tv Andrea Mitchell Reports MSNBC September 23, 2019 9:00am-10:00am PDT
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andrea mitchell reports live in new york. good to see you. >> live right here. great to see you, craig. thank you. right now, can you hear me now? president trump admitting he did raise the issue of joe biden and his son in that july call with ukraine's new president. but the president insists there
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was nothing wrong with talking about his potential opponent with a foreign leader. and he is attacking democratic calls for a transcript of the call. >> the phone call with the president of ukraine, everybody knows it. it's just a democrat witch hunt. here we go again. >> trump is doing this because he knows i'll beat him like a drum. he's using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me. iowa front-runner elizabeth warren surging in the first caucus state. according to the gold standard of polling there, warren is now 2 points ahead of joe biden, a statistical tie, but her voters are more enthusiastic than his. >> i don't do polls. we are still months away from the iowa caucuses and first primary elections. and a voice of diplomacy. jordan's king abdullah calling for all sides to back off in the escalating feud between iran and
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the u.s. in our exclusive interview. do you think it absolutely was iran that launched these attacks? >> i think we all believe that we know who the culprit is. why did it get to this level and now can we calm things down and walk away from stupidity, i guess is a way to describe it. ♪ good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell. in new york president trump today dropping in unexpectedly at that u.n. climate change summit that his administration said he would not attend. but overshadowing all of his meetings with foreign leaders here is a phone call he had with another foreign leader back in july, the new president of ukraine. in that call, did president trump pressure the ukrainian leader eight times as the "wall street journal" has reported to work with his private lawyer rudy giuliani and go after a potential 2020 rival joe biden.
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biden and his son hunter have been cleared of any wrongdoing by independent investigators. critics say the focus should remain on whether the president tried to help a foreign country interfere in an american election in that july 25th phone call. ironically, taking place just a day after robert mueller's testimony about russia's interference in the 2016 campaign. joe biden pushing back forcefully on these allegations, tweeting, the president pressured a foreign government to interfere in our elections. it goes against everything the united states stand for. joining me now, nbc white house correspondent kristin welker, ashley parker white house reporter at the "washington post" and robert costa, national political reporter at the post. kristin, the president pushing back again going after joe biden, but this story is getting legs, especially on the impeachment front. it's the first time nancy pelosi has said that this is, in fact,
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more important than anything we've seen so far. >> reporter: we are seeing nancy pelosi toughen her tone, there's no doubt about that. to your first point, this controversy following president trump here to the u.n. he is striking a defiant note yet again when he was asked about it this morning. of course, that echoes what we heard from president trump over the weekend when he of course remarkably acknowledged that he did in fact discuss joe biden and his son with the president of ukraine, but also said he doesn't feel as though he did anything wrong. and he said he didn't apply pressure. he even signalled he might be considering releasing the transcript or notes or whatever record there is of this very controversial phone call. but all of this, as you say, is fuelling democrats' calls for impeachment and for answers, frankly, because right now the administration is blocking congress's ability to see the whistleblower's complaint. house speaker nancy pelosi saying that they want to see the
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complaint, they need to see the transcript. they need to know what happened here. she has been resistant to democrats' calls for impeachment, but we're going to be watching her tone very carefully over the next few days to see if it gets even tougher. that could be a signal of where this all goes. >> lindsey graham, a key ally on the hill was saying that they should release the transcript. let's listen to that. >> i would just urge the president, you know, he's talking openly about the conversation, to release as much as possible. i believe that president trump is going to blow you away with his willingness to disclose and be transparent about this phone call, because i think he did nothing wrong and he has nothing to hide. get drad for some disclosures from the president that i think will exceed every expectation. >> the question occurs, robert, why not release the transcript
