robert: the impeachment debate heats up and the psi his own party. president trump: from day one, the wretchedashington swamp has been trying to nullify the results of a truly great and democratic election, the election of 2016. they're trying. they're not getting very far. prrtbu tt entheset impeachment s nal laershpdy t giunsliani, are indicted, raising new questions about mr. trump foreign policy. ukrainian government official, lobby congressman one to

advocate for the removal of the then u.s.-ambassador to ukraine robert: and turkish forces pound northern syria, sn a dfterisiono pull out.s. tops,epublican week."merge.ingt funding is provided by -- >> there's a moment, a e moment wherrything is clear. at fidelity, wealth planning is yout clarity, knowing who you whe w you've been, and where you want to go.y that's fidelitwealth management. >> additional funding is provided by -- koo and patrici yuen, through the yuen bridging cultural differences in our commities. e corporation for public broadcasting. and by cbytributions to your pbs station from vie vrs like iku. thank you.

once again, from washington, moderator robert cta.t iuirynto presiden trump's phone call with the ukrainian presidentqu s y eing into a full-fledged inves prident trump's use of power. new congressional testimony thip wented a fuller picture for house democrats of.he t and on friday, marie yovanovitch, a v 33-yeareteran of the foreign service,ce who ws recalled as the u.s. ambassador to ukrai i may, appeared on capitol hil h at risk of losing her job, she ld house investigators that a state department official told her that the president had longu ed for her ouster even though the state department did not have cause to remove her. ambassadorit yovan warned congress that personal andnd

private agendas are driving u.s. foreig policy, a nod towards rudy giuliani, the presi'sde amd mounting questionsng about o'srumpi andia presidentle inisa giuliani's business associes were charged with campaign finance violations this week by federal prosecutors. while the indictment did not idaccuse the president of wrongdoing, these two men were involved in giuliani's campaigns to pe ukraine to investigate the t biden fily. amid thisht onsla of developments, the white house is fighting back. white houseou council sent a letter to house dekocrats this aying the probe "violates fundamental frness and constitutionallyda md due process" and said the white use would not comply with demands. joining me tonight, margaretbree foreign affairs cor hspondent,

case of "t new york times" and authorf "confirmationio bias," toluse olorunnipa of "the washington stite," house corrent for c. when we look at t ls ambassador's testimony, ambassador yovanovitch, a 33-year veterang bring her expertise to capitol hill, how significant is it for her to say this president was operating outside of the chain of command with rud giuliani? it wincribnclye moving i forblrf the ste department national security officials who worked with her. this was a three-te ambassador, 33 years of service. she served thery couund the world and one of the most moving parts of h testimony was saying, you know, at these moments, you think, because you have the american taxpayer's back, protecting u.s. interests, that they'll haveours and instead she was personally attacked, removed from her job. what she laid out ins

testimon ty is ehixactly whatlyu said. it is not u.s. foreign policy being pushed in these shadow policies by rudy giuliani, the poesident's attorney, it is lidelrmtiining, she argued in tt testimony, to american democracn oiplourmatsti we know who are poised to testify. we also haveiona hill, former national security council tihillhe t dfyividees sainyingg we had nothing to do h t doprhis is a porro fcthe withth american national securi. robert: toluse, why did people inside the cabinet allow that project to happen, to allow the president to freelance with snruj what's -- rudy giuliani? toluse: the presi wanted to do it so he did it. th gone.

the president doess what he wants. rudy giulian h g are close tionship with the president. he feels the -- the president feels there are only a certain number of people he can trust.. he doesn't feel heru can the people within the government. he talked about the deep state those working against his interest so he called histe tr lawyer who has been with him throughout the various battdis inc the mueller to investigatenvhat happened in 2016 and the conspiracy theory that ukraine was invold in electiondl m invesedtiangate jon heheanal -- hunter ben a look into these allegations. robert: so it just happens? toluse: yes, the president wants to do it and it happens. we see from text messages d from state department officials, they tried to find ways to contain the damage i and maket not as bad as it would be if rudy giuliani d have guidance but now it doesn'took very good. rt: abbey, the president

