volker has been said to have wanted to help the ukrainians navigate the situation. so he can fill in a lot of the missing puzzle pieces here. >> and if i may, giuliani style, hold up my phone and tell you that i'm one of the reporters who giuliani cut and pasted the volker -- what he says are the volker texts, according to this text he sent me a screen shot of, friday, july 19th, which would have been before the big phone call, which was july 25th. and according to this text, if accurate, it's volker asking mayor giuliani about connecting him with somebody who is close to president zelensky, helping him arrange that. that will be one of the key questions. why did he do that? did he have any idea what giuliani wanted to do? giuliani was talking publicly about the bidens at that point. and what was he trying to just help navigate, as this whistle-blower says in the complaint, help the ukraines navigate the demands of the president himself and others, or was there more? >> and, again, let me just read to you from the notes the so-called reconstructed transcript that th

kurt volker, former u.s. closed doors in front of three committees. we're learning that dozens of pages were delivered ahead of his deposition this morning. >> this was all sparked by president trump's

i am sure that's what volker saw.hat'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 cana

because ambassador volker is not giving them the answers they were leading ambassador volker to conclude. i can tell you this is nothing more -- you know, adam schiff talked about four acts. let the american people decide what the final act will be, because when the truth comes out , you will see this president did not hold aid to try to influence a foreign country to do anything. thing, one other thing that is really important to point out, another show on sunday put up one of the tax from bill taylor -- one of the text messages. from bill taylor. that show did not follow that with the response that absolutely says unequivocally there is no quid pro quo. furthermore, what that show did not say after that is the context from ambassador volker's transcripts with regards to bill taylor's text. and you would then know if we had the transcribed interview, but we will tell you now -- he said it because he read a political story and wanted to get the aid to ukraine released. he saw a political story and was concerned, then he was corrected , but why is it the coverage is only going to show bil

you know kurt volker. what do you make of his testimony today, and what more do you think we are going to be learning about it? >> right. so as you say, lawrence, i know ambassadori ambassadorave onovich. >> and i know kurt volker. and i happen to know from a source close to the investigation a bit of what happened today and a bit of the context i fess. this is second hand, at least. but essentially it seems that what volker was trying to do. and i've known him for a long time. so i am giving him a lot of the benefit of the doubt was to try to maneuver the situation so that he can get president trump to meet with president zelensky, the new ukrainian president. he thought that giuliani was feeding a bunch of garbage that he had heard from some ukrainians and one ukrainian in particular to president trump and that he just needed to get the truth from zelensky. the problem here is that kurt volker is the envoy, the president's envoy. the president should be listening to kurt volker who is a long-time never m

what more did volker reveal? no inner monologue. goes beyond encouraging investigation of biden, encouraging china to do the same. >>> and blowing the whistle. getting new information about a second whistle-blower complaint. an irs official reportedly warned of tampering with the audit of president trump's tax returns. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i am wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> we are following a lot of breaking news on the trump ukraine scandal. tonight, "the wall street journal reports that the president ordered

it's a little ambiguous, is what kurt volker was saying.do know is there is a months-long orchestrated campaign to get ukraine to investigate biden, and this was after donald trump specifically blocked critical military aid to ukraine that congress had specifically appropriated. >> i want to ask because yesterday trump said he wasn't interested in political rivals. yesterday he said he should investigate joe and hunter biden. >> the president might want to watch the video of his remarks yesterday on the south lawn. i served in active duty in the military because i believe america is an exceptional country, and we are all americans. the american president should never, ever solicit a foreign government to target a political rival. that is unamerican, it's wrong, and it's abuse of power. >> congressman ted lieu, thank you so much. >> thank you, brianna. >>> republicans have remained mostly silent since the president asked the countries to investigate the bidens. they're starting to feel the heat on their own districts. >>> president trump is

