me. in fact if you you have your iphone out, put a little calendar reminder this sunday on msnbc. don't go anywhere because up next it's "hardball" with chris matthews. okay, i did it. let's play hardball. good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. flustered and defiant president trump is throwing caution to the wind tonight giving congress even more grounds to impeach him for extorting a u.s. ally. answering the question he refused to address yesterday, trump today gave a detailed confession of the misconduct of some center of his call with ukrainian president zelensky. trump said his goal in that conversation was to get ukraine to deliver dirt on joe biden. >> mr. president, what exactly

did you hope zelensky would do about the bidens after your phone call? >> 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. >> simple and incriminating. that's what trump wanted from ukraine as he withheld u.s. military support from president zelensky conditioning that support with these infamous words, i would like you to do us a favor, though. under increasing scrutiny trump is brazenly admitting in public now to the favor he asked in private. even worse he's now using his bully pulpit as president to publicly solicit more foreign dirt on joe biden. this time from china. >> 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.

i haven't, but certainly something we could start thinking about. >> another bombshell exploded late today as the house committees deposed their first witness in the unfolding impeachment inquiry itself. "the washington post" reports the former special envoy to ukraine ambassador kirk volker testified today he warned giuliani he was receiving ukrainian information from political figures about joe biden. text messages also appear to show even trump's ambassador to ukraine believed u.s. military support was being withheld from that country to benefit trump politically. according to those text messages obtained by abc news the ambassador told american diplomats in september, quote, i think it's crazy to with hold security assistance for help with a political campaign. taylor was rebuked by the eu

ambassador who replied he was incorrect and trump has been crystal clear and no quid pro quo of any kind. after that message they recommended they stop putting their conversations in writing. how's that? let's go quiet here. i was joined by a member of the house intelligence committee, thank you, congresswoman. heidi, an msnbc correspondent, joshu joshua. >> what is going on with the president of the united states basically saying oh, yeah, okay, i did it? i was trying to extort this guy for dirt on a political rival and i used my power as president to do it? >> and not just that, then turning around and publicly stating on the south lawn of the white house, hey, chinafurb you're listening we'd like your help here too which reminded me so much of that moment in 2016

where the president called out to risha saying, hey, if you have hillary's e-mails, we'd like to see them. this is president who doesn't seem to think he's done anything wrong here, believes there's nothing wrong with him using political power like this to help his presidential campaign. and using the strategy of really just spilling it out in the open here. >> what is that strategy? shoot the moon? >> it's something that happened him in the mueller hearing where if you just put it out there it winds up in his opinion helping to make it seem a little less nefarious. >> congresswoman, i wonder whether admitted corruption somehow eases the smell of corruption. >> you know, this president has been the master of deflection, and i think that what he's doing by invoking china to also interfere is he's normalizing a pattern of presidential abuse. and frankly, it just goes to show why it's really important that we have -- we do this impeachment inquiry and we get

to the bottom of all the facts. we have to follow the facts where they lead us. and frankly this president is doing a lot of the hard work right in plain view for us. >> well, the envoy over there volker has pointed out directly this president was engaged in trying to irk tort political dirt on a rival, joe biden, with military support for that country. >> we're still interviewing volker as we speak so i can't confirm or deny what he said, but i can say this president is doing all the talking even by his own admission asked the ukraine to look into joe biden and his son. he by his own admission asked russia to find those e-mails from hillary clinton. he by his own admission has now asked china to interfere in our elections. and chris, i have to tell you for me a person who represents alabama's seventh congressional district, a civil rights district, i cannot believe we have a president in the oval office who would literally try

to mess with our -- interfere with our elections and actually go to the very heart of the integrity of our elections. >> talk about the civil rights district. >> my district includes birmingham, the town of selma. >> all the history. >> montgomery, alabama, also includes tuscaloosa, and my district is proud of the fact, ordinary people have the temerity, audacity to make america live up to the ideals and in order to do that they fought, bled, marched for the right to vote. and i think that this president has using his own power, presidential power for political and personal gain is actually incredulous and frankly something that is worthy of an inquiry. >> maybe the reality doesn't matter. i said this many times, the essence of corruption in public life is taking public trust and trading it for private interest, and that's what we've got here. this guy the ambassador bill taylor over there saying this

