nicolle wallace begins right now. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. donald trump's impeached this strategy came into full view today when he stood before cameras and asked for dirt on his potential opponent, not one but two foreign governments. apparently banking on norm busting to clear him from law busting when it comes to trading foreign relations for political favors. the comments described by the "new york times" is nothing short of, quote, extraordinary presidential request to a foreign country for help that could benefit him in the 2020 election came after trump faced an entire night of criticism over yesterday's foul-mouthed impeachment meltdown. and his refusal to answer this simple question. what were you hoping the president of ukraine would do about biden? today reporters took another crack at mason's question, and

this time trump answered with the response that the lawmakers investigating him could only have dreamed of. here's the exchange. >> well, i would think that if they were honest about it they'd start a major investigation into the bidens. it's a very simple answer. they should investigate the bidens because how does a company that's newly formed and all these companies -- and by the way, likewise, china should start an investigation into the bidens. because what happened to china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. with ukr. i haven't, but it's certainly something we can start thinking about. >> impeachable conduct out in the open. that's according to the democrats leading the impeachment inquiry around his invitations for election

meddling in 2020. strong words from the democrat who's at the helm of that probe. house intel committee chairman adam schiff. >> i find once again the president inviting another country to interfere in our presidential elections repugnant and a fundamental breach of his oath of office. >> donald trump's comments today colliding with an increasingly popular impeachment inquiry that has in just a matter of days come to consume his entire administration. at the very moment trump was speaking to reporters before departure, lawmakers and congress regional staff were deposing their first witness kurt volker. that deposition taking place as a subpoena threat hangs over trump's white house. a white house facing a demand from congress for documents related to ukraine by tomorrow. it's another whirlwind day. that's where we start today with

some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us from "the washington post" who has just posted a story about that testimony that deposition with kurt volker white house bureau of chief phil rucker with us on set, rick stengel for "time magazine. former aid to the george w. bush white house and state department, elise jordan. and "washington post" columnist eugene robinson. because at 4:00, phil rucker, your paper hits send. i'm going to read you this one that just came out and ask you to take us through what you and some of your colleagues are reporting from capitol hill. under the headline giuliani was warned were not credible, trump's ex-envoy, the former u.s. envoy told house investigators on thursday that he warned president trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani that giuliani was receiving untrustworthy information from ukrainian political figures

about former vice president joe biden and his son. that's according to two people familiar with his testimony today. kurt volker who resigned last week after being named in the whistle-blower complaint that sparked the house impeachment inquiry of trump said he tried to caution giuliani that his sources including ukraine's former top prosecutor were unreliable and that he should be careful about putting faith in the prosecutor's story said the people who spoke anonymously. volker's testimony offering the first inside account of the trump administration's efforts to press for ukrainian investigation into trump's political rival. phil rucker, this testimony today that you and your colleagues just reported on as we sat down seems to put volker on the side of tom bosser, the former homeland security adviser who spoke out sunday on on abc sunday program saying that they desperately tried to get through to donald trump who was consumed by and taken with these delusions about what the trump

was with ukraine. and it would seem that kurt volker trying to paint himself as bossert-like in terms of trying to shake rudy giuliani and donald trump from their ukrainian delusions. >> i think that's right, nicole. and we'll learn more about this testimony as the day goes on, i imagine. but it's significant for the reasons you just laid out. it shows again the extent to which rudy giuliani who is not a government official, he is president trump's personal attorney, but the extent to which giuliani has in a way commandeered, the extent to which he was working with the ukrainians he was trying to conduct what he saw as diplomacy in a way that would help his client, the president, politically in his re-election campaign. the problem there is he does not speak for the united states, he doesn't work for the u.s. taxpayers and he's not apparently according to volker's testimony dealing with a set of facts, dealing with information that is deemed credible.