envoy to ukraine, kurt volker. >> yeah. speaking of kurt volker, let's talk a little bit about that. as you mentioned, we heard from him yesterday. the former u.s. special representative to ukraine. today we actually got the opening statement from his closed door testimony. what were the top takeaways from that? how does that fit into this puzzle? . >> the full screen you are seeing now, i will get to that in a second. i'm going to set it up. in his opening statement, there is a link to it on our website right now, he makes clear that he tried to divert rudy giuliani, this entire ukrainian influence scheme that rudy giuliani was trying to run as he sought to do the president's bidding and trying to push the ukrainian leader to dig up discredited dirt on joe biden. so in his statement, what he essentially says is rudy giuliani thought he was getting help and direction from me, kurt volker speak, because he was trying to make him understand that the new leadership in ukraine could be trusted. but here's the part, this is wher

you know ambassador volker. at 4:00 we were just learning a little bit about this 9 1/2 hour deposition, it hadn't wrapped up yet. if you could respond to what the congressman just said that he didn't answer directly but after 9 1/2 hours of testimony, he believes there are state department officials who understand that the military aid was connected in some way to that request to dirty up the bidens. >> well, that's because there's another ambassador, an acting ambassador, not a household name, nicolle, his name is bill taylor. he's a former ambassador to ukraine and now is serving as acting ambassador. he says this is crazy to link those two things in a conversation with mr. volker and our eu ambassador. and i just want to underscore another piece that connects some of these dots. if you go back and look who was on the delegation, the presidential delegation to the inauguration to president zelensky, it was led by seating perry, but kurt volker was also on that trip. and the eu ambassador, ambassador sondland,

it's kurt volker. he was the u.s.nvoy to ukraine until last week when he resigned his post. the whistleblower complaint says that one day after the president's call with ukraine in july, volker and another u.s. official met with president zelensky, ukraine's president in the what's in the complaint. based upon multiple readouts from these mettings were meant to mean by various u.s. officials, ambassadors reportedly provided advice to the ukrainian leadership about how to navigate the demands that the president had made of mr. zelensky. those demands of course include pushing ukraine to investigate joe biden and his son. according to the complaint, volker had been working to quote unquote contain the damage caused by rudy giuliani's involvement and giuliani is trying to put this all on volker releasing the text messages between the two of them. giuliani says it shows he was working at the direction of volker and the state department. now kurt volker is having his say. joining me now is a former nato ambassador to nicho

this is to gordon sondland and kurt volker. this is from kurt volker's cache.'s what gordon sondland says. do we still want zelensky to give us an unequivocal draft meaning a statement that he will investigate 2016 and baresma? two weeks later, this is to bill taylor. are we saying security assistance and white house meeting are conditioned on these investigations? that's when the ambassador gordon sondland says call me. >> i love that. you see why prosecutors love this kind of evidence. it's a gold mine. because you see the actual words of the actual players at the time it's all happening. you can't spin it after the fact. it's in text. it's preserved. so talk about a quid pro quo. i mean, conditioned on the investigation? that's english for quid pro quo. you get this, conditioned on me getting that. and the best part is, call me. which is translating to, of course it is but don't put it in a text, genius. so these texts are really incredibly valuable, i think, to giving a sense of what's going on here. they understood it was this for that. >> preet bharara wr

something volker will be asked about, right? >> right. the case that volker will make is that if giuliani thought i was giving him help it was because i was trying to table this entire thing as quickly as i possibly could because volker's view is that giuliani was not working in the national interests and he was working outside of traditional k diplomatic channels. as a way to placate giuliani he was giving him what he thought he needed. volker will make the point he was not involved in the decision to hold up ukrainian military add and told ukrainian leaders, i'm told he will say, to stay out of the 2020 election entirely. important people should know when volker was the special envoy to ukrainian doing it on a part-time and voluntary basis. his full-time job is being executive director of the mccain institute. he is not a trump ally. in fact, he is a protege or was and ally of john mccain. i'm told that when he goes in to give his deposition, the case that he will make and his case by the way is backed up by documents that were transmit

volker's testimony. but i can confirm that the u.s.the president to coerce ukraine to investigate biden and to also create something of an alternative universe as it relates to the 2016 election. and i think the big concern that the ukrainians had was having a white house meeting. i think that came before talk about military assistance as well. >> so -- excuse me -- the timing of this, is this before the president's phone conversation with ukrainian president in july -- the end of july? >> look, this is all happening just before and just after. i think the bottom line when you read these texts is it basically substantiates every aspect of the whistle-blower's complaint, that the president of the united states coerced a foreign power to help himself politically, and he used the justice department, and now we're learning the state department, to have him carry out that deed. >> it also, from all the reporting that's been happening today, appears that he got rid of the ukrainian ambassador because of concerns she was not on board or willi

