carl bernstein, you've lived through this before. i'm sure you could relate to that column that i showed -- >> i remember that column. >> you are that column. chairman schiff made a comparison between president trump and nixon in his closing statement. watch this, and then we'll talk. >> what we've seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the democratic headquarters. what we're talking about here is the withholding of recognition in that white house meeting, the withholding of military aid to an ally at war. that is beyond anything nixon did. the difference between then and now is not the difference between nixon and trump. it's the difference between that congress and this one. >> is he right? is this beyond what nixon did? >> yes. because of the element nixon never conspired with a foreign power to undermine the american electoral system and violate the constitution of the united states with help really from a foreign enemy. that's really what he was out to do, mr. trump, in this instance. in both watergate and t

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joining us now, carl bernstein, author and legendary watergate journalist. and the author of impeach the trial of president andrew johnson. thanks so both of you. carl, let me begin with you. just take a moment for us and for folks at home who have been inundated with information these last few weeks. we're starting a big day tomorrow. tell us where we stand as a country on this question. >> where we stand as a country in the middle of a cold civil war. everything is going to be judged politically in the context of that cold civil war. but in terms of the facts, we have some overwhelming evidence that the president of the united states conspired with his lawyer to undermine the electoral process in this country through the intervention of a foreign power. it's a very grave charge and there are a lot of facts that support the charge. where this is going to go, i think we all need to take a step back, particularly journalists. we don't know where this is going to go because a lot of it is going to have to do with how the american people process this information

carl bernstein. gentlemen, thank you. a momentous day, i'm sure you all will agree.i'm going to start with you. ambassador sondland and laura cooper both gave testimony today that demolished key republican arguments or talking points. >> so big picture, right? sondland says there was a delay in the aid. there was a quid pro quo. it came from the direction of the president, and others were aware of it. you know, himself, pompeo, pence, et cetera. what he didn't say was that he heard those words directly from the president. the president did not say to him, do this, you know, and i will stand in the way of that. the question, though, remains why did they then do it, right? you know, why did all these senior officials in the trump administration then violate what was stated u.s. policy towards ukraine, which was to give the aid to help fight the invasion against russia. so you, you know, basically the test for republicans and democrats is did they do that of their own free will? did they violate the policy based on their own imagination of what the president wanted? i m

nia-malika henderson, jeff tooben, carl bernstein is going to stay with us. >>> more breaking news aheadletter sent to ukraine for the whistle-blower to the white house. we'll tell you what it said and the implications next. mini is a different kind of car. ♪ ladies and gentlemen for a different kind of drive. ♪ ladies and gentlemen for the drive to create a new kind of family car, that became a new kind of race car. for the drive to rebel, zag. for the drive that's inside you. and inside us. that's the drive under the hood of every mini. because every mini is... for the drive. ♪ steven could only imaginem 24hr to trenjoying a spicy taco.burn, now, his world explodes with flavor. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day all-night protection. can you imagine 24-hours without heartburn? look, it's just like when i tell people abbe confident.th geico. stand up straight. and speak with purpose. yeah? go on, give it a practice run. kelsey. kelsey. marriage? oh. okay. look maybe you should just show her this beautiful helzberg diamond ring? that's a better idea. yeah, maybe not inhe

let's go to carl bernstein with more. what do you make of that statement. >> he's trying to distance himself between the vice president and someone who is his key adviser who is going to give testimony apparent ly quite damaging for the white house and president trump himself. she is his rile adviser. >> what about the president. between his tweet, and now you have the president's tweet. is the president trying to send a clear message to witnesses, carl? >> i don't want to be inside the president's head certainly he seems intent on intimidating future witnesses. he's making it clear, has made it clear throughout these hearings and even before. he's dangerously close to being looked at for intimidation of witnesses, we know about the justice apartment opinion. but this could be part of an article of impeachment, particularly what the president did with ambassador yovanovich. we can talk about this later, they're deeply disturbed, republican senators about what they have seen in this impeachment situation so far. >> there's

and journalist and author carl bernstein. rl, tell us the significance of this new information about this new call with sondland directly to the president. we did not expect new information today, and this one material to the broader investigation. how significant? >> well, it's very significant in that once again it gives us a picture of the president of the united states attempting to bribe the head of a foreign government for the purpose of undermining our own free elections in the united states and going to these extraordinary lengths, if indeed this testimony turns out to be accurate and confirmed by sondland, it's very, very damning in terms of the president of the united states, and it's also consistent with what we have known all along. that the president of the united states is not concerned that his policies are undermining the united states and to the advantage of putin and russia. and that's the undercurrent of all of what we heard today that is so extraordinary. and once again we have to ask ourselves -- and i kno