and it's been interesting the last couple of weeks what rudy giuliani's been saying publicly. he's actually talked about his coordination with state department officials almost as a way to make his work with ukraine credible and appropriate and proper. and this is the first we're hearing in any official way from the state department about what those interactions were actually like. >> yeah. phil, you make a good point. let me just remind all of our viewers that kurt volker who is not a household name, probably still isn't, was thrust into public view when he was named by the whistle-blower whose entire seven-page account has been corroborated by either presidential outbursts or as phil rucker just alluded to, rudy giuliani holding up his cell phone and illustrating the role that the united states' state department played in this effort at collusion in plain sight. let me read some more from "the washington post" story and then bring in former u.s. ambassador to russia, ambassador michael mcfaul. the post goes on to report today

that volker was named in the whistle-blower complaint as the diplomat who set up a meeting between giuliani and a top adviser to ukrainian president zelensky ahmed trump's effort to pressure ukraine to investigate the bidens. between giuliani. this would seem, ambassador, mcfaul, the beginning of the thread being pulled on rudy giuliani and donald trump's loyalty to right-wing fringe conspiracy theories over the expertise of even the political appointees at the united states state department. what could go wrong? >> what could go wrong? we know what could go wrong. and i do know kurt volker. i've known him for a long time. he worked in the bush administration before taking on this job. remember kurt was an unpaid envoy. he was not confirmed by the senate. he's not part of the state department. so i think that made him

somewhat vulnerable to be the person to try to set this up, right? they didn't go to the ambassador, they went to kurt. but kurt knows facts, he knows what the truth is about this prosecutor general, this hero from the right-wing conspiracy mr. shoken knows that he was not fighting corruption. and it sounds like he's beginning to lay down some of those facts now today in this testimony. >> what damage, ambassador mcfaul, can kurt volker do to sort of the fragile web of lies that donald trump and rudy giuliani hold up to their own base? it would appear that mr. volker is anything but some sort of lefty deep-state actor. he was picked by a very, very conservative secretary of state mike pompeo with deep and vast political ambitions that may be going up in flames quicker than this ukrainian collusion scam. but what -- it would appear that someone, as you just described,

ambassador volker was not getting paid. he was brought in because of his expertise. he knew the ukraine. he was willing to play along, it would appear, with empowering rudy to do something quasi-official. in the midst of it. he witnessed donald trump ask a foreign leader to dirty up joe biden's son and joe biden a potential political rival. >> yeah. i think he may have been appointed by secretary tillerson. somebody will correct us i'm sure in five seconds if i'm wrong on that. >> but he was still on the job. >> and he was trying -- i mean, remember what his job actually. he's not just special envoy for ukraine. he's supposed to be ending the war working with the russians by the way. he has a counterpart. a really, really hard job that everybody when he signed up for the job said he was going to fail in. and by the way he did. there has been little progress on that. the second thing is if you work

in the government and somebody from the white house says to you can you help my friend, my lawyer mr. giuliani, you're in a pretty difficult position. you know, we'll hear exactly what he said about why he decided to do that, but know that it's very difficult working in the government to not do that. but i applaud him for if the reporting now is true that he's not going to go long with this crazy conspiratorial stuff that they've been pushing. and i think he's very credible to undermine that for all the reasons you just said. he is not a left-wing conspiracy guy. he worked in the bush administration. he works for the mccain institute. and he was there trying to do the right thing. >> nick, let me read a little bit more from what we're learning. and two points of clarification for our viewers. he was appointed by secretary tillerson but kept on for secretary pompeo. and this deposition with ambassador volker is expected to

go on for at least a couple more hours. so we are expected to learn more. but from "the washington post" report, volker also said that he and other state department officials cautioned the ukrainians to steer clear of u.s. politics. getting involved he told them would open up the nation to allegations that they were interfering into an election and could be detrimental to ukraine long-term. if only he had had an audience with donald trump and warned him the detriment. >> i see two things going on here. first of all we should pause and note that the whistle-blower and giuliani seemed to agree on this one point that volker was pretty obliging to giuliani in trying to end the process for diplomacy. what we see now is volker telling congress, actually i warned him, it was really bad what he was doing these lies, this propaganda, this packet of stuff was unreliable. but he's doing the right thing. and i think people who have any sense of that part of the world and the history of that

prosecutor kind of knew this. and it makes you wonder for giuliani i think he's just generating paper. he just wants a sheef of stuff. what struck me about it is that it's in some ways a mirror image of the steel dossier. and it's a very different motive. i'm worried this incoming president is working with a foreign government to interfere in the u.s. and the motive here was let's get the foreign government to interfere with the u.s. >> it is a stunning sort of circular. there's a lot to unpack there. i want to seize on one of the things that's been said. that is what the whistle-blower alleged about ambassador volker's role, the diplomat is on capitol hill today still testifying. this is from the whistle-blower complaint which nothing that has come out has disproven a word of the whistle-blower complaint despite donald trump's threat to out his sources and him or her. volker wrote the whistle-blower