theebe canro't tru so-called deep state oret bureaucrs he ts rust are not foreigservice officers who ta to uphold the constitution and represent u.s. interests. why the pull outside of the haf comma?us : youin hit it head-on, the't president doerust the government that he runs. he believes there's a deep peop lle heru can't, not just in the intelligence community, which he's been vocal about, but also in the state department and other federal agencies so he has leaned on giuliani, someone he's known personally for a long he didn't know t two other gentlemen who were charged this week. t he certainly was around them and giuliani was clearly working concert with these two men to push a certainnda on the

president. one other piece of context in all of this as toluse alluded , the guard rai are gone. over the l year or so since the president has had an acting chief of sta s, mick mulvay, white house sources talk abo howhe mulvaney hasn't bd to try to cin aonta t paragon of sel control but other chiefs of staff have tried more to kp at least handle o who w talking to, when he's talking to them h andent i actually wor wng at the tpresident's h direcowtion. he doesn't have a chief of staff doing that right now. robert: carl, abby sayes raidngu her reporting. there is one guardrail in .ashington. congress hasht oversf the executive. if you're speak s pelosi, based on your reportingsonight, she going to try to expand this impeachment probe beyond theia ukraatter?n she's hearing from the top we theals tes'r going to hr tigy

e.u. ambassador gordon sonla next week. how ds he handle this development? carl: i thinkhere is pressure on her to expand this and plus the syria situation figures on that. she wants to keep it narrowly focused and moveuicklyly and not complicate things. robert: why not?t, morrl time is consumed. virtuall everyone i've talked to on capitol hill this week says they would like to see this eoncluded by the end of the year. if youroen it too much,uc it gets too big. i think in some ways the trump administration is making it easier for the docrats if they're going to get into this position where they're justinot to cooperate at all. everyone thought that letter was totally out of left field,o n constitutional foundation there, allowing the democrats to say they can add is that to the

obstruction.count, the they're tired of the stonewalling. bert: maaret, wn you think of the forgn polic department, they have secretary pompeo there. what's theiriew? what's the mood instead of foggy ttom at the sta department as they dealitech wryret?ta cond margaret: secretary pompeoar lis to say he's bringin back swagger to the department and the only swagger you heard people saying theyaw was the ambassador walking into congress ta d subpoenaereliv had to be d to put her init a pn to appear because she's required as a foreign service officer not just to serve the oath she made totohe constitutional but abide by a subpoena delivered by congress. de her words, in that testimony, dri hollowed without

from within department. and i thinkhat'she bigger picture worry that i hear not just from diplomats in thisco untry but from around the world our european partners who say who do i talk to? wh is the professiossl? and where is the institution? robert: who are the turning to? rudy giuliani? margaret: is where it comes tother, these individuals who are empowered to car messages for the predent, to deliver conversations, whatever the aim is, if p it'sitical measures or not, are not taxpayer funded people who have taken an oath to the constitution who are trained diplomacy, howea to spe the language and how to use proper channels.os guard rails are often dismissed by the trump administration as slowing things down. pt those things are there to prheec end goal, to get you to the foreign policy end

to g note that as much as theres realon ice y censrnid have thend e populace as ever on the campaign trail this week. here are some moments from a ra in minnesota thursday. demgoocverarnment will producea backlash at the ballot box the likes of which they he see t hry ,v n ev this country. so in a desperate attempt to attack our movement, nancy n and chuck, tk, beautieavs,e h g thee entirely to the radical left, including minnesota's own representative, omar. the demtocratic theyhoulot be ry and it sh crime to have

a totly appropria beautiful, accurate phone call with a foreign leader. i don't think so. robert: toluse, does that capture this white house's strategy or notgy toluse: that's completely their strategy, a base-first strategy, tering to the president's base erw wh hnedn 26emocrats want to and the democrats want to coup,t language by the president of the united states, trying to paint his opponents as not only uposed to him but unpatriotic, trying to subvert his govehiment. and i that's part of whyhe's tra victim ec tse he believest rallies his troops a gets people excited withinhe base of his parth. polling that we've seen is showing it's not helping among independents, that people are starting to move away from the president. we have h a majority ofre pls pt he's made his choice that he's going t focus on his b 2020.ala