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and now you're hearing from lindsey graham that maybe that is going to be released. if he has nothing to hide, why not let the whistleblower report out? >> there's a debate about how much to disclose should they choose to disclose. you have the transcript and then you also have the more complete whistleblower complaint that reportedly involves not just this phone call in the summer but more instances of president trump's conduct that could come under scrutiny from congress. so there are some inside of the white house i've spoken to who say they may just release the transcript but hold back on the complete whistleblower complaint and negotiate with congress about how exactly to move forward. >> this all comes with a lot of perhaps coincidental but some would say suspicious departures from people working on the ukraine issues. you had at the same time three days after that call you had dan coates leaving, then his deputy the highly regarded sue gordon
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30 year plus career intelligence officer. you also had in may as rudy giuliani was meeting with leaders from ukraine and trying to stir this up, you had the u.s. ambassador to ukraine, a real professional, a career professional being forced out of the state department. then in june fiona hill, who does ukraine and russia policy, also highly respected republican and democratic administrations, nonpartisan, she also departs somewhat unexpectedly. then john huntsman, our ambassador to russia quits and takes a step back. so you've had a complete changeover of the professionals working on these issues. russia is obviously involved because russia is the belligerent against ukraine. that's why the weapons that ukraine were expecting that were approved by congress in a bipartisan vote were being held up so long until they were released just last week. >> you certainly laid out a
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laundry list there. and i think a couple things are clear. as you say, some of it could be a coincidence. and when people leave, they often have the public reason they state and then there's a more complicated, nuanced private reason. one thing that is clear is that a number of people in the community sort of writ large were uncomfortable with the president's policy and behavior on ukraine, culminating in this whistleblower whose name we don't know yet, we may never know. but that sort of is the pinnacle of all of this discomfort and anxiety, some of which you may have been seeing with some of these departures. and some of these departures may have been simply this is a tough president to serve and simply a decision to leaf.
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> leave. thanks f s very much for be with us. there's a lot to sort through here. are democrats making a mistake by focusing on the transcript of the call? the transcript itself could be rather benign because signals are sent and he may not have said something specifically with a quid pro quo and perhaps most likely did not. but there's a whole tapestry of events including rudy giuliani getting approval to have private state department meetings with key you craukrainians. >> typically what happens with a presidential call is that someone on his staff is taking notes. those get written up. that's the quote, unquote, transcript. that's not necessarily comprehensive. it could be simply a summary of what was said without the details. so the key thing here is really to get the whistleblower, to get that report to congress. >> we're going to pick this up
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in just a moment. join me in listening because the president has just stopped as he's leaving the united nations. shouted questions, i believe about joe biden and this controversy, but that's another whole story we'll pick up and record keep in a moment. already today as you know he's gone after joe biden and hunter biden and is trying to change the narrative to be all about them rather than what he did. >> yeah. this is right out of the president's playbook. the only story here is the apparently, if the reports are to be believed, egregious abuse of power by the president, using his office to pressure another country to dig up dirt on his leading political rival, in this case joe biden. i've been in washington almost 25 years. i have never seen anything like this. you know, in 2016, the president
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seemed to welcome and even solicit assistance as a candidate from a foreign power to help him from the election. this time if the reports are true, he's using the office to pressure another country to provide dirt on his political opponent. that is simply extraordinary. this stuff gets normalized. it shouldn't be. >> have you been able to find out why they withheld the weapons when they did and then suddenly released them last week after this whistleblower story broke? >> that's another great question. there's unclear whether there was a clear quid pro quo that they were holding back the military assistance to the ukraine or if there was something else going on. that's exactly why we need answers to these questions. so we need to try to get whatever accounting of the phone call exists. we especially need to get the
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whistleblower's report to congress. the administration needs to stop blocking it. the dni has never blocked the provision of a whistleblower's report to congress. and we need to get these questions answered, including about the military assistance. >> mitt romney is the only republican who's really stood up on this, tweeting, if the president asked or pressured ukraine's president to investigate his political rival either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme, critical for the facts to come out. the key factor there, i think, is or through his personal attorney. because all the focus seems to be on what the president may or may not have said in this conversation, but it's very clear that rudy giuliani was saying a lot of other things and saying them to very high officials and with the state department's permission. >> senator romney is exactly right, which again is why we need an investigation. we need to get all the facts including the actions that mr. giuliani apparently took and including what assistance, if