reportedly provided advice to the ukrainian leadership about how to, quote, navigate the demands that the president had made of zelensky. now rick stengel, would seem based on his testimony or his deposition today that what he's trying to articulate is that he was telling them all to steer clear. >> you know i've been talking about ukraine for a long time. my book which is out next week begins in ukraine. i just want to explain something what volker was experiencing. i love ukraine. they are fabulous people. they have suffered more than anybody on earth. they are an incredibly corrupt society since they became free of the soviet union in 1991. what prosecutors meant in ukraine is, oh, eugene, i'm about to prosecute you in something, but i am about to pay you off. i imagine telling rudy giuliani is these guys will tell you anything.

they are desperately, they are boxed in by russia in the east and by the u.s. here. they are scared as heck they are going to tell you absolutely anything that you want to believe. i am sure that's what volker saw. that's what i experienced when i was there myself. >> but doesn't that make them the perfect foil for someone like rudy giuliani who wanted someone to tell donald trump what he wanted to hear that -- >> except, again, i don't want to put words into ambassador volker's mouth, but i suspect he's saying, you know, rudy, they are going to tell you exactly what you want to hear about the bidens. and remember the prosecutor that you thought was dirty was the guy that didn't want to prosecute at all. >> no wonder ambassador volker couldn't bring peace with ukraine and russia when he is having to waste his time on this kind of senseless nonsense. we look at how so much in the world has been stagnant because america is just not in a leadership role anymore. quite frankly because donald trump requires all of our envoys

around the world to focus on just nonsense. >> well, and it's more than random nonsense. this would be once again a country relying on american military aid to stand up to not canada. >> right. >> not mexico, russia. it would seem like nonsense but not random nonsense. once again this was someone who was stymied and the ukrainians were held back in their military defenses against russia because of political nonsense. >> not to pour another story under this fire, but i just noticed that abc is reporting more from the volker testimony. we have it confirmed and -- haven't confirmed but there are text messages from the acting ambassador there essentially to another diplomat saying, you know, what is this we are holding up this military aid to help a political campaign back home literally -- >> encrypted messages from the

abc report. >> in those words. a couple of things, number one, i would love to have the whistle-blower's sources. the whistle-blower had incredible insight into not just what people were saying and doing but what people were thinking. and that makes me think that the whistle-blower had really, really good sources. everything the whistle-blower has said has proved out. it's just amazing. and second i think there's going to be, you know, not one, not two, but probably six good stories that come out of this day-long deposition. i mean, it's obvious that volker is just laying it out with documents, with text messages, with everything else. >> and he has obviously some concerns, i would imagine, about his own not just reputation, but there would have to be legal concerns. it would appear to me that the president is treated separately by the southern district of new

york by robert mueller, by different entities. but the people around him have to know that they are not, that there could be an investigation. we don't have any reporting in any of your great news organizations. these people have to at least be concerned about potentially being co-conspirators. >> volker is exhibit a. remember they said we're going to hear from the state department people, and pompeo said no, you can't do this, and volker -- no, i'll come in. >> he was also the first person to resign. phil rucker, let me just take you back to these galling comments on departure today from donald trump where it was sort of the tv movie version of, you know, yeah, i called the code red. donald trump saying, you know, china, if you're listening, i want you -- it's not just -- this doesn't just work for the ukrainians and the russians. i want this to work for you too.