robert: abby, you have to wonder,cao repub go along at this crossroads, this confronted biconstituents andss reporters. fac questions this week about president trump's pressuring of foreign nations. >> is it appropriate for a president to ask a foreign government. >> we're going to have an investigation, a nonpartisan investigatio it's an answer you get from a serious investigation. democrat asking a foreignwas a government to investigate -- >> j the media to a partisan serious use of a tool in the constitution.this is i about ann hehere iould bn t the houve seen fr of representatives and nancy pesi is a partisan, partisannized effort. robe hilustor gardner is

bllutof a grim scene for him facing re-election. what doest you about the republican party? abby: you can see the strs on hisace. it's a hard argument to make. he's making a process case that it's unfair to the president hava different icpuess to evaluate thi bu know, the case.ac president trump's argument too his base that it was aau ful, perfect backed up by the dnk t ithisrat ccraseip u hnlie the mueller investigation,ve its easy to wrap your arms around what happened here. nancy pelosi haseen so eagwhy to keep it simple because the facts, as syple as t are, are not great for the president and i think that's one of the reons you've seen the polls move. it's also another reason w privately,epubcans are very, heading and how long theyy can

continue to do what corey gardner just did. ourl: in some ways to me the argument is theer for senate republiubns in tough races because the people they need to appealo are independents especially in colorado, arizona -- it's goi to be hard for them. and now there's this s octerf criminal indictmen and people don't know what's going on or but there's p held on bondonn lw and iplhink people are starting to go, well, white house is tryi to brazen this out and now it looks pretty serious. robert: when you saye, peo where's chairman richardurr of north t carolina from senate intelligence committee a senator lamar alexander of tennessee. carl: they've been on recess. robert: and they've been quiet. heere are carl: i think they are still not ere. i think what you'll hearrom a lot of senate republicans like a lamarnder, who people are

looking to to say, he's not again, maybe they'll do ruit. gi think they'll say this w unappropriate, it's not impeachable, the democrats are rushing ahead. impeachmact before.en here things tend to take on a life of their own. margaret: i think it's teresting to see the talking points. the person speakin person asking the question as corey gardner just did there becae if you hear the case made, maybe you have toddress the point of the question, inead of frame this alls paisan, which allows you to tune out the substance of what is described. so there's not actually a conversaon about what the president has done or said and as you heard, the preside t, eden this week,rmon eveen h tugh the republican talking point had been it wasasa

joke. robe: the republicans are being vocal on another front. presidenedtmp annouhis week a u.s. troop withdrawal shift american foreignmarking a policy. days later, tyurke ora uti.speoe fight against isis, t kurds. turkish president erdogan threatened to sendreat are buffr zone. many republicans were outraged by the president's move betrayae kurds. the group included evangelical christian leaders. senator lindsey graham introduced a bipartisanti resoluon this week to put sanctions on turkey and tweed friday "every concern i had about president trump's syria decision is coming true in the re-emergence of isis is on the way." even as the president stood by

his decision, his administratdmn has not embraced turkey's aggression. here's what defense eyrai saiday. s >>ry we oppose and are greatly disappointed by turkey's decision to launch a unilateral military incursion intoorthern syria. this opera puts our s.d.f. partners in harm's way. it risks the security of isis prison camps a willurther destabilize the region. robert: the president said sanctions are on table pending on how the station unfolds. toluse, the president didn'tt cons with u.s. allies, didn't consult with many withinwn his government. why did he make ts decision? president, he says he wants to end endless wars. that has alws been his stinct, to get oet o the middle east. he believes going in was a big miake and we spent bunch of money since there but why he d it is there aren't the guard rails you would house with a chief of staff

workin through the interagency process.es ent is operating on his own. he gets on the pho wit w the leader of a turkey, makes compelling case to the president and the president sayse'll ll out troops and let the t chip ws fall where they may. now thehe administration is scrambling to come up with a policy based on that. robert: and the kurdsre a scrambling. >> our allies on the battlefield who the u.s. had been assisting and continue to be. there continue to be troops in syria, they just moved back from the turkey-syriaorder so when the president said yesterday there are no troops there, that's not accurate.th e artilleryry shells hit closeil turkey is targeting the kurds, our allies there. this is aym biggerl and theme of the abandonment of the kurds in termsf pulling back was seen as a green light.

