's using his power on ukraine?

peter: a couple of things. one, you get a picture ohow nuche had o.s.u. --- outsourced foreign policyhis area to rudy giuliani. the people charged with leading reign policy in thi t area, state departmentep diplomats wee deferring, in effect, to this non-official, the lawyefor the president, in their dealings with ukr tne as he wasing to pressure them into these instigationsst the other thing youearn is th while i think the president has said repeatedly, including today, there was no quid pro quo, there really was t at least in termsaveeeting at -- terms of a meeting at the white house ukraine pre pde really wand. they made it clearhat that meetg would not happen without a commitment to fight corruptions, meaning democratic inveinigationg.e the diplomats, bl taylor, based in ukraine for the united stateste government, repeated as karoun reported, his suspicion that aid to ukraine t tied in a quid pro quo basis

thatas denied but from his position in kyiv, it seemed clear to him that's what was going on. robert: talking about your reporting on capitol hill all week stakingta out the house intelligence committee. were these text messageshe smoking gun for hou democrats karoun: i think democrats feel this is the best piece of evidence they've gotten so far putting together this narrative rrounding the whistleblower complaint, the transcrt of the july cl between our president anand ukrai president and now this rounds out even more of that story in terms of what the plans were leadingdier up to tt direct interaction and the cleanup afterwards or the increased demas that were made afterwar of the ukrainians if they wanted to be able toave that fully functnal bilateral relationship between the heads of sipte. you're seeing just as much d partisision. as excited the demrerats about having this document that

makes their case, they believe, republicans are pointing to the texts like the one that came from the u.s ambassador to the e.u., gordon sondland, who at th end of the exchae says ther was no quid pro quo here, we should take this off the text message chain andha talk othe ing this was all in the legitimate course of siness. it's striking to see howoth parties are approaching this because the word "biden" is message chains, i just aext the company for which hunterng biden worked, we know that is but it does not say that in the es republica room too say no quid pro quo. robert: tim, f republicans, do these text messages cross the line? are your sourcesed ala tim: privately, yes, and they have been alarmed by any number things the preside has said and done for the past couple of

years, bob. i don't think that's new. and i don't expect there to be much of a break with the esident publicly for the same reason that there ins not been a break with the president publicly in the last cole of years in any of these other instances. elected officials in washington are not hearing from their constituents back in the jickets it. robert: a little bit perhaps. hetim: it's at the per if they hold a town hall, there comments from independent voter here, maybe even ad disillusiopublican once in a while but by and large when you talk to congressional republicans and theirir stae, theyetting almost nothing but overwhelming support for the president back in their red districts so when they come back tot' washington, t a message for them to hold the line, replain loyal to th predent at least publiclyut privately they continue to share with ybody who will listen that they are troubled, theyre eply concerned and if they had their way, they might break publicly with the president but theyblnow it wou pro be career suicide for them.

robert: susan, you'r wting a biography of speaker pelosi. at a fascinating figure at this m in american history. when she steps back and looks at the development of the text message, beyond the whistleblower complaint, what's her calcus and strategy? susan: this is a new phase of the trump presidency, different from where we have been before. contrastedraith the mueller vestigation which took two in secret,ely confusing story, complicated. we haven't hit the two-week mark yet on the ukrainian story but republicans now believe, including speakerpe pelosi, i believe, that if they don't get one more m document or one more piece of testimony, they have the grouno impeach president trump and i think it is all but inevitable that they will impeach h and the only question is how big do they go? do they pursue the new strands with pressuring crena and britain?