sun lynn serfaty, what are you learning about kurt volker. >> reporter: wolf, kurt volker is behind closed doors, telling them about warning flags he was giving to president trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. "the washington post" reporting this evening that volker said he told giuliani he was receiving untrustworthy information about joe biden and his son hunter, and he essentially said to giuliani, do not trust these sources, you should be careful about putting faith in those accounts. this keeps in line with what we're hearing from a source familiar with volker's thinking going into the deposition this morning when he said he was essentially trying to get the biden, giuliani issue off the table. this has been a very lengthy day on capitol hill. volker arrived here a little after 9:30 this morning. now it is entering in the eight hour mark of testimony. >> i know we're going to get more information coming out. thank you very much. meantime, bring in congressman jimmy gomez, democrat on the oversight committee. thank you for joining us. we certainly have a lot to discuss now. let me

knowing ambassador volker as well as i do, he's a straight up guy. he was probably thinking, i can't say no to the president's guy and these ukrainians will maybe set him straight because i'm sure at this point, at the point he made the connection, at some point he must have known because rudy giuliani was very vocal, that rudy giuliani had some kind of crazy, garbage theories about what had happened in ukraine historically and the relationship between ukraine and russia and russia's intervention and all of this, and the bidens, right. so i think kurt was thinking the ukrainians can set him straight. that's what i'm guessing. >> what do you know about the ambassador that the president keeps talking about, the former ambassador to ukraine who worked under a couple administrations. >> she's known as masha, her nickname. she like kurt volker, career ambassador, solid as a rock, tough, knows the region inside out. i worked with her when she was in government and afterwards i was going back and forth as a think tanker and consultant to ukraine. i know she

volker did not honor our request for comment.olker has been the former special envoy to ukraine who helps the trump administration pressure ukraine to investigate president trump's political rival joe biden in exchange for a white house visit as well as an investigation that would undermine the mueller report. as cnn's jessica schneider reports, colver had told congress that president trump believed ukraine was corrupt and said the ukraine leader is trying to take him down. >> reporter: former u.s. special envoy to ukraine kurt volker's opening statement to lawmakers obtained by cnn today details rudy giuliani's influence on president trump's perception of ukraine as he tried to convince the president that ukraine's new government was serious about stopping corruption. kurt volker revealed he met in late may with president trump who insisted ukraine was a corrupt country full of terrible people. the president said they tried to take me down. the president -- referring to a theory that it was ukraine and not russia that interfered

mayor, from volker to giuliani. heard the president has a great call with the ukrainian president yesterday. exactly the right messages. volker was not expressing any reservations about the content or context of the president's phone call. secretary of state mike pompeo has been traveling overseas and he told reporters that his people at the state department would work with congress but he also drew a line. >> we will, of course, do our constitutional duty to cooperate with this co-equal branch but we're going to do so in a way consistent with the fundamental values of the american system and we won't tolerate folks on capitol hill bullying, intimidating state department employees. that is unacceptable and not something that i will permit to happen. >> we had confirmation yesterday here on capitol hill that the whistleblower approached the democratic-led house intelligence committee before he or she officially filed the complaint in mid-august. that timeline matters because it means that the democratic chairman at l