was always going on over there, we were holding up another country for dirt on a political rival here at home. >> you see those sorts of warnings from people who realize this is not the way our government is supposed to work. diplomacy can be complicated, u.s. policy can be complicated. but it can't be abusing public office for private gain. >> i thought we all knew it. i guess trump comes from a different world, a smellier world. this comes as "the washington post" reveals how a low rudy giuliani will go to traffic in disinformation that benefits this president. giuliani recently consulted with trump's convicted campaign manager palm manafort. quote, in pursuit of information he thinks would somehow show ukrainian efforts to support hillary clinton. not only that but giuliani has claimed responsibility for a mistariomi mysterious package of documents, there's one up there in the

left, to secretary mike pompeo delivered to the state department this march. those documents contain unproven allegations of disinformation targeting joe biden and the former ambassador to ukraine who trump later removed. nbc news reports according to giuliani, quote, he personally gave pompeo the file of documents and was told that the state department would take up an investigation of those claims, an assurance that pompeo now denies making. "the wall street journal" also reports trump removed the former ambassador to ukraine after quote, complaints from allies outside the administration, including giuliani she was obstructing efforts to investigate joe biden. heidi, it's not just the moat between here and mexico. he has crocodiles, alligators and snakes in. it's in this letter, the stuff rudy sent to pompeo, all this garbage and disinformation. >> we almost don't need the whistle-blower to come forward at this point with everything

coming out. these are the documents obtained last night by our colleague, and what they show was an orchestrated campaign, chris, that goes all the way back to january by giuliani and others in the administration to basically fabricate a story around the bidens and press the former prosecutor general of ukraine into actually going on the hill tv and making false allegations. you have the top anti-corruption expert in ukraine who i interviewed this week who said that there is no basis to these allegations. and so all of these documents are now going to back up this case against rudy giuliani, against the president. and you have in them as well documents from state department employees raising alarm about this and saying this is disinformation, what do we do? how do we push back on this? what have they done in moskow and the embassy in moskow to push back on disinformation if

they didn't know initially it was coming from rudy giuliani, but they believed it was a well financed operation that was under way for months. >> here you have an envelope but it has the white house on the upper left side, and it's written in calligraphy. it was everything but scented, this envelope. and it doesn't look like a government document. it's dirt being passed around but in this case not by some furtive nobody, the president's lawyer, rudy giuliani, america's mayor is out dumping this stuff on the secretary of state. >> you know, rudy giuliani doesn't have any official title in this administration. hids t he is the president's lawyer, but what becomes increasingly more apparent and that's what this investigation is all about, getting to the bottom of it. but what seems to be happening

is he's having foreign governments do his own aupop-ed his own opposition research into his political opponents. and not only is that illegal, it is an extreme abuse of power. >> josh, that's the question i get to. and i think it's going to turn this thing. it's not about ethics and some sort of clash you take in government, but about protecting the country. we have a military alliance with a country vulnerable to the russian. i grew up, i guess we all grew up in the '40s, '50s and '60s worrying about russia and under the war saw pact, controlled by russia. and now we get this situation and a major breaking story just now from "the new york times" we're learning two top enjoys drafted a statement that would have committed ukraine pursuing investigations sought by mr. trump into his two political rivals. that's according to three people briefed on the effort. michael schmidt from "the new

york times" joins me right now. michael, explain how this fits into this whole saga? >> so you have the july call that we all know about now where the issue of these investigations comes up. a month later in august the president's top diplomats to ukraine are drafting a statement that the president of ukraine can put out that says he will commit to investigating these matters. so it shows the next step that came after the call. now, these diplomats were trying to assuage trump and giuliani. they knew how obsessed they were with ukraine and knew how much it was bogging down the united states relationship with the country, and that they needed to sort of pacify them in order to get the rest of the relationship to and they would be committing