he seems to be trying to self-impeach. i'm so feeble i can't do this by myself. so let me use the levers of state craft to get help from foreign governments? >> yeah, nicole, i think a few things are going on here. first of all this is president trump just coming up with the message on the fly himself. we know that's how the communications operation in the west wing works. it's really driven by the demander in chief. burt it's also a flashback in that moment to the 2016 campaign when addressing our friend katy tur, president trump said, russia, if you're listening and then called on the russian government to find hillary clinton's missing emails and release them to the public. that was such a brazen statement. but it was said out loud in public to reporters on camera. we saw that again today with china. and it tells you that trump does not believe that there is anything improper with making a

request for election interference from a foreign government even though that's the subject of this impeachment inquiry. and it's what democrats are saying is not only improper, but a brazen violation of his constitutional obligations and oath of office. >> ambassador mcfaul, just to pick up on phil rucker's point, here are all the times he's colluded out loud. i think ashley parker writes it as saying the quiet part out loud. let's watch. >> we'll tell you this. russia, if you're listening, i hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. >> your campaign this time around, foreigners, if russia, if china, if someone else offers you information on opponents, should they accept it or should they call the fbi? >> i think you might want to listen. i don't think there's nothing wrong with listening. >> china should start an investigation into the bidens. because what happened to china is just about as bad as what

happened with ukraine. >> phil rucker, we lost ambassador mcfaul, but i think those were some of the examples that your paper cited in this idea that perhaps some of the strategy here is to numb the base, to numb the trump voter to all this conduct so that if and when he's impeached, part of the defense is, well, i told everybody i was colluding. it really is sort of the shifting defense of i never did anything with russia to, you know, damn right i asked russia for their help. >> i think that's right. there is one other thing to point out by the way in the context of the china comments this morning. he made that appeal to china to investigate the bidens almost immediately after discussing the trade negotiations. remember, the u.s. is locked in a pretty acrimonious trade war with china, and trump gave something of a threat to the chinese in those comments this morning. he said i have a lot of options with china and sort of intimidated -- or intimated that

he could be and then almost immediately went into the biden issue and, you know, it's interesting to see those two things aligned because it's similar conduct as we saw in the phone call from july 25th with the ukrainian president. >> it's quid meet quo. >> i have a lot of options on china. but if they don't do what we want, we have tremendous power. >> so phil rucker, this would again seem to corroborate the structural framework around the whistle-blower's red flag on ukraine that military aid was held up. that's a known known that donald trump pressed eight times in one call for an investigation into the bidens. that's a known known. donald trump's defense on that is murky to me. it has something to do with not tieing them together in the edited version of a transcript with lots of elippses that we've

seen not known for telling the truth. but there, as you said in, full view talking about threatening china saying if they don't do what we want, we have tremendous power. and in the next breath saying they should investigate the bidens. >> yeah. it's a connection there. and i think this is certainly a new episode that's going to come under scrutiny from the house democrats as they continue the impeachment inquiry. and the difference it was just all said out loud and on camera for the world to see this morning. you don't need a whistle-blower in this case. you don't need a complaint. you don't need people to come in and be deposed. you just need to watch that 30-second clip of film. >> ambassador mcfaul, i spoke to a u.s. government official today in the immediate aftermath of this. and he said basically what phil rucker just said that the president just did on live tv everything that was alleged in the whistle-blower complaint. do you think democrats would be wise to sort of move away from

haggling with this white house over transcripts and locked documents in a safe, and god knows what trump has in there since he's been writing checks to cover up affairs with porn stars from the oval. we can only use our imaginations. it's probably unimaginable what's in there and just move onto what's happening before our very eyes in realtime. >> yes, exactly. [ laughter ] the president doesn't seem to understand right from wrong. and he doesn't seem to have anybody around him advising him on that. and just leave the whistle-blower complaint out of it. just read the transcript. the right wing wants to look for a conspiracy behind this. the conspiracy is the person that made the decision to release that transcript. because everything you need to know is right there. the president of the united states tried to leverage u.s. taxpayer money to get another foreign government to investigate his opponent in the 2020 election. and then they tried to cover it

up full stop. you don't need to talk about anything else. there it is. i think we get off on these tangents who talked to who when and this transcript. it's there plain as day and that he doesn't see that it is there plain as day is still shocking to me. but it doesn't mean the facts are not just crystal clear. >> and i think, rick stengel, that's why you see public opinion swinging so quickly and so dramatically. cbs had a poll out last weekend before the president stood and attempted to sort of conspire with a foreign government. today swung to 55% of the public now supporting an impeachment inquiry. >> um, before i get to that, you threw up the ball and i'm going to whack it about what trump said about china. crossing the t is he gave them so much leverage in the negotiations when he said maybe china should look into this. maybe i'll talk to them about that. the chinese can go, well, mr. president, we will start looking into that if you start

