america doesn't need fighters like me to do what we do anymore. that's my next chapter and the chapter that i'm still in. that does it for me this weekend. thanks for watching. i'll see you back here next saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. up next, "meet the press" with chuck todd. this sunday, the impeachment debate. >> betrayal of his oath of office. betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. >> speaker nancy pelosi announces a formal impeachment inquiry as details emerge from a whistleblower about president trump's july phone call with ukraine's president. >> hard to imagine a more serious set of allegation than those in the complaint. >> the president saying i would like you to do us a favor, though, and urging an investigation of joe biden as he wreld military aid. >> another witch hunt. >> democrats go on the attack. >> it's very serious conduct.

it undermines national security of the united states. >> i think it's devastating. >> most republicans defend the president. >> from my point of view, to impeach any president over a phone call like this would be insane. >> totally inappropriate. >> but some cracks emerge. >> i want to say to the president, this is not okay. it is -- that conversation is not okay. >> my guest this morning, adam schiff, chairman of the house intelligence committee. the number two house republican, steve scalise, and former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. plus, the politics of impeachment. peril for the president and for joe biden. >> he will stop at nothing to go around power. >> does biden emerge damaged or as a more sympathetic figure. joining me for insight and analysis -- our white house correspondent

for pbs news hour. mark leibovich from "the new york times" magazine, doris kearns goodwin, and hugh hewitt. welcome to sunday. and a special edition of "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning. for everyone on either side of the red/blue divide frustrated by the pace of the mueller investigation, ten days in september have provided a staggering turn of events. it was just last week "the washington post" broke the whistleblower story about president trump's phone call with ukraine's president. immediately support among house democrats for impeachment proceedings exploded into a majority of the house. leaving nancy pelosi no choice but to do what progressives have demanded and she had resisted for so long, announce a formal impeachment inquiry. rather than a drip, drip, drip, there's been a gusher of bad news for the president since then. it's important to note that republicans have avoided pushing back on the substance of the whistleblower charges. we don't know all the dills that could emerge in an impeachment

case against president trump. we don't know with certainty that republicans will rally around mr. trump, and we don't know if his baseless charges against biden and ukraine will make biden a more sympathetic figure, or tarnish him. but there is something both sides do think they know, that this new crisis is easier to understand and presents a greater threat to the president than the mueller investigation ever did. >> we cannot ignore our oath of office to protect and defend the constitution. >> house speaker nancy pelosi announcing a former impeachment inquiry after months of resistance. following the revelation that the president pressured ukraine's president to investigate his political opponent, joe biden, while withholding military aid. >> it's hard to imagine more fundamental abuse of that office. >> it's another witch hunt. here we go again. >> on wednesday, the white house releases detailed notes from the july 25th call with ukraine's president. after president zelensky

expressed his desire for more military equipment, including javelin anti-tank missiles president trump responded, i would like you to do us a favor, though. asking ukraine to investigate the 2016 election and unfounded conspiracies about joe biden and his son. >> president zelensky raises the question of defensive aid, and within minutes, the president of the united states is asking him to investigate joe biden. >> he will stop at nothing to hold on to power. not surprising that i become the object of his attention. >> on thursday, another bombshell. the cia whistleblower complaint made public, detailing in nine pages allegations that the president is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 u.s. election. describing months of contacts between the president's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, whom had whistleblower names more than 30 times, and ukrainian officials. and alleging that white house officials attempted to lock down

the record of the call, hiding it in a highly classified computer system. >> now there's a cover-up of the cover-up. >> by late friday, house democrats had already subpoenaed secretary of state mike pompeo for documents and scheduled depositions with five state department officials named in the whistleblower complaint. >> are you willing to testify in front of congress? >> well, there's a lot of problems with that. would i like to testify and tell my story? sure. there are things that i can't testify to because i'm a lawyer. >> inside the west wing, there's rising anxiety, unease, and concern. most republicans in congress have defended the president. >> when i think of whistleblower complaints, i think of somebody who saw something that was wrong and came forward to say so. this is heresy information. >> but small cracks are already emerging. >> i did read the transcript. it remains troubling in the extreme. >> republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons and say there's no there there when there's obviously lots that's very troubling there. >> even some trump allies are beginning to question giuliani's