can she control the democratic caucus to notth go int other things som of thethin want to ue to impeach president trump but i think impeachments not just on the table but all but guaranteed. robert: let's pick up on the point aut maybe expandi the probe a proceeding. you were atu t capitol today, roun, you saw house democrats are asking rudy giuliani for documents, secretary of state, pompce president pence. take us inside the house intel committee. what's next?re looking at? karoun: the house intel committee and foreign affairste commandversight committee and eventually todi judi right? there is a potentially expanding pool of people you can tap, even just lookieb at the whiswer's complaint. various other state department intel ofefcials who were b on it. that's a very broad pool and if each of those peo tho then name somebody else who puts togethers pieces of t puzzle -- because, rememr, it's notot just

the one call. it's an entire spectrum of things that occurred before and people pause about what's going relationship with ukraine and whate's trying toet out of adership. so it's a verya potentially exponential series of investigations that could go rther up the chain. what you've seen happen is that n is're trying to make sure they don't lose control of the timet elem by saying things like am schiff said earlier this week that we'll consider if people do not comply with our very fast moving demands for information and threats ofea subpoenas, then we're going to assume you have something to hide and we'reng to assume that makes our case for obstruction of justice or contributes to it.hi sois not your traditional sphere of going back and forth it's moving atn incredibly quick clip. robert: we saw president trump inhe opening video of this program, defiant at ever. what's your read on the president? not just as a reporter at the white house now,, but as student of the presidey,

defying congress, having exchange with reporters that are contentious. what's going on inside the west ng? peter: i think we saw him a riled up this week as we have in the entire time of his presency. ere have been others but this is as agitated in publi as he has been. clearly combative, clearly defensive, clearly miscalculated the impact releampac that rough transcript would have. if he thought it would exonete him, it did not have that impact. there was no explit quid p quo and he thought that was enough. very different than past presidents. nixon, clinton, both were emotionally distraught and consumed by the t impeachment battles but didn't show it in public. they thought that w key to survival. president tru doesn't hide anything, doesn't hold back. he's feeling it, we know it. we saw an hontf portrayal

how he's feeling this week. contrast with previousd, a presidents at moments of crisis. who iswh saying, don't do that,m you decent that, -- can't do that. do this insad t hes his o chief spokesman and strategist and it got him elected to the presincy but dangerous place to be at this moment. peter: republicans areot them defending him.i don't see tim: that feels slightly differen this time. robert: you have the entire cabinet. you mentioned no guard rails, susan. the secretary of state,ttorney generalillba investigating the origins of the russia investigation, vice president c penceled for documents. we saw cabinet members this week being pulled intohis wave. let's hear h from a cole of them >> was i on the phone call?

he taskedit me to meet the president of ukraine and carry our concerns about those issues and anyone tha looks athe president's transcript will see that the president was raising issues that were appropriate, that were genuine interest to theca ame people. bob: tim, y, wrote the best selling book "american carnage" about how the republican party became controlled by president trump.p. when you see tse leaders in the cabinet advocating for the president's position on foreignr policy in ukraine, what does that tell you? tim: it t ils us a lot of things, bob. first and foremost, what tells you is that everyone within the inner orbit certainly of the president and e oner orbit, they understand that if you are going to cross this president, if you are going to go to theo mattresses with him, you're going to lose.s there iery little incentive for anyone in his innerire, anyone in the west wing or in the administration of any authority or influence to go

to-toe with hho and try talk him down, much less to even give him news he doesn't want to the hear, to try to dissuade him or buffer him from his own worst instincts asthers tcts gemously to do and largely failed tdo. there is just no compelling reason for anyone -- whether rudy giuliani or nick mulvaney or anyone else, to tell the president that what he's doing is wrong schtickally or is a president who feels athat though there are no guard rails, there is no envelope to push here, he isn his own and nobody seems to tell him he h can't do what he's doing. robert: we did see kurt volker this week, theoy e to ukraine who's now left, he did tell rudy giuliani that some ofhe consracy theories about corruption in ukraine or differentie were not credible. karo: you saw in those text messages how kurt klker was caught in the middle of trying to mitigate whatas giuliani

doing and saying, dissuade him, but when thatei failed, faile te go-between, because he wanted to preser a relationship between trump and thean ukrai president because the alternative is that you disadvanta ukraine vis-a-vis russru because there's a war and occupation going on over there -- bute -- volker's note- not in elected office, he's a former mccain guy of that school of thoht on foreign policy and w when h called to testify before -- be deposed beforeephod these committees, he resigned his post as special envoy. therots that many volkers in there and not tha manyolkers sitting in congress right now. as tim mentioned, they'veome used to this process of seeing the president do and do and say tell me you're wrong, you're not telling me it'srong. it would have to be -- i don't know where exactly the line is because sany members of congress have been defending so much where theymuch mht break in this process. you've seen people like mitt