reducing our tariffs. it's the worst negotiating tactic i've ever seen. the reason why it is getting traction is that it's so easily understandable. you have the transcript and he's saying, hey, if you do this for me, i'll do that for you. i mean, even using the word favorite, that's a word that mafia dons used. absolutely everybody gets it. >> real quick. >> i was going to say it's exactly why you see the strategy from the white house now is to focus on the process for how the facts got in. they are all in on the quid. they're like this happened, we did it, it's great, collusion is great, everyone does it. >> but can you believe how the democrats heard about it in a couple of days in advance? that's their strategy. >> and that's some great reporting from your newspaper. but i think that a timeline that came out even days before that also in your paper put the general counsel at the cia as the first government official to find out about the substance of the whistle-blower's concerns and what she did was go to the white house counsel's office. the white house counsel's office

knew about it before everybody else. the process is still incredibly incriminating for this white house. >> that's right. and the whistle-blower was permitted to go to house intel with these allegations. it's in the statute. so when he felt that he was not getting enough response from within the agency, they went to the house. it's good that if they're covering it up, of course you go outside the administration. >> and especially if the general counsel. i've talked to a couple intel sources who say that there is nowhere in the process where the general counsel from the cia has it as her next step to take it to the white house counsel's office. that is not in any statute. >> no. it's only weird if you think that somehow a whistle-blower is obligated to not blow the whistle. that's the point of this whole thing. something bad happens, they're like i got to tell somebody. >> it's an odd way to defend against impeachment. but just continuing to do impeachable things, they will

never catch up. >> it's a great way of defending against impeachment. >> all right. we have to sneak in a break. as the impeachment inquiry sweeps uf donald trump's yes men, vice president pence brings out his hear no evil, see no evil defense. but will it hold up? we'll bring you the latest reporting from "the washington post." how did rudy's package make their ways to the united states secretary of state in and what did he do with them? the watchdog at the state department turning over a trove of conspiracy related leads to congress. nbc news got a look at them. we will bring you that report and new holes in the political firewall around donald trump as fox news go wobbly on the president. all those stories coming up. (bobby) with your hearing, if you start having a little trouble, you're concerned that it's going to cost you money. (ben) to this day, i only paid what i had to pay for the device. when i go back, everything is covered.

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and country demanding foreign governments' help in dirtying up the biden family, his number two is seeking to distance himself from the whole ugly episode. if we are to believe that the man who has been nothing but duty and subservient really knew nothing of trump's requests to get the ukrainian president to investigate the bidens. from a stunning new report in the "washington post," an account of what the vice president knew and when he knew it. one of pence's top advisers is on the july 25th call, and the vice president should've had access to the transcript within the hour, officials said. but despite that potentially incriminating fact, his aides insist he was in the dark. quote, officials close to pence insist that he was unaware of trump's efforts to press zelensky for damaging information about biden and his son. but the "post" also reports that pence was ultimately involved to communicate with the ukrainian leader about corruption which the ukrainians understood to

mean investigate biden. vens conveyed the news that hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to ukraine was not going to be released. ukraine's president had already spoken to trump and was familiar with the president's demands. pence did not mention biden or the dormant probe. but former officials said that pence's emphasis on corruption probably would've been interpreted by zelensky as code for that issue. whether the vp intended it or not. ambassador mcfaul and phil rucker back along with the table. it's more fantastic reporting from you and your colleagues. the point seems to be that pence didn't know about the words investigate biden and his son, but he was very much in on and a collaborator in holding up military aid until the ukrainians did something, got tough on corruption.

is that right? >> i think that's about right, nicole. he definitely delivered the corruption message when he met with president zelensky in early september which was a period when the aid was being held up and before it was released. you know, look, the argument that my reporter colleagues heard from the white house was that the vice president was unaware of the request to biden about biden. i don't know if that's actually true. it doesn't quite add up for a couple of reasons. one is that the vice president's national security adviser keith kellogg listened in on that call that trump had with president zelensky. so would've been aware of everything that the president said to his ukrainian counterpart. and the other thing it just doesn't fit tight for pence. he is actually quite studious. he's somebody who tends to read his briefing materials who tends to do his homework to be prepared for foreign visits certainly and for sessions with forren leaders.

