robert: president trump's use of power ignites theea iment debate. president trump: they've been trying to impeach me from the ey i got elected. robert: president trump remains defiant and unapologetic, amid mounting scrutf his nistration's pressuring of foreign leaders, from ukraine to china, to investigate political rivals. president trump: china should start an investigation into the binens because what hap in china isust about as bad as what happened with -- with ukraine. so i would say that president zelensky, if it were me, i would recommend that they start an a investigation into the bidens. robert: he attacksis the eblower 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 wn the white house it needs to provide answers and evidence. >> theeehite house to understand that any actionik that that forces us to litigate or have to consider litigation, considere further eviden of obstruction of justice. robert: next. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by >> there's a moment, a moment of realization, of understanding, a moment whereverything is clear. at fidelity, wealth planning is about clarity, knowing who you are,e where you been, and where you want to go. that's fidelity wealth

management. >> additional funding is provided by -- koo a katricia yuen, through uge yuen foundation, committed tora bridging culdifferences in our communities. the corporation for public broaasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. robert:good evening. as psident trump openly encouraged foreign governments to investigate the bidens this week, new evidenc t house impeachment probe, a batch of te messages released late thursday night, revealed the ukraine far beyond theured president's july phone call with presiden zelensky.sky. peter baker of "the new york times" writes, envoys representing mr. trump sought te rage the power of his office to prod ukraine io opening investigations that wou damage his democratic opponents at

home. and karoun demirjian of "the t ahington post" reports t top u.s. officialto texted, aree now saying that security assistance and white house meetings are conditioned onig inveions and i think it'snd i crazy to withhold security assistance fh help w a political campaign. these textge mes underscored that the president is facing challenges, not only about the whistlebl complaint but about his use of power in amarican diplocy. joiningjo me tonight, karoun demirjian, with "the washingtons postan page with "u.s.a. today," tim alberta with" "politicd peter baker withd the and peork times." peter, take us under the hood ot what thet messages reveal about president trump and how he's using his power onkraine?

peter: a couple of things. one, you get a picture of how much he had o.s.u. -- outsourced foreign policy in this area to rudy giuliani. the people charg wit leading foreign policy in thi t area, stateepartmentep diplomats were deferring, ino effect, this non-official, the lawyer for the president, in their dealings with ukraine as he w trying to pressure them into these instigationsst the other thing you learn isth while i think the president has said repeatedly, including today, there was no quid quo, there really was at least in termsave meeting at -- termsf a meeting a the white house which the ukraine pre pdent really wand. they made it clearhat that meetg would not happen without a commitment to fight corruptions, meaning democratic one of the diplomats, bl taylor, based in ukraine for the united stateste government, repeated as karoun reported, his suspicion that aid to ukraine was tied in quid pro quo basis

thatas denied but from his position in kyiv, it seemed clear to him that's what w going on. robert: talking about your reporting on capito hill all week stakinghe out house intelligence committee. smoking gun for hou democrats? karoun: i think democrats feel this is the best piece of eviden o they've gotten so far putting tother this narrative surrounding the whistleblower complaint, the transcrt of the july cl between our president and ukrainian president and now this rounds out en more o that story in terms oft the plans were leadingdi up todit ct interaction and the cleanup afterwards or the increased demas that were made afterwar of the ukrainians if havewanted to be able to that fully functnal bileral relationship between the heads of state. you're seeing just as mh partisan division. as excited the democrats are about having this document that maketheir case, the believe,

republicans are pointing to the texts like the one that came from thesa u.s. ambr to the e.u., gordon sondland, who at th end of the exchange says there w no quid pro quo here, we should take this off the text age chain and talk on the telephone, sing this was all in the legitimat course of siness. it's striking to see how both because the w "biden" isthis never uttered in those text message chns, it'sch just a discussion about investigating the cpany for which hunter biden worked, we know that is code for looking at the bidens but it does not say that in the letter and gives republicans room too say no quid pro quo. robert: tim, f republicans, do these textss messages che line? are your sources alarmed? tim: privately, yes, and they have been alarmed by any number of things theresident has said and done for the past couple of