role. >> he's wild as a march hear. he's a smart guy, but he's a free range chicken. he just kind of gets on out there. >> and joining me now from greenville, south carolina, the chairman of the house intelligence committee, there man likely leading most of this investigation, democrat adam schiff of california. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you. >> let me start with the whistleblower's complaint. it does feel as if it's your road map. i think you said it's the road map for the investigation. how much of your investigation is about the specifics of what the president did with the aid, with ukraine, with rudy giuliani? and how much of your investigation is about the attempt to keep that from you? >> well, i think really the gravm of the offense is the president using the power of his office to coerce a foreign nation into helping his presidential campaign, to once again interfere in our election, and at the same time, withholding foreign aid that that country so desperately needs to fight off who, the

russians. that to me is the most serious consolation of issues. i know many people have suggested and it may have been true in the past that the cover-up is the biggest crime. sometimes the cover-up is the easier crime to prove, but here, yes, the cover-up is very serious, but i don't want to lose sight of that fundamental breach of the president's oath of office, the duty to defend our country, our constitution, and here the president is once again not just inviting but coercing a foreign nation to get involved, to try to help him in yet another presidential election. so to me, that's the most serious set of offenses. >> in order to get the full picture, you're going to have to get the testimony of apparently quite a few white house officials, they're unnamed in the whistleblower report. do you expect to end up fighting over things like executive privilege and attorney/client privilege to the point that you may not get all the facts? >> i have to expect that they're going to fight us tooth and

nail, but we're going to start. we have a hearing on friday, for example, a closed session with the inspector general. the second time we're bringing him in now that we have the whistleblower complaint. to go through what steps he took to corroborate the information in the complaint, what witnesses that he spoke with so that we can follow up with those witnesses ourselves. will the white house fight us on this? i have to imagine they're going to fight us tooth and nail. and yet even as they do, the more that they fight to try to prevent and obstruct the lawful functions of congress, the more they're going to make a case for impeachment on obstruction of justice of congress, of the rule of law. >> is that why you put that in your release. basically, you're going to take any attempt at preventing somebody from testifying before your committee, that you believe legitimately has some information to shed light on what happened, you will treat that as an obstruction of justice? >> we will treat that as evidence of obstruction of

justice, as evidence of obstructing the lawful functions of congress. because the president can't have it both ways. he can't both prevent us from getting evidence on the serious underlying crimes or potential crimes, the serious breach of his oath of office, and at the same time, obstruct our investigation. so even as he tries to weaken our ability to get faths on one, he's going to strengthen the facts on the other. >> do you know the whistleblower yet? >> i don't. >> have you met them? >> no. >> okay. do you -- first, do you expect the whistleblower to testify? and if so, when? >> yes, and i hope very soon. excuse me. i hope very soon. all that needs to be done at this point is to make sure that the attorneys that represent the whistleblower get the clearances that they need to be able to accompany the whistleblower to testimony. and that we figure out the logistics to make sure that we protect the identity of the

whistleblower. that's our paramount concern here. this whistleblower has done obviously a cardinal service to the country by exposing wrongdoing of the most serious kind. a breach of the president's duty of the country that endangers our security and he's got to be worried about his own security right now with the president issuing threats like he did the other day. >> your committee has seen material end up in the white house before, end up with the president's team before. are you confident that your committee can protect the identity? everybody in your committee, both sides of the aisle, can protect the identity of this whistleblower from the ire of the president? >> well, i'm certainly going to do everything humanly possible as chair to make sure that that's what's happens. and yes, we have been concerned for some time about back channels between our now minority and the white house. and in fact, even front channels, not just back channels. this is serious business here. the president has suggested that

people like this whistleblower should be treated the way that we used to treat spies and traitors, and we used to execute spies and traitors. there's no messing around here. and what's more, we want to protect this whistleblower, but we also want to encourage others that are aware of this wrongdoing or other wrongdoing to come forward, and that's a vital interest of ours as well. >> there are three phone calls, excuse me, two phone calls and one meeting that the president has had with vladimir putin, actually, all of them have taken place since the election of the ukrainian president zelensky. a phone call on may 3rd, a meeting on june 28th, and a phone call on july 31st, which by the way, six days after the zelensky phone call in question. do you think you'll ever know the contents of any of those conversations? >> i certainly hope that we can find out. and again, the paramount need here is to protect the national security of the united states and see whether in the conversations with other world leaders and in particular with

putin, that the president was also undermining our security in a way that he thought would personally benefit his campaign. if those conversations with putin or with other world leaders are sequestered in that same electronic file that is meant for covert action, not meant for this, if there's an effort to hide those and cover those up, yes, we're determined to find out. >> if you're trying to be speedy with this investigation while also being thorough, is there a point where you just have to -- you have to wrap things up? you have to be done with whatever you can investigate by a date certain, i keep hearing the word thanksgiving thrown around. is that the time table the public should expect? >> we haven't set a time table except that we want to do this as urgently as possible. we also recognize, though, the gravity of the situation. and that it's going to take some time to get the full facts and be able to flesh them out. chuck, i will say this.