he is unlike president trump in that regard. so the idea that he would sit down with the president of ukraine without actually reading the transcript of trump's call with ukraine or about being briefed on those contents is a little difficult to imagine. but at this point we just take the white house's word at face value, i guess. >> ambassador mcfaul, i get to talk to rachel maddow about her new book tomorrow. it's really long, longer than the notes i'm sure from this call. and i had a three-hour train ride and i read the whole way. what are the chances that the vice president didn't read the notes from the call with the world leader he was flying to meet? >> well, i just want to be clear just like phil, i don't know the facts. but let me speculate. i used to work at the white house. i used to be on these calls. i used to travel with vice president biden when he went to meet leaders including the ukrainian leader one time. here is the deal. why was the national security adviser for the vice president on the call in the first place?

that is very strange. he's on the call because they're about to go meet with mr. zelensky. number two, the transcript is, what, six, seven pages long? it's a 30-minute call. the flight to warsaw is eight hours. i find it absolutely impossible to believe that he wouldn't want to know every single word that the president of the united states said to president zelensky before meeting with him. it just does not sound credible. and number three, why do you think all these people are on this call? why do you think secretary of state pompeo is on the call? secretary clinton was not on a single call i did in the white house for three years. they are on the call because they are nervous about what the president of the united states is going to say on these calls. and that's precisely why they would want to know before they meet with mr. zelensky. so maybe it's true, i don't find it credible. >> let's get in the weeds because our viewers know as much about all these characters as any of us.

john bolton wasn't on the call. >> shocking. >> john bolton has made it clear that he opposed holding up military aid for ukraine to protect themselves from russia. it would appear that the people who were on the call were po early part of the cleanup crew. it would appear that he were looking from the outside and i don't have any insights into why bolton wasn't on the call. but i do know it's been reported by multiple news organizations that eopposed donald trump holding up aid. he was trying to get him to release that aid. what are the chances that they are all witnesses to conversations that took place before the call that they all have a lot more information that has already spilled into public view, and what is the possibility of knitting together evidence that they all knew for this entire period that aid was held up, but it all hinged on an investigation into the bidens? >> so, nicole, i think you're

getting into some really important stuff here. and let's go through the mechanics of a presidential phone call. number one, there is a set of talking points that in normal times are prepared and briefing points. so the question i want to know just like you are asking is who is doing the,,quote/unquote, prebrief for the president before he made this call. number two, i want to just emphasize for your viewers. it's just extraordinary to me that secretary of state pompeo was on the call. i want to know where he was. was he in the residence sitting with the president? and if he was, most certainly they would have rehearsed about what was being talked about. and when secretary pompeo says i'm there because i know the policy better than anyone else, i wondered, well, why is john bolton not there? that is the normal job of the national security adviser, not the secretary of state. and moreover, when he says that, if you look at the content of the call, none of the substance

of u.s./ukrainian relations was discussed. you didn't see the president saying i'm going to stand with you and fight nor your sovereignty and territorial integrity and we support democracy, all the normal talking points. none of that was in there. so it suggests to me that this was an important call for the purposes that we now know. one other tidbit, the next day, mr. volker is in kiev. that suggests to me that this was all coordinated. i want to be clear i don't know that, but it suggests to me that the main purpose of the call was exactly what we've been focused on, this quid pro quo that the president asked for. >> and, elise, not to knit together disparate data points, but these are all information points in full view. and for a white house whose brand is, oh, our campaign couldn't coordinate with our press office, it is hard for me to believe that these are coincidental data points. congress was already investigating holding up

military aid. it's extraordinary for u.s. secretary of state -- this is the work of staffers to staff a presidential call with the leader of ukraine. and mike pence who's national security adviser also had a listen-only line -- also had a listen line. this was a call that a lot of thought went into, a lot of people reorganized their day to listen to, and this was a call where donald trump asked for dirt on biden. >> what an interesting coincidence, nicole. i can't imagine how mike pence actually feels right now. he has to be quaking a little bit. and you can see from the leaks from the, oh, he's just the useful idiot, he's just going on a major international trip to meet with a world leader, and he doesn't do any of his homework before, so that's his actual defense, that's what mike pence wants you to believe according to the sources close to him quoted in the "post." and i think that this is just as