years, bob. i don't thinkhat's new. and i don't expect there to be much of a break with the president blicly for the same reason tott there ins been a break with the president last cole ofhe years in any of these other instances. elected officials in washington are not hearing from their constituents back in their jickets it. robert: a little bit perhaps. tim: it's at the periphery if they hold a town hall, there will be a couple ofngry comments from an independent voter here, maybe even a disillusioned republican once in a while but by and large when you talkoongressional republicans and theirir staff, they're getting almost nothing but overwhelming support for the president back in their red districts so when they come back to washingto that's a message for them to hold the line, replain loyal to the predent at least publiclyut privately they continue to share with ybody who will listen that they are troubled, theyre deeply concerned and if they had their way, they might break public with the president but they know it would probably be career suicide t form.

robert: susan, you're writing a biography of speaker pelosi. at a fascinating figure at this momtn american history. when sry. steps back and looks t the development of the text message, beyond the whistleblower complaint, what's her calculus andat sy? susan: this is a new phase of the trump psidency, differentre from where we have been before. coedraith the mueller investigation which took two in secret,ely confusing story, complicated. we hen't hit the two-week mark yet on the ukrainian story but republicans nelieve including speaker pelosi, i believe, that if they don't g one more document or one more piece of testimony, they have the groundso impeach president trump and i think it is all but inevitable that they t will impeach him and the only question is how big do they go? do they pursue the new strands and greaturing china britain? can she control the democratic

into the oth gcauc things som of them want to use to impeach president trump? but i think impeachments not just on the table but all but gubeanteed. : let's pick up on the point about maybe expanding them you were atu t capitol today, karoun, you saw house democrats are asking rudy giuliani for documents, secretary of state pompeo, vice president pence. take us inside the house intel immittee. what's next? what are you looking at? karoun: the house intel committee and foreign affairs committee andversight committee and eventually to judicidiy, right? there is a potally expanding pool of people you can tap, even just looking at the whistleblower's complaint. varis other state department intel officials who were briefed on it. that's a very b each of those peoe then name somebody else who puts together piec of thisuzzle -- because, rememr, it's notot just the one call.

it's an entire spectrum o ings that occurred before and after, too, that is giving people paubout what's paug on with the president's relationship with ukraine and whate's trying to get out of adership. it's a vera potentially exponential series of vestigations that could go further up the chain. what've see happen is that they're trying to make sure they don't lose control of the time element by saying things like am schiff said earlier this week that we'll consider ipe le do not comply with our information and threats of subpoenas, then we're going to assume you have something to hide and we're going to assume that makes our case forru obion of justice or contributes to it. so this is not your traditionre spf going back and forth with the white house. it's moving atn incredibly quick clip. robert: we saw president trump inhe openingpe videosf t program, defiant at ever. what's your read on the esident? not just as a reporter at the white house now,,se but as a student of the presidey,

defying congress, having exchanges with reporters that are contentus. what's going on inside the west ng? peter: i think we saw him a riled up this week as we h we in thentire time of his presidency. there have been others but this is as agitated in publi as he has been. clearly combative, clearlyde fensive, clearly miscalculated the impact releasing that rough transcript would have. if he thought it would exonerate him, it did not have that impact. there was no explit quid pro quo and he t thougt was enough. very different than past presidents. ,xon, clint both were emotionally distraught and consumed y the t impeachment battles but didn't show it in public. they thought that was key to survival. president tru doesn't hide anything, doesn't hold back. if he's feeling it, we know it. we saw an hont portrayal of

how he's feeling thi week. susan: it's so isolated, a contrast with previous presidents at moments of crisis. there is not a person aroundayim who iswhg, don't do that, you decent that, -- can'to that. do this insad t he is his o chief spokesman d strategist and it got him elected to the presidency but dangerous place to be at this moment. peter: republicanslicaot condemning him but i don't see h them defenim. tim: that feels slightly fferent this time. robert: you have the entire cabinet. you mentioned no guard men rail, susan. but you have the secrery of state,ttorney generalill barr investigating the origins of the russi investigation, vice president pence called for documents. we saw cabinet members this week being pulled into phis wave. let's hearroa cole of them >> was on the phone call?