having worked on investigations as a prosecutor before i was in congress, there is a natural rhythm to an investigation, and you get to way points where the next increment of evidence you're going to get may take quite a bit of time, and when we get to those way points, we have to make a decision, do we need to have a consensus now about where we are and what this means and whether we need to travel down the road of articles of impeachment, or do we have time to do more work? >> i'm curious what you think of the argument that says no matter where you are on impeach, especially if you're there, if you think the president should be thrown out of office, that because we're so close to november of 2020, that the election is the better place for that to happen? what do you say to those making that argument? >> you know, chuck, i was making that argument myself until these facts came to light that this is an extraordinary remedy that should only be used in extraordinary circumstances. but here, what the president has done is of such an egregious character that there's a real risk in not moving forward with

an impeachment. and i think when you look at the fact that the president engaged in this corrupt conduct with president zelensky, corrupt on the president's part, not on zelensky's part. the day after the mueller hearing, the lesson this president appears to have received is that he can do whatever he wants, he can violate his oath of office, he can refuse to defend our constitution, he can invite further foreign interference in our affairs, try to cover it up and there will be no consequence, no accountability, and that's simply too dangerous to be left that way. and so yes, i certainly think that the gravity of the situation demands that we move forward with the inquiry. >> okay. >> and we'll have to determine whether thatologi also means re of articles. >> are we expecting to see rudy giuliani testify? >> i don't want to commit myself to that at this point. we certainly need to do a lot of work to find out what glun has been doing in ukraine. it appears from that conversation that the ukraine president understood what was going to be asked of him on that

call. and that very likely was the result of work that rudy giuliani and some of his minions were doing in ukraine, so we're going to need to get to bottom of it, whether it will be productive to bring him in, we'll make that decision down the road. >> congressman adam schiff, the man charged with leading most of this investigation on the house intelligence committee, thanks for coming on. >> joining me from louisiana, the number two republican in the house, steve scalise of louisiana. congressman scalise, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> good to be back with you. >> due to an accident on email, we know some of the talking points the white house has sent over to house republicans including the defense they have as saying there was no quid pro quo. in the phone call, that that in itself should be enough to stave off of impeachment. but i am curious, when you hear and read the phrase, i want you to do us a favor, though. and you know, again, i think the president of ukraine has the internet, so he knew that aid was frozen. how do you interpret it if it's

not a quid pro quo, how do you interpret i need you to do us a favor. >> if you read that sentence, what the president is stocking about is crowd strike. the 2016 interference with our election. >> does that make it better? >> president trump is trying to look into the interference by russia so it doesn't happen again. i thought you would want to be concerned about making sure that doesn't happen again as well wrnch that's what he's talking about, not joe biden. >> the intelligence community, his own intelligence folks have said it's russia who did the hack. he's the only person who seems to believe russia didn't do the hack. the crowd strike, does it make you more disturbed he doesn't believe our own intelligence? >> crowd strike, first of all, was the one who got the server, and they never shared it with the fbi, never shared it with anybody. there's still a lot of information we're trying to find out about how the russians interfered with our election, when barack obama was president, and i'm glad president trump continues to look into that interference so it doesn't happen again. he's the one trying to root it out. by the way, president trump is

the one who has been standing up to russia. they talked about javelin missiles in that call. president trump sold javelin missiles to nknocks those tanks out that russia was sending into the ukraine. you might want to ask president obama or biden why they wouldn't sell the javelins, but president trump did, and continues to provide relief. we have given a lot of relief. in fact, president trump has probably given more help to ukraine than any other president. >> it seems as if you endorse the president's sort of one-man operation by rudy giuliani to go around the government and try to do his own investigation. i have not understood this. if the president doesn't believe the u.s. government's assessment of what the russians did, why doesn't he ask the fbi to investigate? why is he asking rudy giuliani to go to a foreign country to do that? do you understand -- have you been able to understand that? >> you can ask rudy giuliani. that and the chairman himself