. >> joining us now, one of the "washington post" reporters who broke the watergate story, carl bernstein. last hour i spoke with former white house counsel to richard nixon john dean and i asked him, is this reporting the smoking gun? here's his answer. >> i'm not sure it's a smoking gun, because i think we already have seen the smoking gun in the memorandum of conversation that trump had with zelensky asking him to do him a favor and clearly mentioning biden and 2016. so that's, to me, always been we started with the smoking gun. >> carl, do you agree with john dean's assessment that we're already beyond a smoking gun? >> i think i first said, in fact, a couple weeks ago that the smoking gun was there at the beginning when the president of the united states released his own conversation, the july 25th conversation is the smoking gun. what we have surrounding it is a massive coverup of which this latest report is more evidence. what is the coverup for? it is to cover up a conspiracy led by the president of the united states and his private lawyer rudy giuliani to undermine the president

here to discuss, cnn senior political reporter nia-malika henderson, carl bernstein, plus chief cnn legallyst and author jeffrey toobin. once again, jeff, rudy giuliani at the center of this, and in one tweet, essentially exposes his client. >> and the question has always been what was he doing and who was he doing it for? now his view is in the tweet that well, it was all just work as a defense attorney. so if that's the case, why is he making american foreign policy over there? why is he deciding whether, you know, this aid goes through or not, whether the president of the united states meets with the president of ukraine? every witness that has come forward so far has said that those were the real objectives of american foreign policy. >> and the president multiple times said oh, go talk to rudy for the details on this. he even said that to zelensky, talk to rudy. >> talk to rudy. and rudy, according to rudy, was just a defense lawyer, not an american government official. >> carl, the president, quote, wanted nothing less than zelensky to go to microphone and basically say investigatio

. >> up front now, malika henderson, carl bernstein, who is part of the washington post team, and carrieblicans obviously most prominently the president of the united states have been pushing this conspiracy theory even though they have been warned by american intelligence officials as recently as weeks ago that it is b.s. and it plays right into putin's hands. why? why are they doing this? >> because there's very little interest in the truth by the president's republican defenders, which is a really terrible thing given the grievous nature of the president's corruption, his illegal acts that have now been demonstrably made apparent through the impeachment hearings. the republican party is really also on trial in -- in -- in the senate. and we'll see if there's any breaking of ranks. and right now, it doesn't appear that -- that there is going to be. but i think it will be many, many years that the republican party will be judged for what it does in this trial of donald trump. but also, to your point, mr. bolton, who earlier in the program you were describing his twitter situation. there

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. >> back with us is john dean, carl bernstein, jeffrey toobin, gloria borger, kirsten powers, and jeneard from you. carl, how do you read that? >> i read that we have a president of the united states who more and more evidence indicates has hijacked the constitution. and that's what these hearings are about. and whether or not -- and how has he hijacked the constitution? attempted bribery. the constitution defines high crimes in terms of briberies. the only two specific crimes defined in the constitution. we see prima facie evidence of attempted bribery here and whether or not the political process responds to the factual record, we are now building a factual contextual record that the people of the country can make their own decisions better informed. there's a lot of journalism to be done here. we have got an awful lot of leads in the last few days for journalists to follow-up on and people to talk to who have privileges here, supposedly. well, they don't have privileges that reporters -- >> john dean, somebody listening to that could say, well, look, okay, so sondland -- sondland,

. >> explain that because carl bernstein and others have pointed to, you know, republicans turning and to the president, essentially saying, look, you know, you've got to step down for the good of the country. >> yeah, that was at the end when they heard the smoking gun, the tape. but i'm talking about -- let's take the watergate committee. fierce partisanship in the sense that the republicans sincerely, i believe, believe the president. it wasn't that they said, oh, i've got to get re-elected. they thought he was being misused here. they called it a witch hunt. have you heard that term recently? the democrats, of course, said they thought there was a smoking gun here somewhere if they could find it. and of course john dean said, yes, in fact, the president said i can raise a million dollars if we need it for hush money, but it was dean's word against the white house. that's all they had. but they conducted those hearings -- take a look at the tape -- with civility. they didn't call each other names. the republicans didn't say, the democrats, you know how they are, they're terrible or

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i'm very taken by what call burn -- carl bernstein revealed buckler clifford, truman and i weren't afraid of the red scare and the red menace. to me, these are rather anti-constitutional and extraconstitutional points that one could try to digest but not explain away by saying the constitution has no real order. i think we got to start living up to the constitution and get better. it's dismissive when you see these kinds of extraconstitutional monstrosities. there's many more than this. i figured i would pepper the stew here. >> ok. we're out of time. that was more of a comments in a question. i thank you for it. a couple things before i make any concluding remarks. interests. on thursdays, the center has a new online publication to inform the public about foreign policy. it runs the gamut from terrorists and china -- terrorists and china. it's the wonky us most deep dive into things you should know and you might want to know about. it comes out on thursdays are you can link to it in the morning brief. you should read it. it's fantastic. i just wanted to mention that. that's the first thi