he tasked me to meet with the president of ukraine and carry our concerns about those issues and anyone that looks athe president's transcript will see that the passident raising issues that were appropriate, that were genuine interest to the american people. bob: tim, y, wrote the best "american carnage" t about ho republican party became controlled by president trump.p. when you see tse leaders in g for theet advocat president's position on foreignr policy in ukraine, what does that tell you? t tim:ls us a lot of things, bob. tells you is that everyonet within the inner orbit certainly outer president and even orbit, they understand that if you are going to cross this c president, if you are going to to the mattresses with him, you're going to lose. there is very little incentive for anyonen his inner circle, anyone in the west wing or intr the adminion of any authority r influence to go

toe-to-toe with hh and 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 fm his worst instincts as others tried gemously to do and largely failed tdo.there is just no comg reason for anyone --ru whether giuliani or nick mulvaney or anyone else, to tell the president that what he's doing is wrong schtickally or otherwise and the result of that is a president who feels a though there are no guard rails, theres no envelope to push here, he is onis own and o nobody seems to tell him he h can't do what he's doing. robert: we did see kurt volker this week, the envoy to ukraine who's now lt, he did tell rudy giuliani that some of the corrut in ukraine orout differentiews were not credible. karo: you saw in those textes messow kurt klker was caught in the middle of trying doing and saying, dissuade him,

but when that failed, being the go-between, because he wanted to preser a relationship between trump and thees ukrainian ent because the alternative is that you disadvantage ukraine vis-a-vis russru because there's a war a occupation going on overver there -- but volker's note- not in elected office, he's arm mccain guy of that school of thoht on foreign policy and when he was called to testify before -- be deposed before these house committee he resigned his post as special envoy. there's not that many volkers in there and not that many volkers sitting in congress right now. tim mentioned, they've become 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 so many members of congress have been defenchng so here they 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 presidentiden loses support amog republican members of congrs unl he loses support among republican voters across the country. e of the thing we found in a new "u.s.a. today" poll we did thiseek, president sees support of republicans. republicans oppose impeachment. but 30% of republins said it was an abuse of powf for a president to preure the president of another country to help him investigate a political 30%.l. that's not nothing. 80% of republicans said that the president is not above the law. either democrats ormber than f independents. robert: looking at that data,a, peter, whyhy does vice president pence rein? remain in such lock-step with the president, same wit mike pompeo?

peter: bteause they've learned thatrossing the president doesn't pay, didn't pay for others who tried to restrain him so the cur ant peopleround him are not the committee to save amica that the first generaon of aides were. these are the people who decided to be there to enableim and perhaps ser him if they can but mick mulvaney, steve -- chief offf s in in his 10th month as acting chief of staff. he doesn't even have the full title, emasculating for anyone, makes it very hard for anyone tj do the if you don't have the full title behindou. tim: i'm reminded of a ded nversaon i h wit paul ryan, former house speaker, just afterte he'd retired, three wees after he left officand he was describing to mehe how in the first year he was president, that donaltrump rarely seemed to respo to a jim mattis or rex tillerson or even reince priebus who would push back on him and say mr. psident,

here's the line, you can't go over it. and ryan described a gradual evolution where month by month on the job the president began to become more comfortable with pushing up next to that line and then crossing it and whende woealize there was no consequee for crossing, he would continue to cross it and hestopped listening altog and when you get to the that point, i think that's where we are now and probablyell beyond it. robert: it's not justbert tt hes not listening to cabinet members, he's listening to new people outside, like rudy the ascent of giuliani is part of this story? karoun: and giuliani has leanedi into what he believes is advantageous and politically correct and isn't really lettinh anybody sto. he also goes on television and case against the presidenthe t except it's not changing where the s pendulum isnging in terms of where the political

line is who sports and whoit izes the president. and at the end of the day, i know you were quoting thet statistics the president is not ave the law, 80% of the republic party thinks that. this is not going to in the court of law. we are talking aut legal proceduresoc we are l talking aboutal arguments but we're also talking about squishing it all into a few month this i a political process fundamentally and the argents both sid are making at the end of the day depend on that. bert: while these investigations consume washington, members of congress are attemptingheo shine spotlight onther issues ahead of the 2020 electio here's what house saker pelosi said atkl her w nees conference. >> have you taken off the table the idea of a full hous probe on impeachment inquiry? >>hr3? does anyone in this room care about the cost of prescription drugs and what it means to the