said he's not even sure if he would bring brudy. keep in mind, the chairman said a lot of things, made a lot of baseless accusations. chairman schiff was the one for two years saying he had more than circumstantial evidence that president trump colluded with russia on the mueller investigation. and that turned out not to be true. and so instead of saying okay, we were wrong, let's move on, they continue to go down this road of impeachment regardless of the facts. they have said that there were high crimes and misdemeanors. the actual author of the articles of impeachment just recently a few days ago said that if they don't impeach president trump he might get re-elected. he will get re-elected, is what he said. the framers did not put the power of impeachment in the constitution so that you could stop somebody from getting elected who was dually elected in 2016. it's a high crime and misdemeanor standards and they should take that with the respect it deserves. >> can we take the word impeachment out of this, given what rudy giuliani was doing or was not doing, we don't know,

given what the president may have meant with i would like you to do us a favor, but we don't know, is this not worthy of congressional oversight? is this not worthy of an investigation? do you want to know what it is that rudy giuliani was doing sort of either on his own or against the wishes of some people in the government? is this not worthy of an investigation? again, skip the impeachment part for a second. >> well, they have been investigating president trump for over two years, and the entire way making baseless allegations. speaker pelosi the day before the transcript came out was saying it was going to show the president broke the law, and then they didn't have any quid pro quo, all of the things they're saying. they're investigating everything. and instead of, by the way, we should be moving usmca to get a better trade deal. we should be passing bipartisan legislation to lower drug prices. they won't bring those bills to the floor because all the focus is on impeachment. >> you approve of all this? >> you can ask rudy giuliani -- keep in mind, rudy giuliani,

that conversation happened, chuck, if you would let me answer, that conversation with president zelensky happened right after the mueller report came out, after two years of an investigation, and rudy giuliani was the president's personal attorney in that case. so again, you can ask rudy what he was doing. i know that what president trump talked about was continuing to find out what happened with russian interference in the 2016 election because he has been standing up to russia, and there's a strong record, by the way, of how president trump has stood up to russia when barack obama wouldn't and joe biden was president when they would not stand up to russia. >> do you think it was appropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader for help investigating his chief political rival for 2020? >> again, look at what he talked about in the conversation. he was talking about the 2016 interference that happened in our election. look, there have been media reports for years, joe biden himself bragged long before he was a candidate for president that he went there to ukraine

and held the billion dollars back. i'm going to leave in six hours unless they fire the prosecutor. my goodness, chuck. a lot of people have been asking for that to be investigated for years. >> congressman, you know the reality behind -- you know the truth behind that. wlie are you putting it out there as if it's an oh, my gosh, we have no idea what he was talking about then. i mean, you're taking something that actually happened, that the entire western alliance supported, this was a bipartisan effort, as you know in congress, that supported this effort to clean -- >> an alliance to hold the billion dollars -- of course, there was a lot of corruption. in fact, that's why zelensky got elected, with a mandate to clean up corruption. he and president trump are talking about that in the conversation. things that both of them are doing to clean up corruption and drain the swamp. look, all of this stuff with this whistleblower report, there were a lot of things if you read the whistleblower report that are concerning in terms of allegations that were very partisan. in fact, the justice department or the inspector general

determined that the whistleblower does have a political bias. you know, again, let him go forward and make accusations. but a lot of these accusations have turned out to not be true. >> every time i have asked you if you're concerned about the actions the president took, you have avoided answering the specific question and instead focused on something else. >> don't try to infer anything. >> you seem to be uncomfortable defending -- let me put it this way. you seem uncomfortable defending the president's actions. >> don't put words in my mouth. >> i'll let you finish. >> you made a lot of statements and accusations that aren't true, chuck. president trump -- >> i don't think i have made one. >> president trump was looking into the 2016 collusion and interference that russia had when barack obama was president. and we all know that happened under barack obama's watch. you all have tried to tie it to trump, and trump continues to look into it. i'm glad trump continues to look into the interference that russia tried to do. >> so you endorse this private investigation, don't go through

the fbi, go to a foreign government. >> this isn't a private investigation, chuck. >> what is rudy giuliani doing? what is it? >> again, you can talk about rudy separately. there's no private investigation. there's been a public government investigation into the collusion that russia had trying to interfere with our elections. we still haven't gotten to the bottom of it. there's still a lot of serious questions that need to be answered so it doesn't happen again. president trump has continued to be aggressive not only at that put bushing back against russia in many other ways. i mentioned the javelin missiles. it's president trump who sold the javelin missiles to ukraine so they can bust those russian tanks. obama didn't do that, by the way. >> after reading that detailed note, don't call it a transcript transcript, you're comfortable that the president is -- he appears to be mixing politics and government policy. does he not -- do you not see that in there? >> wait, russian interference with our election. it might be politics because it was the 2016 election. >> and joe biden, and this