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any, the state department provided to him. >> all the while that you were at the state department and before that at the nsc and the vice president's office, have you ever seen a private presidential attorney getting help from a state department envoy to lobby a foreign country that has critical interests? ukraine is a small country up against russia. >> no. i've never seen anything like it. if we had been asked to do that, our answer would have been simple and immediate and the answer would have been no. >> how damaging do you think this is? obviously the polls are narrowing in iowa and elsewhere. how damaging is this to your campaign? the president has a very big mega phone. >> this isn't about our complain except to the extent that if the president is spending all of his time trying to take down joe biden it's because of his deep concern that joe biden is the strongest opponent he could face in the general election. it's pretty extraordinary that
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using his office, in the oval office f the reports are accurate and pressuring not once, not twice, not three times a foreign leader, it tells you something about his concerns in facing joe biden in a general election. >> thank you as always. coming up next, show of force. president trump sending troops to saudi arabia to deter iran from more aggressive behavior. will it work? our military experts are here next. are here next so much more than i could have imagined. my grandfather was born in a shack in pennsylvania, his father was a miner, they were immigrants from italy and somewhere along the way that man changed his name and transformed himself into a successful mid-century american man. he had a whole life that i didn't know anything about. he was just my beloved grandpa. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com
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we said if you don't deal with iran's nuclear program and deal properly with the other issues in the diplomatic channel, you are going to have confrontation. people didn't really take that that seriously a number of years ago when we said it. we've still got the agreement but now it's real. it's very real. >> former secretary of state john kerry sounding the alarm about the potential dangers if the u.s. and iran don't find a diplomatic way out of the current crisis. we're sending some forces over. we're told they're defensive. do you agree with that as a signal to iran?
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is that the right move? >> pretty modest signal. look, the bottom line, it seems to me there's an asymmetry of objectives here. the iranians are fighting for their economic and political survival. we've got a strategic interest in trying to deter nuclear weapons development and terrorism throughout the middle east. the iranians have taken surprisingly aggressive steps. this was pearl harbor for the saudis, the attack on their oil infrastructure. i think they correctly read mr. trump saying this guy's blinked. so now he's talking about lower level cyber warfare. these are not magic pills. cyber warfare doesn't knock down buildings. when used as part of multidomain warfare, it's extremely effective. i think right now mr. trump has got no allies and very few good options. >> and admiral, are you
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surprised that critical infrastructure -- i've been reading about these oil fields for decades as the key, the linchpin to their oil output. why were they so vulnerable when billions have been spent on u.s. patriot missile batteries, on other defenses? why were they so vulnerable to attack? is it because of the asymmetry of these low-flying cruise missiles and the drones? >> that's one way to put it. there's a shift in military warfare that's been going on for some time, kind of similar to the shift from big heavy weapons systems, those massive aircraft carriers, long rage strategic bomb bombers. we often think about the strategic triad for the delivery of nuclear weapons as being submarines, strike bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, massive, that strategic triad. what's emerging is a new strategic triad, which is
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unmanned vehicles, drones, cyber warfare. general mccaffrey is correct, used in conjunction with other elements of military power. the third leg is special forces. we'reymmetric ability to use that new triad to create asymmetric major effects. there are not immediate solutions to this. it's going to require the saudis to think very differently about how to defend their key strategic vulnerability. >> i want to play mike pompeo from "face the nation." at a time they're trying to project strength, they're using strength rhetorically, but it doesn't seem as though they are ready to back it up. >> we're looking for a diplomatic resolution to this unlike the iranians who are apparently it shaare bloodthirs looking for war. president trump and i are