damaging for mike pence because at the end of the day, there are too many people who have their fingerprints in this. >> and you have to believe if you're going to take pence's story at face value, you have to believe that at no point did he hear the president or rudy giuliani ranting and raving about the bidens and ukraine and crowd strike or whatever that thing is that they talk about. and so he goes over there and impresses them at the cost of their aid with their aid in the balance to get tough on corruption. you have to believe he has no idea this is about the bidens? >> tom bossert worked for pence too. so he revealed to the in a sunday show that he spent his tenure there trying to disavow donald trump in his belief in some whacky ukrainian server in

crowd strike. but you have to believe that not only did pence's national security adviser cover up what he heard on the call from pence thinking maybe he will be president in six weeks, but he also was immune to all the efforts that came before that call from bossert and others to disavow donald trump. >> since we're all speculating i will speculate too. i assume that pence is trying to carve out some plausible deniability that i'm not going to talk to zelensky about the bidens so he can leak this story saying that he didn't know it. and i have another explanation for everybody being on the call. and mike knows ten times more about this than i do, and it's another organized crime reference. it's like the mafia don that wants to get everybody dirty and in on the call at the same time. it's like i want you to know about this, i want you to know biso i have leverage over all of you. i want mud on all of you. that's why everybody was there.

>> let me just for the record i don't think there's any evidence that this was leaked to "the washington post." this was dug up, investigated and put in the paper. but i hear your point that when pressed this was the story that -- >> that was a leak. >> well, phil rucker, do you want to get the last word here? >> this was strong investigative reporting by my colleagues and just one piece of context as we think about vice president pence and this conversation. he spends a lot of the day around president trump. he is in the oval office for tons of meetings. he is around the president more often than a vice president normally is. and so he hears a lot. and they have a lot of casual conversations together. >> they sure do. i hear you. phil rucker, thank you and congrats on this reporting and all the reporting on this story. ambassador mcfaul, thank you so much for providing such great context for this conversation. we are back in a few minutes with a look inside rudy's disinformation dossier, the one he personally delivered to the

state department. brand-new nbc news reporting on that story next.

it is not only a conspiracy theory. it is completely debunked. at this point i am deeply frustrated with what he and the legal team is doing and repeating that debunked theory to the president. it sticks in his mind when he hears it over and over again. for clarity here, george, let me just again repeat that it has no validity. if he continues to focus on that white whale, it's going to bring him down enough. >> that was donald trump's former homeland security adviser tom bossert clearly exasperated with the propaganda. he was talking about fighting annulhill battle desperately trying to convince donald trump to let it go, to shake loose the debunked conspiracy theories he obsesses over and clings to.

and new reporting about where those delusions come from. nbc news has read through that folder presented to congress yesterday by the state department's inspector general. the packet contains material rudy giuliani collected, interview notes and unproven allegations having to do with the bidens as well as unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about president biden to help hillary clinton with ukraine. rudy giuliani says he presented those findings directly to secretary pompeo in march. in response he was told the state department would take up an investigation. but the material kong reng looked over yesterday included 20 pages of communications between state departments and employees working to push back what they call the fake narrative that giuliani was pushing. this was right in your wheel house of disinformation, the american version. >> and it's inside the wheel house of the state department

and the white house. i am sure pompeo was the last thing he wanted to do was up accept that sheaf of papers from rudy giuliani. [ laughter ] if he was is that right he would have had an aid so he could say i never touched it myself. it's sort of a scary process whereby trump seems to look at every institution and government as some organization to affect his conspiracy theories. that's how he's using the state department. giuliani was using the state department like it's a third-rate detective agency. >> shocking but maybe it shouldn't be. >> you can see in bossert's frustration. imagine if you're a career expert, a subject matter expert, a foreign affairs expert, security expert, and you're part of the american government which for all its faults is a pretty great institution around the world. it's being turned into an instigator of the common section on breitbart or whatever. literally it is being perverted to give life to these made-up

accusations. and, you know, in the clip earlier from the president he couldn't even get out a straight sentence explaining what the allegation was. that's a good sign of two things. he can't speak intelligibly when he's under pressure. and, two, there is no allegation. they can't even phrase it in a way that's direct. >> it is a great point and it's 4:49, it shouldn't take us 49 minutes to make it. there is no voracity to any of these allegations about the bidens. >> no. it's just all crazy stuff. and what trump is trying to do i think is create the sort of aura of sleeze around the name biden. and i think he would settle for that if he were able to do that. so in a sense it doesn't really matter to him what the specific aels is supposed to be as long as people associate biden and sleeze, biden and bad. and he continues to hammer at