bizarre -- >> trying to interfere with our election. >> he's saying it's not. he seems to be doing a russian propaganda thing with saying it's the ukraine with the server, with the candlestick or something. >> it sounds like you're reading a lot of democrat talking points. the people that have been saying for years that the president was involved in all these other things and then none of it turned out to be true. the mueller investigation was their ticket to impeachment. shouldn't, by the way, chuck, shouldn't they first have voted to start an impeachment inquiry? which has always happened. this is only three times in the history of our country that congress has moved articles of impeachment. and they wouldn't even do that. it's like they're trying to shield their members from voting on this while they continue to go down the drum beat of impeachment, because as the author of impeachment articles said, he's concerned that the president will get re-elected. that's not why you impeach a president. we have an election next year to deal with that. >> congressman scalise, i will

leave it there. number two in the house, thanks for coming on and sharing your views. >> good to be with you. >> coming up, the panel and the next steps on the possible road to impeachment, but first, how a small country under siege to russia became a thread. russia bd joint replacing, and depression relieving company. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. i am royalty of racing, i am the twisting thundercloud. raise your steins to the king of speed. and now for their service to the community, we present limu emu & doug with this key to the city. [ applause ] it's an honor to tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. and now we need to get back to work.

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welcome back. the ukraine story has moved at warp speed and it's understandable if people are a bit confused at what president trump is accused of doing and what role ukraine plays in of this. i'm joined by michael mcfaul, the author of from cold war to hot peace. currently a professor at stanford university. a senior fellow at the hoover institution. he and i are going to walk you through a brief timeline to help you understand how we got to the point we're at. michael mcfaul, we try to to this the way you spend your day. >> standing up here in front of our slides. >> in front of our slides. >> thanks for having me. >> the phone call was actually the middle of this controversy. not the beginning. in fact, the beginning goes back

to early '19 when his personal attorney for president trump rudy giuliani starts looking for ukrainian contacts to help him, and rudy giuliani's words, find out the origins of the mueller report, look for the real hackers potentially. looking for some dirt on joe biden. he meets with a prosecutor general by the name of lutsenko a few times and what is he looking for, again? he's trying to pursue a conspiracy theory that ukraine, not russia, hacked the dnc, and that joe biden had a former prosecutor fired simply to help his son. walk me through these. >> well, let's start with joe biden and the prosecutor. the man before lutsenko was the one we were putting pressure on, the administration and everybody else, and he wasn't doing enough to investigate corruption, including biden's son. when lutsenko comes on the scene, giuliani thinks he has a new partner, someone to go after the story, and he does aggressively. the second part is more

cockamamie. they want to build this theory that somehow a company called crowd strike found the emails, publicized them, some ukrainian connection which i don't understand, and that was a way to help hillary clinton win the election, but both of those stories mr. giuliani is trying to find, that's why he's engaged with ukraine. >> he's able to get some of this stuff into the conservative ecochamber. mostly through fox news. constantly through the month of march and on twitter, what's this? so creating this predicate that somehow this matters. then something out of the ordinary happens to their plan. april 21st, a surprise victor in the ukrainian presidential election. why did this set them back? >> because the previous prosecutor, mr. lutsenko was their guy. he was working with giuliani, and suddenly, his boss, poroshen poroshenko, loses the election. >> all this work giuliani had done to curry favor suddenly out the window.

who's this zelensky guy and how are we going to keep pushing the story with a brand-new president. >> clearly, the president maybe needed leverage, so what do they do? they force out the ambassador who had been getting into back and forths with rudy giuliani. giuliani canceled his own trip to meet with people close to zelensky. this then, the ultimate snub. vice president pence was going to lead our delegation to zelensky's inauguration. they yank him, and it was meant to send a message. july 18th, a bigger message. they announced a freezing of aid, nearly $400 million that wows supposed to go to ukraine. it's not clear if the ukrainian government knew it was frozen over all this, but this leads to the phone call on july 25th, which by the way, happened the day after mueller's testimony to congress. we think it's worthy of this. but all of those actions leads us to i would like you to do us a favor, though. this was about what? >> well, this is about president trump asking president zelensky