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looking for a diplomatic resolution to this. >> but as peter baker and michael crowley were writing in the "new york times," the president by having not taken action when the drone was shot down, he finds himself back where he was in june wrestling with the consequences of using force and the consequences of avoiding it, except now iran is accused of an even more brazen provocation and the stakes seem much higher. >> yeah. well, look, make no doubt about it, the u.s. has incredible offensive capabilities both in kinetic warfare and cyber abilities. we could bring down the iranian armed forces with u.s., navy and air force, minimal risk to u.s. forces in a 90-day campaign. the problem then becomes do we ignite a conflagration throughout the middle east
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that thattha that isolates us. i think mr. trump got himself into this situation by withdrawing from the accord, did maximum pressure, now doesn't know what to do. i think military action is probably ill-advised at this point but it's left him really hanging out there and looking extremely ineffectual. the iranians have read him correctly. >> i do agree with that. i think the president is kind of looking at what happened with north korea and thinking that he can somehow replicate that with iran. highly unlikely. north korea is a thugocracy. it's like dealing with a mob family. iran is a theocracy. they are not going to simply be bought off. i think it is a much more difficult situation. frankly, i think it's going to get worse before it gets better
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because the iranians show no sign of backing off. and they also have the ability to escalate horizontally, in other words, begin using hezbollah against israel, coming after u.s. troops in afghanistan, coming after u.s. actors in iraq and even in syria. this one is, i think, going to get worse before it gets better and i'm not sure there are a great set of options in front of the president right now. >> that's not a very optimistic but a very realistic forecast there. coming up next, it's all about iowa. a democratic cattle call at this weekend's steak fry where they don't fry steaks. what are new polls showing with the caucuses just four months away? e caucuses just fouron mth away ♪ plants capture co2.
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right now. >> you have a top three. >> top three. >> have you chosen your candidate? >> yeah. yes. >> how firm is yes? >> it's changing every day if they're going to stay in, right? >> vaughn hilliard speaking to voters in iowa. elizabeth warren has surged to the top of a new poll, locked in a dead heat with joe biden. warren has a big advantage in the enthusiasm of her supporters. biden voters are less committed. what are you hearing when you talk to people? is the warren surge as palpable as it seemed to be in this des moines register poll? >> i think what vaughn was getting at in those interviews is what i was hearing as well at the steak fry. that place was full of democrats, 12,000 people. it was a record breaking event for the des moines area
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democratic party. person after person that we spoke to, they're not ready to commit. they will tell you, i like so and so, i've got a couple of people on my list, still shopping around, my heart tells me this, my head tells me this. people are just waiting to see who emerges as the strongest likely challenger to president trump. once they make that determination -- and it could be very late in this process -- that's when they'll come in. i don't think we're going to see a lot of people committing before then. >> biden has faltered somewhat. we've seen his imperfect debate performances. iowa is an outlier in that it's an all white state but the caucuses are caucuses that barack obama won, so they're open to diversity there. biden's strength among african-american voters is not going to help them there. >> right. that's a key factor that really doesn't come into play in iowa,
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but iowa is important even though it doesn't necessarily represent the democratic party as a whole. elizabeth warren has taken the approach of setting up an operation there very early on. she hired staff the day after she announced her candidacy there. that's really paying off her presence in that state is really paying off in a way that although beth is right, people haven't decided fully yet, the excitement for her there is really bubbling up and it's showing that she's running a smart campaign, not just by releasing policies but that on the ground campaigning that we saw barack obama and his team do that helped him win iowa. >> the enthusiasm that we referred to, elizabeth warren's enthusiasm the numbers are 32% extremely enthusiastic, joe biden supporters, 22% are extremely enthusiastic. so there are doubts about biden that have sort of crept into the
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conversation, the debate performances and other issues. >> yeah. democrats love joe biden. he's a revered figure in the democratic world. he's been a player in that world for so long, first in the senate and then eight years as barack obama's loyal vice president. he hasn't closed the deal yet. for him to say i should be the nominee because i'm the most electable, if he doesn't do well in iowa, if he doesn't place first or at least second, his whole electability argument goes out the window. he's really set himself up on a tight rope here which is pretty tough. iowa voters still aren't sold on him yet, so a loss there or not showing as well as he could in iowa could be devastating to him. >> they're still shopping. 63% of iowa caucus goers could be persuaded to support someone else. >> yes. it is very early. i can't say that enough. it is very early.