romney do it but not that many more people join that chorus. susan: i don't think the republican members of congrsg unl he loses supportmong republican voters across the country. one of the thing we found in a new "u.s.a. today" poll we did thisk, president sees support of republicans. republicans oppose impeachment. but 30% ofai republicansit was an abuse of powf for a president to preure the eresident of ano country to help him investigate a political rival. 30%. nothing. 80% of republicans said that the the law. is not above that is a higher number than for either democrats or independents. robert: looking at that data,a, peter, why does vice president pence remain? remain in suchep lock- with the president, samee with m pompeo?

peter: bteause they've learned that crossve the president doesn't pay, didn't pay for others who tried to restrain him so the current people around him are not the committ to save amica that the first generation of aides were. ehese are the people who decided to be there to enae him and perhaps ser him if they cant mick mulvaney, steve -- chief of staff, in his 10th nth asg act chief of staff. he doesn't even have the full title, emasculatinge, for any makes it very hard for anyone to do their job if you don't have the full tit behindou. tim: i'm reminded of a nversaon i had wit paul ryan, former hou speaker, just afterte he'd reted, three weeks after he left officand he was describing to mehe how in y the firsr he was president, that donaltrump rarely seemed respond to a jim mattis a or rex tillerson or even reince priebuac who would push on

him and say mr. psident, re's the line, you can't go over it. and ryan described a gradual evolution whe month by month on the job the president began to become moreomrtable with pushing up next to that line and then crossing it and when he would realize there was noo consequee for crossing, hent would ue to cross it and stopped listening altogether and when you get to the that t poin, nk that's where we are now and probablyell beyond it. robert: it's not just tt he's not listening to cabinet members, he's listening to new people outside, like rudy giuliani.e ascent of giuliani is part of this story? karoun: and giuliani has leaned into what he believes is advantageous and politically correct and isn't really letting anybody stop him. he a gos on television and makes statents tos advance the t case against the president except it's not changing where thelum is swinging in terms of where the political

line is who sports and who criticizes the president. and at the end of the day, i know you were quotinghe statistics that the president is not ave the law, 80% of the repu tic party thi t. this is not going to be decided in the court of law. we are talking aut legal proceduresoc we are talking about legal arguments but we're also talking out squishing it all into a few months. this is a political process fundamentall both sides are making at the end of the day depend on that. robert: while these investigations consume washington, members of congress sare attempting tone the spotlight on other issues ahead of the 2020 electio hese's what h saker pelosi said at her weekly nees conference. >> have you takenff the table the idea of a full house probe on impeachment inquiry? >>hr3? does anyone inm this roo care about the cost of prescription drugs and what it means to the

americanican family? robert: republicans are trying to talk up the usmca trade deal butre facing tough questions from soneituents during the fall recess. here senator ji ernst of iowa this weekhensked about presidt trump. i can't speak for him. >> you can speak for yourself. robert: she can'tprpeak for ident trump. when you saw speaker peli talking about usmcand drug pricing this week, is that because she knows suburban voters who gave her the hou majority in 2018 among others want to talk about things bond impeachment? >> susan: it was a weekly news nference witriple the number of reporters she usually draws and every reporter wanted to ask about impeachment and she refused t take questions on impeachment until she entertained questions oner o topics because she knows when it comes to votingme nt year,oi voters are to care more about themselves than about what's happened to president

trump and voters care about prcription drug prices a other issues like that. karoun: that's the democratic onge, to be focus impeachment for the next few weeks and months and then try to anslate that on the campaign trail and not be compromised. it was interesting that you played thatstoni e clip. that was a polite exchange andhg reminds me of whatto the daay repting is like in the capitol trying to get republicans to comment oat what ey thinknk the president has said. this is classic, what they do. he doesn't sak for me. i'm not going to comment. sometimes it's "ti didit heare whataid." it's deflect, deflect and that seems to be modisperandi. robert: senator ern s up in 2020 for re-election. others like susan collins of could t 2020 replicans running for re-election plus retiring republicans, are those e republicans most likely break? tim: i thinkt depends, bob, again, what we saw with joni ernst is interesting.