to the investigation, and they would actually move forward with it. >> was this done with more reservation by those two gentlemen -- in other words, they were giving them a document to put out. were they hoping that the government over there, zelensky's government would actually do it or just say so? >> well, i think they thought this was the key to getting giuliani to stop as we say in the story poisoning trump's mind about ukraine. they thought that it may get giuliani to sort of lay off and give the diplomats some room to do the work and move the relationship forward, perhaps bring the ukrainians over to washington for an oval office meeting to help them. obviously in the background of all this is the question of the aid and what was going on with the aide. we do not see in the story that they were doing this to unlock the aid. we don't have evidence of that. they were more trying to just

get the president and you'giuli to layoff and do their regular diplomatic work. >> josh, here's the question, even with a formal letter coming out from a couple of recommended, drafted by a couple of u.s. diplomats in the interest of pacifying the president, i can see the president saying i've got a paper here that says the ukrainians are investigating joe biden. they've had a lot less with that with benghazi and the e-mails. they can now say a foreign government joins me in saying there's some dirt there. >> that's right. you know, we talked about 2016 and the campaign then being infected by foreign disinformation. but in 2020 this is domestic disinformation. that's what rudy delivered -- >> put them out to foreigners. >> that's right. and to have that national security i think that's an abuse of power. >> the speaker nancy pelosi had

been resisting this call for impeachment on other grounds saw something here that was distinctly different which was not about misbehavior, misconduct or even generally corruption. it was corrupting u.s. interests who happens to be in the white house. >> this is a sobering moment ipamericin american history and sometimes history finds us. and we have to decide whether we're going to uphold the constitutional oath of our duty, or are we going to allow this president to continue to abuse his constitutional duty? >> and apparently also the vice president. because meanwhile officials close to vice president pence say -- well they say he was, quote, unaware of trump's efforts to pressure ukrainian president zelensky for damaging information about biden in early september when pence delivered the message to zelensky that u.s. military aid would remain

frozen. how's that for a message? that's according to a message from "the washington post" and white house officials who were suggesting that pence would have known. they're not letting him off the hook and untangling him. zelensky in september, it was a month ago, rudy giuliani's effort to get ukrainian durts on joe biden was already so well-known that pence was already asked about it just a day after his meeting with zelensky. here's that question from you, jill, you were onto it let's assume they were onto it. here goes. >> did you discuss joe biden at all during that meeting yesterday with the ukrainian president, and number two can you assure ukrainian that the hold up of that money has nothing to do with efforts including by rudy giuliani to try to dig up dirt on the biden family? >> well, on the 1st question the answer is no. but with president zelensky yesterday we discussed -- we

discussed america's support for ukraine and the upcoming zpigz the president will make on the latest traurch of financial support in great detail. >> he didn't answer about the connection between that latest traunch. >> there's been all these conversations between the president and zelensky about what their definition of corruption was, and the mere mention of that word and that conversation would automatically have referred to this dirt they were looking for. this is such an interesting moment for mike pence who up until this point has been pretty successful has been somehow very loyal to the president. but not getting wrapped up in all of the controversy surrounding it. >> it reminds me of a lobster tank when the lobster tries to climb out of the tank and the other lobster pulls the person

back in. >> there are a lot of lobsters in the tank. >> there's much more to come out. the whistleblow, you know, the i.g. is going to be giving his report just on friday and he -- >> going to fill in a lot of the blanks from that whistle-blower complaint and there'll be other white house officials who were in on that call. >> the news gods keep bringing news and this is scary time for our republic. and i've got to tell you anybody happy about this is crazy because the president was flawed before this. now he's really done it to himself. i think he's impeaching himself, anyway he did it again today. thank you, great reporting. coming up the white house is just hours away from a deadline

to turn other documents to congress or face subpoenas. what are the next steps if the trump administration continues to stonewall, and how do we get to an impeachment vote before thanksgiving, that's my deadline. presidential candidate cory booker joins me next. and what is the white house hiding about the ukraine call for how about this, the word for word transcript? where's that baby? >> i knew many people were on the phone. not only were many people on the phone, we had stenaugrfers on the phone taking it down word for word. >> and where's that word for word document? the president says every word was written down, but there were telltale signs that the memo the white house released of that call is not the whole thing. where's the rest of it? we've got much more to get to. stick with us. f it we've got much more to get to. stick with us. motor?