to help him find dirt on his political opponent in 2020. it's clear as day in the transcript. and there is leverage there. whether exactly what they knew, i don't think is important. there's always leverage when you're talking to the president of the united states because all leaders of the world want to have a good relationship with the president. it's especially important when your country is occupied by putin and you need the leader of the free world to be on your side. and when anybody says let me ask for a favor, there's no favors in diplomacy. everything is a quid pro quo. everything is you do this, i'll help you. >> well, this triggers obviously a whole bunch of concern. the whistleblower first goes to his general counsel at cia, then he's worried it's going to get squashed. files the whistleblower complaint. the house begins an investigation. the administration does release the aid to ukraine very quickly, but at this point, it seems to be too late, and then we find out of course it's all about ukraine. what's the -- is there any part of this that you think we don't yet know when it comes to

ukrainian side that will add to this story? >> i think it's pretty clear cut, myself. i don't think this is a case where we need to know lots more details. the president of the united states used his office, not to advance american national interests but his private electoral gains. the only piece i'm interested in, chuck, is what's the russia angle? just a few days after that call, he's on the phone with vladimir putin. it sounds like that call has also been, you know, somehow put on the secret server. i would love to know what he talked about with putin. >> will congress ever see any of the communications between the president and putin? that is something i have a feeling we'll talk a lot about. ambassador mcfaul, thank you for doing this. >> when we come back, the debate over impeachment. er impeachment. for hard-to-reach places, duster makes it easy to clean. it captures dust in one swipe. ha! gotcha! and sweeper heavy duty cloths lock away

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welcome back. panel is here. hugh hewitt,iamec alcindor. president historian doris kearns goo goodwin whose book comes out this week, and mark leave vich for "the new york times" magazine. doris, leadership in turbulent times. we did some voter -- we talked to a few voters in new hampshire yesterday. just to see how they're responding quickly. take it with a grain of salt, but the comments were interesting. take a listen. >> a lot of people like trump. but they're too scared to say anything because we have some

wackos out there that want to punch you in the face if you say you like trump. >> i think we should go through with the process, whether it messes with the outcome of the 2020 election, i think that's its own kind of ball of wax. >> i think we're divided anyway, right? so moving forward with potential impeachment procedures, i think, is not going to really do anything different. >> give us your sort of, that historical view. what's happening? >> well, you know, when i look back at the three impeachments i have lived through, i really only was there for nixon and clinton, but i feel like i was there with andrew johnson, the critical thing is how is history going to regard what the house is doing right now? will it be like nixon, that the consensus will be afterwards that they had to do this because he had to be held accountable? and in the end, republicans came along, and in the end, ford says our long national nightmare is over, or like clinton, regarded as a partisan endeavor that boosts clinton, in that case

would boost trump and doesn't lead to a discussion? the real challenge is the debate within the way they're going to conduct these hearings. they can't just throw around words like abuse of power, violation of oath. it has to be a giant civics lesson to the country to understand why are these things such that these people had to feel the need to try to impeach him now before the election. that's the story that has to be told. just like these people are talking to you, if they're successful in making it clear that they think he should be impeached, somebody has to be able to tell a story to the person sitting next to them in the bar that has a beginning, a middle, and the end. if they can't do that and it simply goes away and is part of the russia investigation, the country is going to be more divided than before. >> there's a need for speed. for speedy thoroughness. is that possible? >> it's going to be hard. what people do miss here, we say everyone is divided anyway. and people are in their corners. there actually is a middle here. the middle is narrow, narrower than it might have been in the

'70s during water gatd, and there is a time, and it would behoove democrats to do this as quickly as possible, to actually win over maybe a 10% middle of this who are actually amen able to facts that could potentially change their mind on some things. >> if this stays a fact finding mission, it likely will continue to get support. early polling is showing the public is open to this investigation, hugh. >> i want to pick up on something that professor concke said -- >> he was my student. >> she was like 10. but most important thing that was said this morning thus far is adam schiff came on, and he went full allison wonderland queen of hearts. verdict first, trial later. i believe he destroyed his credibility this morning on this show as a fair arbiter of this process. the key other thing about is there enough time, is there a middle? that middle is tired of investigating president trump. it's gone on for two years and the most interesting part of the nancy pelosi decision to go for

a fast impeachment is the implicit but very real concession that the mueller report had no impeachable offense, no obstruction, noclusion. it's gone. they have erased it from the record, so adam schiff is biased and nancy pelosi admitted mueller exonerated trump. >> let's talk about the simple story that democrats have been searching for for a long time. the mueller report was a 448-page report that people were confused about. now they have a sentence that's about 25 words that says the president of the united states was trying to get a foreign country to interfere in the 20 twen election. that's what democrats have been looking for their entire time that president trump was in office and they finally have it here. i think that's why we see representative schiff saying the cover-up might be important but the most important thing is what the president said on the call. that's what's at the heart of this and why there's political risk there for both democrats and republicans. >> i'm going to get to some of the key players that are going to become stars of the investigation. these are folks named in the complaint.