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nobody should be celebrating yet, not even elizabeth warren's camp right now. there are a lot of candidates still in this race. this is very different than 2008 when it was a choice between barack obama and hillary clinton. there are a lot of people making their case there. there is some concern even among folks i talked to who like elizabeth warren that she may be starting to peak too early. it's still anybody's game at this point. >> sanders has definitely faltered. he has slowed down and it looks like the field is being divided with warren and biden at the top. that is a clear idealogical choice and the rest falling behind. >> bernie sanders surprised everybody in 2008 by coming within a hair's breath of beating hillary clinton in iowa. it's not over for him but definitely the energy is with warren on the progressive side. coming up, tough
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neighborhood. my exclusive interview today with the king of jordan and how his country is dealing with rising tensions between the middle east and washington. ons middle east and washington but we're also a company that controls hiv, fights cancer, repairs shattered bones, relieves depression, restores heart rhythms, helps you back from strokes, and keeps you healthy your whole life. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. (kickstart my heart by motley crue)) (truck honks) (wheels screeching) (clapping) (sound of can hitting bag and bowl) (clapping) always there in crunch time.
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continues to tighten sanctions as it did again on friday. at the same time the pentagon is sending more troops to the region following that attack against the saudi oil fields. the u.s. playmakblames iran for drone and missile strike. iran denies it. this morning i sat down with jordan's king abdullah about the escalating conflict. >> we have had our issues and challenges with iran and again for us the attacks on saudi arabia is of tremendous importance to jordan. we have an outstanding relationship with the saudis. we are committed to their defense. having said that, i think many of us over the past 6 months if not more have been trying to caution escalation and calm things down. and relatively that's happened across the summer. obviously the attack has upped the ante and this is a very important week in new york where i think all of us are trying to
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figure out how to step away from the brink of war. >> the "wall street journal" had a report that it's not that clear to many experts that it was iran. do you think it absolutely was iran that launched these attacks? >> the reports that i've gotten, the type of weaponry, drones and missiles that were used definitely a state actor maybe using non-state actors is probably the politest way of saying it. >> proxies. >> i think we all believe that we know who the culprit is. why did it get to this level and now can we calm things down and walk away from stupidity, i guess. >> do you think diplomacy is still possible? and should the president of the united states meet with president rouhani if that could be worked out? >> if you're going to meet, you want to be able to achieve something. the president would be in a far better position than any of us to decide whether that's a valid
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way of going. i've always believed that diplomacy, dialogue, reaching out to the other is the only way to go, because what is the alternative? the alternative is violence and we've all learned the hard way in our part of the world that wars are easy to get into and almost impossible to get out of. >> the u.s. recently sanctioned the central bank of iran. how does iran now react when it is being squeezed with the toughest sanctions any country in the world? >> i think one has to be careful that when you push somebody in a corner where they have nothing else to lose, that creates its own set of problems. maybe if i take a step back, i always try to explain the challenges of iran is they tend to give themselves an ark-plus r foreign policy, ie, their ability to affect actions but kind of give themselves a
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c-minus for internal diplomacy. any country faced with an external challenge is going to rally around the flag. so again i think we have to be smart on what is the aim and what is the strategy that we can all agree with as part of the coalition forces to make sure that iran takes a step back and we can calm tensions in the gulf. >> there was an independent pentagon report last month that said that isis is resurging in iraq and syria since the u.s. withdrawal of most of our troops and that even though there's no isis territory or caliphate, it is now operating virtually and raising the isis flag. this is a direct threat to you and the whole region. >> i think from a security border point of view, we've fought isis on two of our
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borders here in iraq for a while. we're not worried about that, but you're absolutely right that isis especially in the syrian campaign over the past year pushing them out of syria into the southern euphrates, they were being pushed into western iraq. this is one of the reasons jordan and egypt have reached out to the iraqis for better coordination. as we're dealing with the syrian regime and there was a major game changer today where i think we're moving to more constitutional issues to get syria moved into the right direction. we've got to remember there are still two stories in syria, how do we deal with the regime and how do we move society on. due to maybe a concentration on the peace process we've seen it in the south, the vacuum that's been created there because coalition forces are no longer engaged. there has been a resurgence of