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welcome back to "hardball." in the eye of the storm and under siege president trump today publicly called on two foreign countries to help him get dirt on a political adversary. it was a stunning public admission, confession really after a week of being accused of doing the very same thing in a private call with the ukrainian president. for more i'm joined by u.s. senator cory booker of new jersey. you're frowning and i see why, but tell me what do you make of this news breaking tonight from a number of sources, diplomatic, foreign service officers that this president was determined to cut a deal whereby he sold u.s. good will, military support, whatever, the whole shebang to get dirt on a potential rival for re-election? >> so, chris, i think ware going to continue to find more and more disturbing things as this investigation goes on. but these facts as i see them right now are absolutely

unacceptable. remember ukraine is under attack, a hot war, the invasion by the russians. we share that common adversary. they're attacking the united states, and we were holding up aid that both parties in congress agreed to deliver because this president was trying to pursue his own petty personal political agenda. that is absolutely outrageous, absolutely unacceptable, violating his oath of office. and again this is just the beginning of this investigation. >> when do you think of the allies in this? and the more i cover it and the more you see it as a political leader, it seems like he's not in this alone. he's got people in cahoots with him. he's got rudy giuliani he was once looked up to in this country in a great way, and now he's working for him. looks like secretary of state pompeo is with him, certainly attorney general barr is with him on this. and it just seems like it's a new political party. there's not a republican party.

it's a trump party, and they're up to no good. >> well, clearly there's a lot of implications, shadow of implication extending over other administrative people, other cabinet secretaries, and this investigation must continue, but just understand this, we have his private attorney seemingly dictating foreign policy but whether even an ambassador stays in their position, this is absolutely outrageous and unacceptable behavior that is a violation of the values of not for both parties, republicans and democrats, but these are just basically american values being undermined here of a president that seems to think that office is his and does not belong to the people of the united states of america. >> back in 2016 a bipartisan group of your senate colleagues sent a letter to the then ukrainian president urging him to press ahead with urgent reforms. the letter was cosigned by ohio senator rob portman, mark kirk

in other words senate republicans including mr. johnson joined the vice president in calling for the ukrainian prosecutor to be pushed out. earlier this month senator johnson apparently forgetting he signed that letter urged attorney general bill barr to look into that context. this seems to be a problem mentally. i know your a road scholar but they don't seem to be able to remember anything. the other day kevin mccarthy didn't know that the president conditioned the military aid by saying i want a favor from you, though. he thought the reporter cooked up the word. they're not -- how can these people on the other side of the aisle get so distracted from this horrible situation the president's taken us into? your colleagues, they're out to lunch. >> look, this is time where it's unacceptable, we cannot be blinded by partisanship. there is enough here for everybody in congress to be agreeing that we should be doing a thorough investigation, and

both parties, none of us should take glee in this. this is a sad very sobering moment we should look with an objective eye where the facts take us. and so partisanship, you're surrendering your deeper patriotism. this calls for right now for us to be states people in the united states senate and demand that we follow the evidence and get to the facts of this. because if it goes where it seems to be leading, this president has betrayed his office and the american people. >> let's talk about the american people and your concerns about young americans especially kids, really young did who are in poverty, in tough situations. what can you do? you're talking about a new proposal. >> yeah, i'm frustrated. this is one of the reasons why i'm happy to be running for president to bring issues up. we have 170 policy plans between all of us candidates, but we're not talking about child poverty. so i put forward a very comprehensive plan that according to columbia university that doesn't even take the

totality of my actions would cut child poverty by about two thirds. we as a country don't understand poverty has its costs. children living in poverty costs our country about a trillion dollars a year. in a global knowledge based economy the most natural resource we have it the genius of our children, and we're scondering it by regulating a disproportionate than all our peer nation. there are evidence based plans we can do to reduce poverty, and i have a very aggressive plan to do it, and that will ultimately empower millions of children to be successful to add to our economy as posed to the costs we're seeing right now by being a nation that doesn't have that courageous empathy to really address these issues. >> thank you for coming on bawl tonight. got another debate coming up. up next, donald trump says we had stenographers on the phone taking it down word for word. so where is that word for word

transcript of that damning call with the ukrainian president? he says he's got it. where is it? you're watching "hardball." where is it? you're watching "hardball. (gasp) (singsong) budget meeting! sweet. if you compare last quarter to this quarter... various: mmm. it's no wonder everything seems a little better with the creamy taste of philly, made with fresh milk and real cream. i felt i couldn't be at my best for my family. in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured and left those doubts behind. i faced reminders of my hep c every day.