that is maybeneiny drip in the pan d and we'd like to see more drip, drip, drip inat these . if your corey gardener and you want to survive in colorado in 2020, u need ticket splitters because president trump is not going tado carry col joni ernst is a different potion. donald trump carriedby iow a larger margin than he carried texas by in 2016 so if she stays loyal and ridesyal coattails, se could be in decent shape a case-by-case basis. bert: ho much does the state of the ecomy matter looking ahead to 2020? peter: today we got the numbers 3.5 unemployment, another tick down. long as the economy is doing well, that bolsters the president. that's one of the this that kept president clinton doing well in 1998 when hhe faced impeachment. inif the economy were to go sou, that might be change poll numbers among rublicans, not just democrats and independents

and if that happens, perhaps lawmakers follow ts but as longhe economy's doing well, lotf people don't care about the circus. i got a good job. robertyou co-wrote the book, "impeachment" about the processo what's different nowrentut impeachment versus 1998 and 1974? peter: so many things. in 1998 you heard democrats say this is a coup against an elected president, this is illegitimate and republicansli saying we're for the rule of law and now laws the opposite. everybody -- where you stand depends on where you sit,vi sly. people like nancy pelosi were there, jerry nadler, chuck schumer, lindsey gham, makingeye the oppos arguments todayay that they made back then but the subject matter is so much different. that was about lying under oath and obstruction of justice which were serious b about sex whiches seemedserious. this is about abuse of power in foreign relations and it's a

weightier moment and yet the country is more polarizedit than wha back then. ba then we thought it was polarized butea didn'tze how polarized it could get. susan: i covered the clinton a impeachmen ts has such a stronger feeling of peril for the countryn allides. i think americans feel there's something more fundament at stake, either defenders of t president feeling like is an effort to overturn the resul of thelection and opponents of the president feelingth he's attack fundamental institutions so it's different in tone and in gravity. karounit also cuts to one of the most existential foreign policy questions we have been facing the last century. we're talking about a great power competition, even ift's ukraine. i used to b based inoscow. it's often about ukraine when you're talking abo russia and here we are again in that tuation where it's about the smaller person caught the middlef this struge and that

th side story to the election interferencetory that we were all discussing in the nitty-gritty of whether thisrias or wrong, what president trump was doing. bu there are greater implications, as well, and that's world shifting potentially. tim: there's a sweeping irony in the nuts and bolts of thehm impet process and who's at centerstage. you mentioned that democrats won back the housen 2018 on the strength of taking back dozens of surban anchored two-car garage, college educate affluent suburban districts and now some of those demrats who flipped formerly red districts who said they tantedcome to washington and not engage in a rtisan exercise, now they're in ati pn exercise. robertroglad to have everyone here on a friday nig. thank you for joining us. the "washington week era" is coming u next. weill discuss tim's book, "america carnage." you can catch that on website, facebk or youtube. i'm robert costa. have a great weekend.

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we're over halfw through and a good half-stone heavier. so far, we have consumed 13 sandwich cakes, 497,000 breadsticks, 11 tartlets, two tray bakes, and a large macaroon. -last time... -i literally just want to shove the whole spoon in my mouth. -...frances's dreams of becoming star baker... -oh! co -.llapsed! christine triumphed... -i am feeling ecstatic! -kimberley, ruby, and ho rd -oh, i just don't want to be in that position again. -i'm pleased that they like my bakesasede than i seem to. -i'de.lready booked my cab hom -...but it was rob's biscuits that saw him "exteinated!" -i'm going to take a few days off from baking. i suspect that's fairly normal. -now the seven remaining bakers... -i'm scared thiss a sign. -...must put their signature on tea-time... -ooh! slightly scary when you did that, mate.