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isis. for the next six months if we don't keep our eye on the wall in western iraq and syria, then we're giving the narrative and the ability for isis to reestablish itself. >> we've had so far no result from the israeli election and it could be they have a third election if they can't form a government. is this a critical moment where the two-state solution is some fear all but dead because of both u.s. and israeli policies? the palestinians have been shut out of the process. jerusalem is now the capital, no longer a negotiating point for the final solution. so where do we stand now given how supportive the u.s. has been of netanyahu's policies and how this has shut out the palestinians from any role in diplomacy? >> i really don't think --
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again, it es up 's up to the is whether they'll go for another round of elections. i think all of us, members of our region and the international community will all jump on board to say can we focus back to what most of us believe the only solution is a two-state solution. if it's a one-state solution, then we're talking about an apartheid solution for israel which i think would be a catastrophe for all of us. we're standing by in the wings seeing how we can help and we'll just have to see what happens in the next couple of weeks. >> when you hear talk of jerusalem annexing the west bank, what do you think? >> a statement like that does not help at all because what you do is hand over the narrative to the worst people in our neighborhood. we that want peace want to be able to move forward, tend to be
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more isolated. if the policy is to annex the west bank, then that is going to have a major impact on the israeli/jordanian relationship and also on the egyptian/israeli relationship because we are the only two arab countries that have peace with israel. but if there's a box that's been ticked on a certain government getting everything it wants without giving anything in return, what is the future? where are we going to go unless we can get israelis and palestinians to live together to be the message for the future? at the moment that's in jeopardy. if we're talking about an apartheid israel, that is going to continue to add fuel to destruction in the middle east. the mind boggles when that statement came out. >> speaking of crisis, the burden on jordan, on the kingdom
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of the refugees from syria and other refugees, the burden on your economy and the continuing of 700,000 syrians alone refugees in your country is extraordinary. >> it's tough. it's the equivalent of 60 million canadians coming across the border in a period of 2 or 3 years. our second biggest city at the height of the refugee crisis was the size of chicago and that was the refugee camp. we have gotten 60% of what we need to look after just the syrian refugees and this year only about 6%. the problem is it's been a tremendous strain on the economy of jordan and the people. i think we did the right thing because these were people escaping violence and hatred but it's been immensely tough. we're working with the imf and the world bank to slowly bring jordan back into some breathing space but it's been an immense
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challenge. >> king abdullah is going to be addressing the united nations this week. coming up, time to act. now that donald trump has admitted he talks to the president of ukraine about joe biden, will democrats make a stronger push for impeachment? humira patients, you inspire us. the way you triumph over adversity. and live your lives. that's why we redesigned humira. we wanted to make the experience better for you. now there's less pain immediately following injection. we've reduced the size of the needle and removed the citrate buffers. and it has the same effectiveness you know and trust. humira citrate-free is here. a little change can make a big difference. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma,
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i have been reluctant to go down the path of impeachment for the reasons that i think the founders contemplated of a country that has elections every four year would be an extraordinary remedy. remedy of last resort and not last resort. this seems different in time and we may very well cross the room here. >> strong words from adam schiff including nancy pelosi. schiff had been resisting to talk about impeachment until now. until the president's alleged critical letter opens a new investigation. joining me, former cia,
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congresswoman, welcome, it is good to talk to you. what do you know and do you know how these calls are conducted and the seriousness of the whistle blower complaint? what do you think of this president not letting it go forward to the committee. >> you are right to raise one of the most alarming elements of this story. there is a whistle blower that went to the inspector general and said they had a particular concern and whistle blowing w d would be related to ongoing activities and issues of national security and the inspector general had said that he believes this is an urgent matter. the director of national intelligence stepped into stop that report from going to congress. as it is required by the statue. that's required by law.