>> volker has a reputation as an honest broker. i think he wants to make sure that he participates in a meaningful way. he wants to be honest. he wants to clear his name. i don't think there's been any hair of the hypocrite on him ever and no questions about his integri integrity. i think he will come forward and give good and succinct testimony. hustled off early from ukraine and basically terminated, that giuliani was the instigator and trump got these paranoid vibes about her, thichinging she was against him, when there was no proof of that whatsoever, she has been put off for a week, but she'll testify and give the truth about what occurred in ukraine may 4th when she was pushed out, and that's important. dr. king said appropriately justice delayed is justice denied. i thiching that's what you're seeing from the state department and white house, to try to have justice delayed, because they're running out the clock. >> what would you want to know? what questions do you have for kurt volker? >> what was giuliani's role. did he ha

giuliani said it was volker reached out to him.n july 25th phone call that's part of the whistle-blower complaint, volker testified giuliani describing the "great call with ukrainian president," exactly the right messages as we discussed. in another series of encrypted's tech messages in obtained by mike emanuel, see near diplomats talked about the suspension of military aid to ukraine for a top diplomat to ukraine, ambassador bill taylor text, "i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign." the u.s. ambassador to the european union, gordon, who contributed a million dollars to trump's inaugural fund, response, "the president has been crystal clear. no quid pro quo's of any kind," adding mr. trump is "trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt anticorruption reform. i suggest we stop the back and forth by text." >> do you have any comment about the interview -- we will not have any comment until it's concluded. >> secretary pompeo had never promised rudy giuliani would invest

kurt volker, the former special u.s. envoy to ukraine, answering questions behind closed doors today. he resigned just days after the whistle-blower complaint and the transcript of that call was released from the white house. tonight, what he reportedly revealed and the text messages between diplomats about all of this. abc's mary bruce on the hill. >> what are you going to tell them? >> reporter: tonight on capitol hill, the president's former envoy to ukraine, kurt volker, offering the first inside account of the president's efforts to press ukraine to investigate joe biden. volker handing over text messages that show state department officials debating whether trump was withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to pressure ukraine for his own political benefit. the top american diplomat in ukraine, bill taylor, writes, "i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign." the u.s. ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland, responds, "i believe you are incorrect about pr

because volker hurt them there.-talking volker before he got on the stand. it's the only person i've ever heard leave in a situation like this where he was left completely clean. they still haven't said anything about him. in fact, even the congressman tonight, the republican, he didn't trash volker, and volker makes a very clear case. people were worried about, this they thought it was wrong, they said it was wrong, they tried to stop ukraine from following the road, we tried to stop rudy. >> right. >> they drafted a statement in furtherance of what the president wanted. >> and he's got documents, text messages between the president and himself who were aware of this thing. that is essential corroboration to prove intent, what people were actually thinking. what did they intend with these otherwise vague and -- >> you are no politician but -- >> no. >> -- i'm sure you had times when you were investigating something and before you were the boss when you would go to the boss and say here's what we've got, i've got th

let's start with the hour, let's focus on kurt volker.e wake of the controversy and yesterday testified before three house committees. and so we now know some of what he told these lawmakers behind closed doors. cnn politics congressional reporter lauren fox is on capitol hill for us. volker testified that he gave a warning, specifically to the president's personal attorney, rudy giuliani. what did he say? >> well, we have his opening statement now, brooke, and what we are learning is that essentially he argued against any of this information on the bidens saying that it probably was not credibility. but we also know that the administration had a negative view of ukraine and that's what he was working against. in his opening statement yesterday he said, quote, in the course of that conversation, he referenced conversations with mayor giuliani. it was clear to me that despite the positive knew and is the recommendations being conveyed by this delegation about the new president. president trump had deeply rooted negative view on ukraine roo

volker said this. i've known ambassador yavonovitch since 1998.always known her to be of the highest integrity. are we going to end up in a situation where some of this is highly damming about rudy giuliani meddling around, the president's skepticism, the conspiracy theories the president had that have been proven to be false about ukraine's involvement in 2016, not good for the president. but the parts about, i didn't see it as a quid pro quo from a veteran diplomat who was deeply involved -- >> it's really interesting here. it fills in some gaps here but also raises some more questions for kurt, and it would be good to see the transcript of his testimony. because on one hand, he is aware of the president's interest in corruption. and we see that in the text messages going back and forth. but in here he says the first time he heard about any connection to biden is when he saw the transcript, after the transcript comes out. i'd want to know a little more about the connective tissue between there. clearly he is doing everything he can here to dista