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are you aware of the installation of any listening dedevicd devices in the oval office of the president? >> i was aware of listening devices, yes, sir.

>> well, there it is. welcome back to "hardball." that was the voice of fred thompson, later u.s. senator, but then republican counsel of the nixon committee questioning alexander butterfield. yesterday president trump claimed the white house possesses a word for word exact transcript of the july 25th phone call conversation that's at the center of the impeachment inquiry right now. >> not only were many people on the phone, we had stenographers on the phone taking it down word for word. they didn't know that i had a transcript done by very, very talented people, word for word, comma for comma done by people who do it for a living. we had the exact trapt. >> so where's the exact transcript right now? it's certainly not the one the white house released of that conversation. on the first page of that memo it was released and there's a disclaimer saying not a verbatim transcript, that's what it says

on the document and was put by white house people by trump. and for more i'm joined by katrina mulligan and also held positions at doj and dni, national intelligence. trump is very clear about this, verbatim, word for word done by stenographers but no one could claim that a ten minute memo which covers ten minutes is a 30 minute conversation. what's going on? >> well, what we saw in the memorandum of conversation which is what we call this type of call summary, it's a summary. it's not intended to be a verbatim transcript. it was also struck by the president's remarks about the verbatim transcript and the stenographers. it's possible that he has no idea how these are produced,

that's one possibility. the other possibility is that they've deviated from past practice. they certainly have in other areas, and, you know, there may be such a transcript that exists, but if there is one it certainly isn't this. >> let's talk about this because we've also got as part of this story, the fact that this white house, this president squirrels away conversations they think around him that could get him into trouble. they put in this distant sort of form, some kind of secrecy i don't know if they're reachable or not, some server. and my question is that where the real actual document is, because what he put out is not a word for word verbatim. >> so i think there are a lot of questions swirling around this secret server concept. and what i think is important for people to understand is when i was at the national security counsel staff, everyone that was handling classified information had access to seekiate and top

secret systems at their workstations and that's where almost everything you need in order to do your job is held. this separate server that people are talking about is one that is kept in the intelligence directorate. it's really only for the handling of really intelligent sources and methods information. and it's not typically a place where you would store, you know, something of a lower classification or something that is -- the only reason to put something in that server is because you are trying to keep it from other people that work at the white house. >> that's what i was thinking of doing, and i've got the reporting at the white house, they have a place they could put stuff that could embarrass this president because he said something in telephone conversations or the oval office that could get him in trouble. anyway, "the washington post" points out the use of certain markings in the white house memo such as ellipsies has fueled

questions. and two of those surrounding the idea ukraine was in possession of the dnc server that was hacked during the 2016 election. a third was used when trump pressed the ukrainian president to investigate the former vice president joe biden. here's how it shows up. quote, biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you could look into it dot dot dot, it sounds horrible to me. ellipsies mean i took something out for whatever reason. angus king reitsited the entire memo and came out to about 30 minutes. where's the other 20 minutes? >> i think there's no question that the memo in the public domain is incomplete, there's no question about tat. i think because this president is as untrustworthy as he is, because he's shown himself and the people around them have shown themselves to be willing

to hide information, i think we have to get to the bottom of the question you're asking. but i think the bigger point that can't be lost as we try to look for whatever else might be uncovered what's already in the public domain is already enough. >> i want to say something about the suspicions i have about this president. he calls people who alerted the whistle-blower to what was in that conversation, spies. you can't deny this is the way he looks at it. people who put out honest information, factual information about what he's doing, he calls them spies. he didn't say they got it wrong, in this case the fake media. he says they put it out and they're spies. anyway, thank you, katrina. i think we've got to find this transcript because then we'll really get it all. but we may not need it. president trump has assembled a one man war room, so far his strategy appears to resolve around lots of angry tweeting, making fun of people, calling him shifty schiff and that sort