that. you know, you talk about an expert, country expert in the state department. no one is an expert to donald trump more than expert to donald trump on anything he knows something about. >> it is amazing though that it took a whistleblower almost on the third year to disclose all of this. this is obviously the mo. >> it took a whistleblower to state the obvious about all the crazy and all the legality that defines donald trump's presidency. i still can't get over rudy giuliani giving the fake package to secretary pompeo and italy there is a picture circulating o on twitter how it was photoshopped. the white house's logo. a knock off version and it is kind of symbolic of how wrong everything is going right now

with the administration that rudy giuliani is considered a serious person by donald trump that he's one of the only human beings on earth who is giving some credence to this theory that president trump's own former homeland security advisor went on network on sunday morning tv to say this is crazy. this is just nuts. >> maybe the general there before. maybe there were better guard rails than we realize. >> i don't know. >> when we come back, it will be the break up of the country. fox news firewall that are emerging and turning into a real rupture between the president and his favorite news network. roger goode we'll bring you the latest next. e'll bring you the latest next know what i mean? so, i switched. to always discreet boutique. its shape-hugging elastic threads smooth out the area that people notice most. so it fits better than depend. and, the super absorbent core turns liquid to gel.

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he eheld up that aide and instead asked for a favor which arguably for his campaign. that was a violation of federal law. that was an impeachable effect. that's what the democrats are seek to investigate instead of a phonetic lawyer on television trying to make joe biden look worse. the president should present a principle defense if he has one. the democrats have a lot of evidence against him. >> the facts look relatively surprising. fox news senior analyst, members of the conservative media coming around some of trump's conduct. the washington examiner, trump

keeps making it harder for supporters to defend them. crack z in trump's firewall he's beginning to lose his grip. they're just blitz on the radar. i watch this space because as much as i love and revere all of you and your institutions and your papers, trump's base is proven to be unmoved by what the paper is written. >> judge napolitano is being consisted in his views and that's reflected as he gives a fact-based presentation outside fox news, outside the studio. that's what struck me the most of judge napolitano. he was standing outside of fox news. >> jeraldo herrera --

>> he's probably right. what this reveals in some way, there are any broader idealog a idealogical stake here of the things that trump is doing. the president doing crazy stuff to save his own skin. it is all about power. i am not surprised you will have some people on the conservative network come out and say this is not right. this is wrong. the news anchors on fox news, chris wallace have been in the business of doing brilliant newscasting the entire -- >> the way he put together the show. >> and the fact-checked. he's taking the other conspiracy. >> they have been consistent and tough on chris wallace.

he himself covering this president like he would cover any president. but, the primetime anchors, oh, forget about it. they're for this president no matter what he does. imagine something he can do to sean hannity. >> sean hannity would have saved richard nixon. there were tapes of him corrupting officials and obstructing of justice. and the analogy is not that sean hannity would have saved him. republicans started pealing off and could not endorse nixon for anything and finally had to go for impeachment. >> do you think that's where we are heading? >> i don't know. >> i know jim jordan was given a fact-based push back from jay

tapper and a brilliant interview. do you think republicans are looking up to see some of their spokespersons? >> scaffolding of the transcript of the call and what happened afterwards just so people could see why this was a true obstruction of justice. >> do you think there is a right wing version of the walte walter -- where the right loses still in the blank. they basically got trump to shut down the government for the wall. who is that person? >> that's interesting. i hate to give this individual so much credit because i think it is brazen of what he's done. he's way smarter and knows better, i think he could be a big shift if he lost tucker. i don't think donald trump ever has to worry about losinining s.

>> my thanks to most of all, thanks to you for watching. i will be back at 9:00 filling in for my friend, rachel maddow. >> chuck todd starts now with "mtv daily." >> welcome to thursday. it is "meet the press daily." i am chuck todd here in washington. i will say this lightly. let's be frank, the national nightmare is upon us. we begin tonight with a series admission of the president. republicans have been silent on what we have seen from the president. he called on two foreign governments to