pence, barr, pompeo, giuliani, yovanovitch, volker, sondland, and durham. i want to focus on giuliani here, because it feels like if things get reedy bad for the president, rudy is already looking like the easiest scapegoat. republicans ready to turn on him. one republican said on giuliani. i think it would be a good thing if he would take a vacation. he's as wild as a march hare. i wish he would shut the heck up, said another republican lawmaker. hugh hewitt, could rudy be the guy that everybody concentrates their, yeah, i don't like this. don't impeach the president. rudy is a bad guy. >> he's not john dean. the one thing we have to be careful of is while he is indeed an object of controversy and scorn. inside the beltway, he cuts through everything outside of the beltway. when you go to warren, ohio, people hear him and respect him and listen to him. >> i think they hear him because he is everywhere.

i think what he is emblematic of is he's a proxy for the president, his personal attorney or sometimes a free range chicken, but he also is someone, the fact he's out there so much is emblematic of the fact a lot of republicans are not comfortable being out there much. the defense of president trump has not come to any kind of coherent message. and look, whatever rudy giuliani says on a given day becomes the message and he becomes sort of a lightning rod. >> when you talk to rudy giuliani, the issue with that is he's also talking about all the other people he says were involved. he said the state department called me. >> he basically says, here, adam schiff, here are more people to subpoena. >> and there's this idea that really there's a long list of people that rudy giuliani says is part of this. even though the mueller report might not have been impeachable offense, you see them trying to mitigate the president's actions or trying to help him long. you see a group of people trying

to help him, which is gludy giuliani, or mitigate him, which is kurt volker. >> doris, you mentioned something about the nixon impeachment. at the moment, it was partisan. after it was over, there was a consensus. you hear mitt romney saying deeply troubling. ben sasse saying let's not quickly rally around here. is that what you're watching for? >> i think it's really important for the country if this is going to go through that it becomes at least more bipartisan than it is at the beginning. when you do hear republican senators beginning to speak up that what we saw on the face is troubling, if more facts come out, maybe more people will come to who we don't know, maybe white house officials who talk to the whistleblower. hopefully facts will drive this forward. that's what we have to hope for. >> i have a feeling senate republicans are in a better place to do that than house republicans. >> coming up, how will the push for impeachment impact the democratic presidential race? first, when we come back, a part of my interview with javad zarif.

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i am royalty of racing, i am the twisting thundercloud. raise your steins to the king of speed. welcome back. as a candidate, donald trump was highly critical of the 2015 iran nuclear deal, which was joined by china, france, germany, russia, the uk, and the european union. as president, he withdrew in may of last year. with the u.s. out of the deal, iran has taken steps to enhance its nuclear program, and the u.s. has also blamed iran for the attack on saudi arabia's main oil facility. yesterday, i sat down with iran's foreign minister, javad zarif, and asked him about the possibility of ever reaching a new agreement with president trump. do you imagine you can actually ever cut an agreement with president trump? >> he has made it very

difficult. because he has said this was an agreement by the previous administration. not withstanding the fact that this was a security council resolution, but simply stating this was an agreement by the previous administration. if i were to start negotiating with this administration, it took us last time it took us two years to negotiate this time, it will take us even more because we know how the united states behaves. and let us assume that president trump is re-elected. in two years-time, there's only three years left of the second term of president trump. do we waste two years of negotiations just to benefit -- >> wow, you're not talking. you're going to wait until there's a new president, 2020 or 2024. >> no, we're not waiting for that. wee waiting for this administration to come to its senses. >> so you would negotiate with

this administration? >> of course, we would. >> you still would cut a deal with president trump? >> not a new deal. they have to show that they respect their signature. unless they show that they respect their signature, there's no point in negotiating with them. because you set a bad precedent. you renegotiate an already negotiated issue with this administration that is no end to that because tomorrow they can come back to you, even the same administration, and tell you this was not enough. let me tell you about usmca. mexico allowed president trump to renegotiate nafta. they reach usmca, but then president trump says unless you agree to some of my demands on immigration, i will not implement usmca, so there is no end. somebody starts bullying, and the more you give to that bully, the more it wants. >> well, you can see my entire interview with foreign minister zar zarif, including that cyberwar comment he made that we released yesterday where he admits iran

