former federal prosecutor paul butler.ormer -- oh, david jolly didn't make it but he's still up here if he shows up. and chief public affairs officer karine jean-pierre. annie karni, let me start with you. donald trump seeming to confirm everything that your newspaper and "the washington post" and the "wall street journal" has reported since friday basically that donald trump called the code red. donald trump asked the ukrainians to investigate joe biden. >> i mean, he hasn't issued a firm denial of any of it. he tweeted about the "wall street journal" had reported that eight times in that july 25th phone call he asked ukraine to investigate biden. and he tweeted about that today calling it fake news. but he didn't issue a clear denial. one thing that we as journalists need to press him on today as he makes his rounds at the u.n. is on that phone call did he directly tie that foreign aid to an investigation of a political rival at home. that's what we still need clarity on from him, and he does a lot of talking these days

i'm joined now by eli stokels, los angeles times white house reporter, elise, paul butler, former federal prosecutor, and jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense. and i want to start with eli. summarize the consequence of this week. >> well, i don't think you can overstate how big a week this is. this may be a turning point in this presidency. although we may get to november of next year and look back on this as a blip. at this point we don't know. but it's safe to say this president is facing the most dire political situation of his tenure so far, and we didn't see him today. you saw the rage tweets this morning, the 11 tweets. it hadn't really found a strategy, and there are a lot of concerns from people around the president inside the white house and outside the white house, campaign officials who worry he doesn't have much of a team around him at this point and who also worry -- one person told me today they're worried about his mental state. i know a lot of folks, the psychologists may be worried about that for some time, but these are people really cl