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welcome back to "hardball." president trump's now open admission he wants ukraine and now china to dig up dirt on the bidens is just the latest evidence the white house has been struggling to respond to the ever growing ukraine scandal and impeachment inquiry, the president is not. "the new york times" reports that for his all by myself strategy president trump has long believed he himself the best communicator in the white house. but as the presidential campaign picks up his pace and the prospect of impeachment becomes more real, he seems to be the only empowered communicator, a one man war room he is responding to the developments almost hour by hour. what's left is mr. trump acting alone and poised to live tweet his own impeachment, complete

with all caps obscenities, alarming accusations of treason and warnings that impeachment is really a coup. that's how he's really behaving as house speaker nancy pelosi and chairman adam schiff that came into stark relief. attacking pelosi as trying to win an election through impeachment, calling schiff a -- this is the roy cohn part of this guy -- a lowlife. and saying democrats are wasting everyone's time and energy on b.s. he actually used the word in all caps. not content to stop there the president continued to rage in his public appearances again on yesterday. >> he should resign from office in disgrace, and frankly they should look at him for treason calling him shifty schiff. we don't call him shifty schiff for nothing. he's a shefty dishonest guy. he cannot carry his blank strap.

they've been trying to impeach me from the day i got elected. i've been going through this for three years. nancy pelosi hands out subpoenas -- you know she has to approve it. she hands out subpoenas like they're cookies. you want a subpoena, here you go, take them. >> cookies, i get it. shifty, i get it. but the president's one man war room has his republican allies in congress itching to responds if there is one. that's coming up. you're watching "hardball." e. that's coming up you're watching "hardball. it's been a long time since andrew dusted off his dancing shoes. luckily denture breath

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what do you make of this exchange? president zelensky says we are almost ready to buy more jaf javelins from the united states for defense purposes and president trump replies i would like you to do us a favor, though? >> you just added another word. >> no, it's in the transcript. >> he said i'll do a favor, though. >> it's in the transcript. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was house republican leader kevin mccarthy on a bad day out of his depth defending prum's call he never paid attention to. of course that call being with the ukrainian president because in fact the president did say, though. but "the new york times" reports the that trump views himself as his own best defender and is making many republicans anxious, and a little guidance for surrogates to spread a consistent message. even if he had developed one,

and in minimum coordination between the president's legal advisers and political ones. including mccarthy didn't know what to say there. one republican operative spoke to politico about the alarm among lawmakers and right now they'll duck and cover until they're on firmer footing. for more i'm joined by this from political experts and the former advisor to the hillary clinton campaign. there's a problem here. they don't know what to communicate. the president admits he did it, so how do they defend him against what he's admitting as of today, i tried to get dirt on a political opponent using my powers of the president of the united states. >> this is exactly his problem, chris. every time he's not satisfied instead of relying his staff and aid to fix the problems, he makes it worse. we're seeing it manifest itself now, but putting together a war room where you have a surrogate

operation, where you have a rapid response operation -- >> what about george steflopdous and even if you've got the smartest people in the world you've got to give them some hint on what the foundation is of their case? >> that's the 101, and you get those smart messengers in the room and they game it out, chris. they game it out. that's a big problem for a lot of republicans on the hill, there's no one gaming this out. and it's also sitting back waiting for the president to tweet or doing what he did today on the lawn and everybody with cameras and microphones to get in front of them to react. that's not gaming out the strategy, but when this reaches that pivotal point and it becomes really sear wrs, in other words full-blown impeachment trial under way, what do you do? who do you bring into the room at that moment? because the president's going to need legal advice, political advice, legislative advice.