volker said he wasn't aware of efforts to push ukraine to investigate biden. the ukrainian company biden's son served on the board of. he said as unfounded accusations came out publicly, he urged ukrainians not to interfere in u.s. politics. volker testified he didn't see a link between the investigation and the freeze to military aid in ukraine, but other diplomates were suspicious. as i said on the phone, i think it's crazy to whole security assistance for help with a political campaign he said in september. bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been crystal clear. no quid pro quos of any kind. still, it unsettled lawmakers, at least one member of the gop. >> i think some of these things are damning. >> other than congressman herd, there have been very few republicans who are willing to go out there and criticize the president. aside from mitt romney, very few members of the president's own party willing to be critical of him. >> sara, thank you. now perspective with natasha linstad. joining live this hour. g

and now kurt volker's testimony could be critical. here is a primer on just who he is before he resigned from his post. he was a key figure in u.s./ukranian relations. he is mentioned by name in the whistleblower kpcomplaint. it says a day after the july phone call volker met with zelensky and other officials to provide advice about how to, quote, navigate the demands the president had made. volker also offered to introduce president trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani to a close zelensky adviser in mid-july before the phone call. that is according to a text message posted by giuliani on twitter. volker was the special representative for ukraine negotiations from 2017 until his resignation on friday. it was a part-time unpaid position. he was involved in negotiations to mediate peace between ukraine and russia. volker is currently the executive director of the mccain institute for international leadership at arizona state university and he was the u.s. ambassador to nato from 2008 to 2009. joining us now from capitol hill, geoff b

so, does volker's testimony today under kathy democrats' push for impeachment. here's how g.o.p. congress in mark meadows characterizes it tonight. >> we know that there was definitely no quid pro quo. it was over and over, it was asked 20 different times. >> shannon: once the game welcome to you both. >> good evening, shannon. >> shannon: with that, jim jordan and devin nunes said this about the testimony today, the facts we learn today undercut the salacious narrative that adam schiff is using to sell impeachment ambitions. we hope the american people read the transcript of today's testimony and see the truth. how quickly do you think that might or might not happen? >> well, it could happen right away. and it should happen right away. i think what everybody ought to be tired of at this point, shannon, is these kinds of third-party descriptions of the core evidence that we are supposed to be looking at. we have the call between zelensky and trump, for example, that's the evidence, the main evidence of what went on here and what we've gone through the last week or so our people's

now, volker was named in the whistleblower complaint, the whistleblower alleging that volker had involvement in the conversations with the ukranian president about the, quote, navigating the demands that the president has made of him. this comes as several key house committees are readying potential subpoenas of the white house as early as friday for key documents related to the president's phone call with ukraine. and also the holding up of ukrainian aid. the house oversight committee chair elijah cummings says the white house's disregard of multiple voluntary request for documents he says has left them subpoena and this keeps in line with the similar rhetoric that we've heard from house intel committee chairman adam schiff. he said up here on the hill wednesday, he warned against the blocking of witnesses, the blocking of documents coming from the white house, the stonewalling he said. >> we're not fooling around here. we don't want this to drag on months and months and months which appears to be the administration's strategy. >> reporter: he is warning that it essentially plays into the d

and then there is kurt volker who was the special envoy to ukraine. you say why is there a special envoy and an ambassador? they have different roles. the special envoy is not an official state department position. it is not a paid position. it is sort of a part-time person who is involved in this thing. these three guys were involved in a discussion about why the aid was being held up to ukraine. >> and one of the reasons people were enthusiastic about hearing from sondland today when they were going back and forth in the text exchange discussing quid pro quo, he was the one who said no more discussing this on -- he said there is no quid pro quo, but no more discussing this on text, let's call. without a doubt the number one question would have been why did you need to get on the phone. >> and between the time that the u.s. ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor, texted gordon sondland about this and the time that he responded via text, some time went by and that has become what is central to what we are learning now. let's go to josh letterman who can s