ameran family? robert: republicans are trying to talk up the usmca trade deal butre facing tough questions from some constituents during the fall recess.he senator joni ernst of t ios weekhensked about president trump. >> i can't speak for him. >> youan speak for yourself. robert: she can't speak for president trump.when you saw spr talking about usmca and drug pricing this week, is that because she knows suburban house who gave her the majority in 2018 among others want to talk about things beyond >>peachment? san: it was a weekly news conference with triple the number of reporters she draws and every reporter wanted to ask about impeachment and she refused toake questions on impeachment until she topics because she knows when it comes to voting nt year, vors are going to care more about themselves than about what's happened to president

trump and voters care about prescription drug prices and other issues like that.'s karoun: thhe democratic challenge, to be focused on impeachment for the next few weeks and mons and then try to anslate that on the campaign trail d not be compromised. it was interesting that you played that joni ernst clip. that was a polite exchange and reminds me of what the day-to-day reptingike in the capitol trying to get republicans to comment oat what ey thinknk the president has said. this is classic, wha they do. he doesn't speak for me. i'm not going toi'm comment. sometimes it's "i didit hear what he said." it's deflect, deflect and that seems to be modis operandi. robert: senator ern p up in 2020 forec re-on. others like susan collins of maine. could0 t t 2 replicans running for re-election plus retiring republicans, are those are the republicans most likely break? tim: i think it depends, bob, again, what we saw wh joni ernst is interesting.

that is maybe one tiny drip in the pan d and we'd like to see states.ip, drip, drip in these if your corey gardener and you wanto survive in colorado in 2020, you need ticket splitters because president trump is not going to carry colorado. potion.ent is a donald trump carried iowa by a larger margin thari he c texas by in 2016y so if she stas loyal and rides, coattai she could be in decent shape sit's a case-by-case basis. bert: ho much does the state of the m ecomyter looking ahead to 2020? peter: today we got the numbers 3.5 unemployment, another tick down. as long as the economy is doing well, that bolers the president. that's one of the things thatpt clinton doing well in 1998 when he faced impeachment. inif the economy were to go sth, that might be change poll numbers among rublicans, not just democratsennd indnts

and if that i happens, perhaps lawmakers follow suit but as long as the economy's doing well, lotf people don't care about the circus. i got a good j. robertyou co-wrote the book," "impeachmebout the process.ro what's different now about 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 it's the opposite. everybody -- where you stand depends on where you sit, obviously. people like nancy pelosi were there, jerryadler, chuck schumer, lindsey gham, making th opposite arguments todayay that they made back then but the subject matter is so much different. that was abo lying under oath and obstruction of justice which were serious a but sex which seemed less serious. this is about abuse of power i foreign relations and it's a

weightier moment and yet the buntry is more polarized than it whan then. ba then we thought it was polarized but didn't realize how polarized it could get. susan: i covered the clinton impeachment and ts has such a strongereeling of peril for the country on all sides. i think americans feel there's something more fundamental at president feeling like is an effort to overturn the results of t election a opponents of the president feelingth he's tackednt funda 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 faci the last century. we're talking about a great power competition, even ifs i 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 i situation whes about the smaller person caught the middlef this struggle and that

th side story to the election interferencetory that we were nitty-gritty of whether this was righ or wrong, what president trump was doing. burehere greater implicatns, as well, and that's world shifting potentlly. tim: there's a sweeping irony in the nuts and bolts of the impeachment process a who's at centerstage. you mentioned that democrats won back the house in 28 on the strength of takin back dozens of suburban anchore two-car garage, college educated affluent suburban districts and now some of those democrats who flipped formerly red districts who said they wanted to come to washington and not engage ia rtisan exercise, now they're in a partisan exercise. robertroglad to have everyone here on a friday nig. thank you for joinings. the "wasngton week era" is coming u next. we will discuss tim's book, "america carnage." you can catch that onur website, facebk or youtube.os i'm robert. have a great weekend. nouncer: corporate funding for

"washington week" is provided by -- additional funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen rough the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from vieike you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and acracy. visit ncicap.org.] -welcome back to somerset.

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