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i find it to be concerning that there is a concern that has risen to the level of a whistle blower is stepping forward and ig is saying it is urgent and congress has not given the information it needs particularly the intelligence committee under the leadership of chairman schiff is not giving the information to move forward and keeps this country safe and potentially address in urgent national security threats or concerns. >> if it could be established that is the complaint and justified, would that be enough to start the impeachment inquiry. >> we know that it is an urgent matter and we know it is something that the inspector general want to bring in congress. we don't know and what it pertains to. we heard in the news there are potential lengths between that
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whistle blower complaint. and allegations that the president allegedly sought to use foreign military assistance dollars to entice a foreign power to compel a foreign power to dig up dirt on one of his potential rivals. those lengths have been made in the media but what congress needs to know is whether or not those links exist. >> as a former cia officer, how unusual is it to come forward with a list of complaints? how would you decide whether something was important enough to potentially damage your career? >> in my time at the agency, i was never aware of any whistle blowing complaints. part of that is because these complaints are managed in a way that protects the whistle blower and allow the whistle blower to come forward. what i can speak to primarily is the fact that there is inspector general who was saying the
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details of these complaints are so important that he believes he must set forward and bring them to congress as it is required by statue. i think that's what should be the deeply concerning piece. frankly, i do rely on my background and i have a nags fall security professional to help view my perspective and distinguish my perspective on this. i think any americans should be able to see if there is information of a vital national security matter that's being stopped from going to the place that it is going, everyone should be asking why that wall is being put up. >> congresswoman has a special perspective on this on all of this as well. thank you so much for being with us today. now we have breaking news right now from washington newsroom. pete williams. >> we learned that the fbi arrested a soldier in kansas. a u.s. army soldier in kansas
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and has charged him with disseminating information on how to build explosive devices. that's the charge here. according to the fbi, they first got onto him in march when he was making remarks on facebook about how to construct improvise explosive devices and talked on a facebook posting about wanting to go to ukraine and fight with the far right military group and then it says there were series of conversations between the soldier whose name is jared william smith and an under cover officer and most of the court documents describe his dealings with the you shouunder cover ofe talked about a plan to conduct an attack inside the united states, he was looking for morad cals. he wanted to go after members of the far left group, anti-fall or
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perhaps a local news station or news network which was not identified in the court documents. i suspect it is a cable news network. at one point he's talking about wanting to build improvise grenades and other kiends of bombs or maybe make a homemade gun. according to the document, smith answered outside of beto, references to beto o'rourke. i don't know enough people that would be relevant enough to cause a change if they die. he was arrested on september 21st. now the documents say that many of his plans that he discussed with his under cover officer on how to build explosive devices according to the fbi experts would not have worked and at least one of them may have a
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homemade grenade by taping a fire cracker to commonly available household items. anybody in the range of device would be harmed when it is exploded because it would be detonated. that's the charge. they'll be facing those charges in federal court. >> pete. it does not matter whether it would have worked. it is the allegation that could be true would be enough to be taken seriously. >> correct >> charges distribution of information related to explosives. the question whether it would worked, i suppose if comes the trial, something the defense lawyer could use, none the less in terms of fitting the statues, prosecutors, the fact that he's talking about doing the sort of things the kind of people he's talking about targeting, that's
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relevant for the statue. >> great controversial on the subject of guns after that last debate when he talked about buy back of assault weapons and semiautomatics and fed the narrative among many people in the national association who feel it is a violation to the second amendment. >> i am looking through to figure out when this conversation was. it is not immediately apparent when he made those comments whether it was before or after that. >> good point. pete. thank you so much. that does it for us for a busy edition here in new york of "andrea mitchell reports." follow us online and on facebook and twitter. here are ali velshi and stephanie ruhle for "velshi & ruhle." i do wonder about these people posting stuff on facebook at
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some point you do know that someone will see that. >> one hopes always. >> thank you, andrea. have a great afternoon. >> you too. >> it is monday, september 23rd, coming up this hour on "velshi & ruhle." new call to impeach president trump over allegations that he may have used his presidential power to hut joe biden. what are democrats in congress are going to do about it. >> climate crisis taking center stage with world leaders at the united nation today. president trump stopped by. is he getting on board with any of the climate proposals. a new polling shows how many voters dislike president trump personally, also, how many feel very uncomfortable with his 2020 candidacy. we'll look at which dip i cemoc policies are the most possible.
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