he heard what volker had to say. congressman, great to have you and thank you. so what can you tell us that is of importance to the audience about what you learned from the i.g. today? >> i can't get into the details of what we learned and this was sort of a follow-up meeting because remember we heard from him when the so-called transcript had not yet been released so he wasn't able to talk about the substance of this. all he would talk about was the process he followed. look, what's becoming clear here i sort of chuckle watching my twitter feed as the president attacks adam schiff over and over again. the problem the president has is of course not with adam schiff but with the people around him including the whistle-blower and i don't anything more than you do on this possibility of a second whistle-blower, but of course there were leaks to "the new york times" and leaks to "the washington post" from people that were clearly very close to the action in the white house. so i'm getting the sense, chris, from everything i know that the national security apparatus,

the texts were provided by kurt volker. >> on july 25th, volker texted a top zelensky adviser.om white house, assuming president z convinces trump he will investigate get to bottom of what happened. the statement ultimately made it to president trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani. giuliani said that statement didn't go far enough and suggested adding references that would imply investigation of joe biden and his son, hunter, and the 2016 election. >>> the newly released text shows a u.s. top diplomat was concerned. president trump was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of military ad would amount to a quid pro quo. bill taylor texted gordon the u.s. ambassador to the european union. are we now saying security assistance and a white house meeting are conditioned on investigation. sondland responded, call me. >> there it is. on september 9th taylor spelled out his concerns. as i said on the phone, crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. four and a half hours later, sondland said i believe you are incorrect. the president has been cry

opening statement. >> volker's statement, volker's texts.to get bill taylor in front of them because he obviously knew what the deal was and what was going on. and there is so much evidence. and that -- but that's the fundamental question. and so unless members of congress finally wrestle with that question, are they really, really okay with a president using the office of the presidency in that way? i don't think many of them are, >> that's got to be the last word. we're out of time. >> but they're not saying it. >> thank you all. i appreciate it. >> thanks don. >> we'll be right back. that's what happens in golf nothiand in life.ily. i'm very fortunate i can lean on people, and that for me is what teamwork is all about. you can't do everything yourself. you need someone to guide you and help you make those tough decisions, that's morgan stanley. they're industry leaders, but the most important thing is they want to do it the right way. i'm really excited to be part of the morgan stanley team. i'm justin rose. we are morgan stanley. (vo) ♪

opening statement. >> volker's statement, volker's texts.l taylor in front of them because he obviously knew what the deal was and what was going on. there is so much evidence, but that's the fundamental question. and so unless members of congress finally wrestle with that question, are they really, really okay with a president using the office of the presidency in that way? i don't think many of them are, but they're not saying it. >> that's got to be the last word. we're out of time. thank you all. i appreciate it. >> thanks, don. >> we'll be right back. new house. seeing what people left behind in the attic. well, saving on homeowners insurance with geico's help was pretty fun too. ahhhh, it's a tiny dancer. they left a ton of stuff up here. welp, enjoy your house. nope. no thank you. geico could help you save on homeowners and renters insurance. geico could help you save on homeowners at first slice pizza lovers everywhere meet o, that's good! frozen pizza one third of our classic crust is made with cauliflower but that's not stopping an

special envoy to ukraine, kurt volker. he resigned one day after being named in the whistle-blower complaint. that report alleges a cover-up by the white house of a call in which president trump pressures the president of ukraine to investigate a conspiracy theory about joe biden and his son. >> vohe also set up a meeting between trump attorney rudy giuliani and an adviser to the ukrainian president, part of an effort to move the biden matter away from official channels. now the justice department is telling the white house to preserve records of all of the president's calls with foreign leaders. democrats have warned they could be coming for those documents. cnn's sunlen serfaty is on capitol hill. >> reporter: good morning, david and christine. potentially a huge moment up here on capitol hill. the president's former special envoy to ukraine, kurt volker, is set to appear behind closed doors later today. volker was named in the whistle-blower complaint, the whistle-blower alleging that he had an involvement in the conver

how much did volker really know? when i see a career foreign service officer, a man like him known for integrity help facilitate these conversations. but that's why we need to see exactly what he's going to si about the context around that. and back to what i said about whether or not he was pushing giuliani to do this or whether he was simply trying to pull information from giuliani so that to keep giuliani from causing more damage than he might have already have done. so it's really about the context here. it is troubling that the connections were made, but i think we need to know a lot more about how -- what kind of pressure volcker was under and what exactly was the nature of the communication. >> that's right. i think volker being the director of the mccain institute is a representative of folks trying to work in this administration trying to make sure the national interest is pursued. the problem is they keep running into the winds of the president's self-interest. you're going to deal with the president's lawy