i'm told president trump eves he made the right call and you will have the pentagon say we didn't abandon the kurds, we're trygo broker something but the reality is turkey is carrying this out becautr u.s. ps moved back to avoid fire. there were only, as pompeo saido y, about 6 gs or so on the grod. that's not going to stop a turkish invasion but the u.s. air force would and the u.s. air force was controlling that airspace. the u.s. stopped, allow ag i oluseasursion here's a retrofitting of policy to now match what theprel l which was simply he cannot get b erdogan k down and it backfired. abby: and what he teted -- it's hard for the record- the administration to back off of this because the president tweeted he gave erdogan permission to go forith this. at the white house today, the treasury secretary cametr said we have the ability to punish turkey in the future,

possibly, if we decide to do that but we're not going to do that right now. it's something of an empty threat because it doe nothing to resolve theua stiit sonom oee ways, mht make it moreor difficul people to take the white house seriouslyhen they say, don't do this or else. they basically dtharmed selves today in the press conference this morning when they announced they had the tools to do this but they weren't going to use them. carl: what disso to hear the defense secretary to say we're against it but it's a policy that the president approved andaud. 's a very big disconnect. margaretand the national security comtynity would argue if your end goal is pulling bk out, let's negotiate how that happens, when it happens, in a way to contieoo t pctro te you give up leverage. robert: what does it mean for syria and russia? margaret: it's a huge gn. that's the right q'sstion. who wins on the battlefield? this is now there are russian

influences, iranian influces and is only the benit when there's a vacuum because kurdish forces a no longer turning guns on isis fighters but defending their own lives. toluse: they do belie russia will benefit and iran will benefit and will be against u.s. terests because preside trump made a decision in an abrupt away thatoesn'teem he heard from advisers or go through the interagenrocess and you're seeing republicans break from himn a w we don't normally see. they'r usually afraid to declare flnds this president -- independence from this psident but i this case t republicans ae breaking from h and things lo chaotic at the white house. robert: does that tell you that his relationship with the g.o.ps more fragile than the if they're spe out,

evanlical christians and republican haw? is his coalition at risk? toluse: i think there's a lot of exhaustion with thishi presideng coreydner having to explain what t president is doing, twisting himself into knots to defend him on a number of issues. so on c thisar poly objection they have, i was easy for them to speak out.i o think the president has a strong stranglehold on the pare becahe republican lawmakers need his pmary voters and are afraid ohe base. impeachment -- robert: could they take t actio, carl? carl: i think the i will be acti congres c there ll be very bipartisan acheon in the house and senate. they want to respond to this. and i think to your question, though, it' like, are they barradnmpeameo theg to manhe same degree? we saw an illinois congressman this week say take me off the upst of people whotr support p. that's just one person but do you really want to go as hard as

you might?ey think they know more out this tha the president does. robert: what do your republican sources tell you, abby? does this move on sia make them unsettled? barricades as car said?he abby: it feels like on foreign policy -- syria's not the only plac t wheres has happened -- republicans have been willing to push back on the president. delayed imposing russiansident sanctions. they've done it repeatedlyoln foreigny because i think they believe this is where their et themilling to idigit unh him on some issuebe u "washi "week. i appreciate it.re we have to leave it there. our "washington week extra" is coming up on our website, facebook and youtube.cu we'll d the challenges cing vice president pence as impeachment and foreign policy debates heat up. i'm robert costa. ha a great weekend.

[captioning performed byhe national captioning in ritute, which ponsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org.] announcer: corporate funding for "washington week" -- provided by additi by --diing is providedov koo anpatricia yuen throughat the yuen foun, comtted to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for publicng broadcasand by contributions to your pbs station from viewers le you. thank yo -i think between us,

we've commheted all seven ofeadly sins. -gluttony. match. -lust. i mean, some of these buns are very attractive. -sloth. -pies. pies. -wrath. yeah, paul's got that covered. -envy. oh, now, did deborah steal howard's custard? -and pride. and... goodness only knows we've got precious little of that left. -ooh, no, it's terbly wrong. -...sweet dough proved bitter for some. -ohh. -i can't taste the peach. -and howard's time in the tent was up. -it should have been me. -but ruby's sweet buns... -they're delicious. -...saw her crowned star baker for the second time. now the remaining six bakers face pastry rathon. -it's gonna be very tight. si -a suet ature... -that was perfect, though. -...that brings back the horrors of school dinners. -no, don't burn that bit. -aah!