but he is the only one who can give it. >> well, the republicans they're not just dodging questions from the media today. senator joni earnst of iowa, faced a tough question from a constitch wpt ba constituent back in iowa. >> where is the line? when are you guys going to say enough and stand up and say you know what i'm not backing any of this? >> okay, so president trump if i can say yay, nay, whatever the president is going to do what the president is going to do. oi don't care who it is, when it is, corruption is corruption and it should be combated. okay, we're going to move onto another question. but we can't determine that yet. >> the great thing about our constitution is that senators have to represent the entire state. >> yeah, that's right. you don't just put together your

favorites. somebody walks and say guess what, i'm a democrat, i've got some questions. >> yeah, chris, what we just witnessed there with the senator illustrates why the trump administration needs a war room on this. this is common sense knowledge and part of the reason why they're having difficulty wrapping their heads around how to do this, they will not go there and do this. this is career suicide. it's career suicide if you go into the administration on the communications side and also career suicide if you're putting together the trump war room defending something so overtly against the constitution, so overtly violates everything we stand for. you know, thanking that colonel there, that could have been lethal. but he's a young idealist that

opposed the war in vietnam and they turned it into not that he was a saint, but they got him out of and it wasn't the girlfriend or all that, that was the toughest thing, that letter. and they turned it around. >> that's the thing. it is that thing that comes to the table that we haven't seen yet that they're going to need someone in the room to turn it around and you're going to have the jody earnst of the world out there with microphones and constituents asking them questions they can't answer. >> you know how to do this, right? the president of the united states in this case says, okay, held up a military ally, ukraine, and i wanted some dirt. i said you can get your military assistance if you can give me some of this dirt, though. how do you defend that if you're really good at this business? >> i don't think, you can, chris. and furthermore if you try to go out there and defend this as a republican or especially in a

swing district and the maps get redrawn and maybe that more difficult, i think it's going to be very hard to go out there, 4, 6 years from now and this is the opposition research who defended trump when he was doing the indefensible. >> the way you do it in politics is you change the question, of course i'm guilty, but what side are you on? they did it when trump or ronald reagan lost the first. the issue isn't when he had a lousy debate, sure he had a lousy debate. so you go down to the districts that trump won, has 31 democratic congressional people, who represent now thanks to 2018 trump people. so you go to those people and say the lefties, the liberals, are you with them? that's the game i play -- >> i think you're right. i think that's a little bit of what trump has been trying to do when he has these sort of imp promptu moments and he has these sort of explosive outbursts we see in the last 24 hours is to

unite that side of it and try to push that part of the conversation. so where do you stand? are you with me, remember i'm the fighter. >> it's awful, dishonest but sometimes it works. up next, time to bring back the battle cry of the watergate days. release -- in this case release the transcript. you're watching "hardball." ase the transcript you're watching "hardball. at outback, steak & oh no, it's gone.ck. phew, it's back with lobster mac & cheese. it's gone again. oh, it's back with shrimp now! steak & lobster starting at only $15.99. hurry in before these three are gone again. outback steakhouse.

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a mystery remains about president trump's conditioning of u.s. military aid to ukraine on his getting dirt from the ukrainian president on his political enemies. was there as the president has said a word for word transcript of that conversation? is there somewhere among the government's hidden documents a verbatim account of what trump said and how many times and ways he told the ukrainian president that if he wants america's good will including the weapons he needs to fight the rugs, he better come up with dirt on joe biden. trump says a word for word transcript exists and rereesed a pair of good reasons to believe just that. a memo of the conversation i said released only has a third of the time of the reported 30-minute conversation with president zelensky. there are also ellipsies then memo and whether we're getting a full record of trump's dealings. until those questions are

answered and the mystery is resolved i'm inclined to paraphrase the battle cry of the watergate days, release the transcript. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. all in with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in". >> well are i would think if they're honest about it they'd start an investigation into the bidens. >> the president does it again. >> it's a very simple answer, they should investigate the bidens. >> like wise china should start an investigation into the bidens. >> and again. >> i would recommend they start an investigation into the bidens. >> the president commits impeachable offenses on camera yet again as damning new evidence emerges of the trump plan to shakedown ukraine. >> he feels he can do anything. >> tonight what we learn from donald trump's former envoy to ukraine. new reporting that rudy giuliani got trump to remove