ambassador volker, who i know well, was also a political appointee in this job. they are working with giuliani. they are working this. they are part of what is going on here. and i think so far, let's see what we learn, but in these texts today, the real hero is the acting ambassador bill taylor, another person who i know well in ukraine who says in these texts if we are going to do a quid pro quo, security assistance, military assistance for a political favor for the president, i'm not part of that, and he says i quit. that's what everybody should have said when they heard about this crazy scheme. >> finally your reaction to hearing the president of the united states ask china, our number one information and economic adversary certainly, ask china to investigate the bidens. >> well, as you were saying earlier, again, we don't really need any more information. the president keeps doing things you're not supposed to do, asking foreign governments to interfere in our elections. but it's worse than that, brian. he is handing them leverage. he's now saying this is mo

volker is a key figure from the whistle-blower complaint. in the complaint, cvolker was advising you cra advising ukrainian officials on how to navigate president trump's demands. the president is certainly not happy about any of this. >> nancy pelosi hands out subpoenas -- she has to approve it. >> she hands them out like they're cookie. you want a subpoena, here you go, take them. they have been trying to impeach me since the day agot elected. >> i think he knows the argument that could be made against him. >> did you hear the fear in his voice. >> i heard the surprise that that i thought what he did was wrong. that he was undermining our constitution, and the integrity of our elections. >> jeff bennet on capitol hill, kurt volker says he is eager to tell his side of the story. >> first, i'm outside of the capitol because we hoped to ask him that question directly. we expect him to show up for this deposition in the next half howev hour. we know that rudy giuliani is going to paint kurt volker as an accessory to the campaign. giuliani said

claims that volker reached out to him. don't know if that suggests that giuliani is nervous about what volker is saying or not. apparently i've seen "the washington post" reported that volker was showing all the text message chains not just little excerpts of it. >> when i was talking to republican sources earlier this week about their strategy, one said to me one of our goals is to try to get rudy off air a little bit. >> it's not working. >> this is not helping. >> some of the more reasonable -- they know this is not helping their case, to have rudy on air. >> he wirudy is going to talk a that later tonight. everyone stick around. the scathing op-ed for about trump's fitness for office, written by kellyanne conway's husband. ♪ (dramatic orchestra) performance comes in lots of flavors. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ with medicare advantage plans that offer health coaching

envoy to kut volker.the ukraine to help him investigate a political rival. i'm talking joe biden. i want to walk you through this step by step. the text is from the envoy, kurt volker, to zelensky's aid laying out the expectations for that call. volker says heard from the white house, assuming president z. will convince him that he will investigation what happened we will nail down a date in washington. the call went went and the president offered dates for a white house meeting. and two

ambassador volker asked him to meet with zelensky's people. misleading because it assumes this was the beginning of rudy's intervention. that's not the case. everybody knew giuliani had been mucking around in ukraine politics for several months. we knew that because giuliani was talking about it publicly. he talked about it on the record to "the new york times." he was tweeting about it. he was meeting with prosecutors trying to push biden narratives and this is something in the know were trying to deal with. it only became public to most of the american audience when the whistle-blower complaint came to light. to pretend the state department initiated this out of the clear blue sky doesn't pass the laugh test. volker was dealing with the problem rudy created. >> you have his resignation on top of john bolton's resigning. >> that's right. what really suffers is the policy they're supposed to be working on which is u.s. leadership and ukrainian support and no one is talking about that today. >> you are. josh rogan thank you. >> do you know what