and the u.s. are in an active cyberwar. his refusing to deny an iranian role in that attack on saudi oil facilities, all of it on our website, meetthepress.com. >> when we come back, end game, is impeachment a good thing or bad thing if your name is joe biden? biden? raise your steins to the king of speed. (door bell rings) it's ohey. this is amazing. with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, are you okay? even when i was there, i never knew when my symptoms would keep us apart. so i talked to my doctor about humira. i learned humira can help get, and keep uc under control when other medications haven't worked well enough. and it helps people achieve control that lasts. so you can experience few or no symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers,

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. back now with end game. let's just cut the roll of this. for the next four months everyone's got this question politically what's joe biden going to look like? here's biden dealing with this for the first time publicly friday. >> my family handled all of this, but i'm worried about all the families and lives at stake in this election because of his failure as a president in terms of the substances of what has been done. >> ultimately we're all trying to figure out how does this impact joe biden? >> i think there are political risks there and political benefits. i've been talking to sources inside the biden campaign and they told me this week theysy

saw their best fund-raising numbers. elizabeth warren starting to rise in iowa. and now they're starting to see more interest in their campaign. i'm also hearing they think it's ridiculous to compare hunter biden and you've been saying the president's son has been essentially profiting off the fact his father is president, and hunter biden was doing the same thing when his father was vice president. that said, the trump campaign says we've also got $5 34i8 wherein 24 hours after nancy pelosi launched this formal impeachment inquiry. joe biden doesn't want to be talking about hunter biden's business in ukraine and president trump doesn't want to be talking about the favor he asked on that call. >> if this damages trump the only good news they gave out of it is to damage joe biden?

>> there's a column not only by me which is a partisan column but an in-depth report of hunter biden and ukraine, building on "the new yorker" profile, and i believe in one standard. if there was enough evidence to use a fisa warrant against carter page are for being an agent or accomplice of a foreign guc government hunter biden should have been under the same surveillance. >> i don't -- i have no idea how that is even remotely relatable, but i will read your column. >> i would put it under the umbrella -- and he wrote a great column -- but i would put it under the umbrella of exhaustion. you said a lot of people are exhausted from the democrats investigating donald trump. i would just say a lot of people are exhausted with everything around donald trump. i think that happened before

ukraine. i think it started to show up in donald trump's numbers. i think this story has put a whole new big pile of exhaustion onto this big, big sort of smoldering whatever it is we have. >> you can be pro-trump's agenda. >> i think that's true. i think the problem for joe biden what he had going for him is he was part of the obama administration, scandal free basically, no drama every day and he could return to that normalcy in a certain sense and now he's been made part of this drama. the risks and benefits is not only the sympathy people can feel, but if he realizes if he gives more speeches and does less campaign funding and does what a person fighting for their life does -- >> i've got the head of the nixon library over here and i've got my favorite historian over there. should biden give a checker

speech? >> he should go on "60 minutes" with hunter biden by his side and take every question. >> what do you think of a checker speech? could it be effective? >> it could be quite effective. i think he has to deal with it more than he did. >> my apologies for those of you who didn't know checker speech. sometimes we make these references, but at that point nixon accused of something and he uses television for the very first time to become a sympathetic figure. >> i think joe biden could completely benefit from this, but i think they're really going to have to want to explain high hundredor biden is different from don, jr. and what president trump was doing with his children. there was a poll out pbs news and npr did, 58% of people said this would have no factor on what they did. >> if you're a democratic, don't you worry what they'll drop in

october? >> alexander hamilton wrote about the perils of the impeachment process, warning each side might judge the case based on pre-existing biases. he wrote in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that thedition will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties that by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. sound familiar? good luck, america. that's all we have for today's history lesson. thanks for watching. we'll be back next week with federalist 66 because it's sunday "meet the press." e it's sunday "meet the press." but we're also a company that controls hiv, fights cancer, repairs shattered bones, relieves depression, restores heart rhythms, helps you back from strokes,

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welcome to kasie d.c., everyone. tonight the impeachment inquiry focuses on a conversation between the president of the united states and the president of ukraine. some of president trump's allies try to smoke out a whistle-blower, are they ready for their biggest fight yet? and after catching grief for the left flank of her party nancy pelosi goes full speed ahead with the votes now behind her to pursue an impeachment inquiry. there is so much to get to on this show tonight. in just a few