>> it will be interesting to hear from kurt volker. he was a career diplomat. was surprised like many others that have followed his career to see that he was involved in this whistle-blower memo throughout this process trying to facilitate meetings for rudy giuliani with ukrainian officials. now obviously we'll hear more from him tomorrow if he does testify behind closed doors. he's got a career long reputation. he has been respected by members of congress and diplomats from both sides of the aisle. so whatever his role in this, we'll hear more about it tomorrow. maybe it was just hoping that whatever it is, even if it is something that he believed to be untoward, if it would help facilitate what the ukrainians needed maybe he thought that was worth doing. perhaps he did speak out and said something to mike pompeo. i don't want to put words into his mouth. we'll find out more from him tomorrow but it is clear that he is now a private citizen. he resigned. he hasn't objected to speaking out and it is interesting to see mike pompeo seemingly defend these five off

that implicates volker in this.carrying out the policy of the president in pushing the ukrainians to do this. now, we don't know exactly what volker said today. if you talk to members who were in there, it's all over the map. and my understanding from sources i've talked to so he sort of walked the line and he did not dime out the president, he expressed concerns about giuliani but he did not say he was forced to do something by the president. one democratic source told me he was not a killer witness for the democrats, which is going to be significant because there's going to have to be public hearings about all this and they need, the democrats need a dramatic witness who can testify in public about this policy and it doesn't sound like volker is the one to do it. >> michael, vivian, thank you both. i appreciate it. we'll be right back. (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

that text reads -- and that's from volker -- "hi, mr. mayor. he may have heard, the president has a great phone call with ukrainian president yesterday. exactly the right messages, as we discussed." we heard from some republican lawmakers who have been inside the interview with volker. they accused democratic chairman of putting restrictions in terms of counsel and also lawmaker questions, as opposed to just staff. here is section from congressman gordon don't like jordan >> ambassador volker has been very impressive. as i said, he has said nothing that coincides with what the democrats are saying, with their whole impeachment narrative. >> the story, we are still following it today, harris. the confirmation we got from chairman schiff's office that the whistle-blower made contact with that office. before they filed a whistle-blower complaint. again, an important date. august 12th. that matters because it's about a month before schiff went public with the broad outlines of this investigation. the president alleged yesterday that schiff had a ha

i think ambassador volker has some tough questions to answer. i think it's the president, it is the president whose conduct we need to focus on. >> let's talk about the vice president, mike pence. the committee is seeking documents from the vice president. the office said that your demand for these documents does not appear to be a serious request. what are your options here in. >> yes, look, i think what the chairman and the speaker made clear is they are not messing around. they are going to consider at this stage obstruction of congress to be an additional impeachable defense. the white house needs to provide information if it is requested or they need to be held accountable. that needs to happen fast. >> you hear the administration officials say that all your requests are not really all that legal because you didn't have a full scale vote on the house floor formally opening an impeachment inquiry. the house speaker said she may take a full vote on that even though she said it's not required by the majority to do so. where do you stand? >> i'

, the special adviser. >> did he try to block volker?on't know that. he sent a blanket statement criticizing congress for getting these depositions or going after these depositions and after pompeo tried to stop it kurt volker said i'm going anyway, and he can't go after pompeo because he resigned. also, former ambassador maria yavanovic is still going over the concerns, susan, of mike pompeo. so it does make me wonder if there are people there within the state department who want to talk despite what the secretary says? >> first of all, it does seem to be that way. second of all, that statement from mike pompeo was such an accident troerd near version of where the facts seem to accuse congress to portraying itself as the protector of this agency that has been battered by repeated budget cuts that mike pompeo has gone along with by essentially a war on the professional foreign service along with the professional intelligence agencies by the white house and pompeo again has gone along with that. it really was just a crazy inversion of the

now, volker stepped down as u.s. special envoy to ukraine one week ago, in part, sources tell us, so that he could speak with greater candor today. and he also turned over documents and other evidence to investigators, including a text tain about the president's sudden decision this summer to block military aid to ukraine. in those texts, a top diplomat at the u.s. embassy in ukraine writes, "i think it's crazy to zythhold security assistance for alp with a political campaign." the u.s. ambassador to the e.u., who is a former trump donor acred back, "bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been crystal clear: no quid pro quos of any kind." volker reportedly also told warned giuliani that giuliani was getting inaccurate dirt about the bidens from bad sources in ukraine. >> o'donnell: so many details from the people inside of these conversations. what's your sense about what the investigators hope to accomplish? t reporter: the big picture here, norah, is that they want t