trump repeatedly urged zelinsky

those were president trump's words to ukrainian president zelinsky this summer as zelinsky sought vital military arms from the united states. which paints a damning picture of the conversation now at the center of an official impeachment inquiry. not only does the memo confirm reports trump asked for an investigation of joe biden, it suggests the president of the united states conditioned defense of a u.s. ally on delivering the dirt on biden. was it true or false? trump emphasizes multiple times to ukrainian president zelinsky that, quote, the united states has been very, very good to ukraine and that prompted zelinsky to bring up what he needs to defend his country from continued russian aggression. thank you for your great support in the area of defense, he said. we're almost ready to buy more javelins from the united states. there's different versions of them. there's one you put on the shoulder. the u.s. has been deploying to ukraine for their self-defense. in responding to zelinsky's plea for missiles, trump immediately responds with a favor of his own. i would like you to do us a

you just met zelinsky.o the extent you can divine or know is how is this resonating in the circle around this new president who already has a very, very full plate? >> the president exudes a lot of confidence, he can read a room. he can command people, and that's why he's really hoping to be in a room with donald trump. we think if donald trump and this president zelinsky who again you mentioned he was very quickly into politics. as of six months ago nobody in the entire province had even seen electioneering there, there was no campaign going on. again, when he gets in a room whether it's the ukrainian president he commands and we hope that fact -- >> to what end? to tell him to not, you know, twist his arm to open up an investigation into the former vice president's son? >> well, that's not -- i don't see donald trump going through old newspapers and actually end up saying maybe i should deal with biden and stuff. i think the real thing is what's going to happen when another person gives him a different pe

president asked ukrainian president zelinsky to dig up dirt that trump could use against his opponent in next year's presidential election today the white house released the transcript summary of that phone call in it us president trump says i would like you mr selenski to do us a favor i would like my attorney general to call you and your people and i would like you to get to the bottom of it. and with that trump asked zelinsky to help deliver political dirt against joe biden the leading democratic candidate who could very well run against trump next year a u.s. president asking another country to help influence the outcome of a u.s. election an allegation that has triggered impeachment investigations and investigation that trump today once again called a witch hunt these are the documents the white house released hoping to diffuse the controversy over president trump's telephone call with his ukrainian counterpart a lot of here's a linsky instead they seem to back up claims that trump pressured selenski to investigate the business dealings of democratic rival joe biden's son trump c

regarding zelinski, i met zelinski apparently in the course of the first channel in moscow. was not aware that i was meeting future ukrainian president. a couple of years ago but believe it or not he was in increment of to move on, helping them with one of their comedian shows. i talked to several people who really knew him and their description of him was exactly like yours. pressed that that he would not have the same sense of how to put it, intense ukrainian nationalism which you would see in the case of per socket and others. but there was no question in my mind that while he spoke perfect russian that not only he was ukrainian but he was ukrainian who was interested in the west orientation. people who knew zelensky mike's note was that he did not they would not have an expectation that he would become like somebody who represents clearly the east of ukraine and has a very strong and very proud of that very strong connection. where the problem is and where i don't know whether we agree or disagree is what to do with the situation. for me when you see that somebody should

as with the call in question zelinski said he never felt pressure from president trump. but also noted he wants to stay out of u.s. elections and politics. >>> what kind of reaction are you seeing from republicans to all of this.?>> reporter: just late tonight to give you an example house minority leader kevin mccarthy of california introduced a resolution against the democratic impeachment inquiry. however democrats struck it down right away. >>> right now in san francisco climate change the machine to shut down two blocks of the financial district painting colorful murals and waving banners. protesters have been out all day. some getting arrested. forcing businesses to close down. that is where we find andrea live right now with how the evening commute is going.>> reporter: just a short time ago about 4:30 pm protesters made their way to market and montgomery. right at 5 pm as they said they would they left. montgomery reopen to traffic tonight. just in time for that evening commute. the hearts of san francisco financial district was devoid of cars but filled with clow

earlier this morning president trump released a quote unquote document of his call president zelinski. considering this document with something the white house chose to release but was far more damaging than the presidents case any of us anticipated. in this telephone conversation the president of the united states made an extraordinary request to the president of ukraine to investigate trump's political opponent and aid president trumps reelection campaign. does anyone think this conversation was in the national interest? or was it in the president's personal political interests. let me repeat. do any of my republican colleagues think this phone call reflects the presidents pursuing the national interest or was he pursuing his own political ambition? every republican, every one of them needs to answer this question. the document raises a host of new questions that i expect the house impeachment inquiry will seek to answer. here are some of them. to my colleagues believe it's appropriate after the ukrainian president brings up the request for military aid for the president to say i wo

and with that trump asked zelinsky to help deliver political dirt against joe biden the leading democratic candidate who could very well run against trump next year a u.s. president asking another country to help influence the outcome of a u.s. election an allegation that has triggered impeachment investigations and investigation that trump today once again called a witch hunt these are the documents the white house released hoping to diffuse the controversy over president trump's telephone call with his ukrainian counterpart a lot of years olinsky instead they seem to back up claims that trump pressured selenski to investigate the business dealings of democratic rival joe biden's son trump continues to deny the allegations and says democrats are harassing him. this is a relatively minor wherever and if you take a look at the democrats they went down to see the president of ukraine and their sin for all sorts of things and don't go with the republicans and stay with us and like it's a political war they should've done that it's the single greatest witch hunt in american history probably in

an unexpected win for zelinski as well as the president in 2016. >> president zelinski had a career inpresident spent time on tell sprition with great success. when i net with president zelinski in poland we talked about that. i know they will make that same connection not just on a shared background. but they are non-conventional leaders willing to lead from the front and drive for veal progress. at the end of the day, the present company excepted. the media doesn't focus on an amazing record that in the midst of reckless accusations the last 2 1/2 years, we rebuilt our military, rolling back regulation, and energy revolution. we have seen 150 conservatives appointed at every level in our courts. it's all due to the leadership of president donald trump. whatever the democrats want to do with this latest allegation. i promise you this president, this vice president, this administration is going to keep fighting to deliver to the american people and that's why i think president trump is going to get four more years in the white house. i think we'll re-elect a republican majority to the

host: what are the main issues zelinski has to address in ukraine?t does he have to address immediately? guest: there is a lot. people incted because ukraine were not feeling performs the previous president put into place. people wanted to see tariffs lowered. they wanted pensions increased grade a lot of ukrainians are living on meager salaries and forced to sell potatoes and berries at metro stops. it is a sad situation. he promised to reach out to those people. he wants to end the war in the eastern part of ukraine where russia has been very aggressive over the past five years and taken 13,000 lives. he wants to see the return of crimea. i am not sure we will see that happen. russia illegally annexed crimea in 2014. getting 24rested in sailors captured by russia returned. there was a large prisoner swap last month. he is on his way. that is not even including the anticorruption package he wants to pursue. he has a lot on his plate even without this plunging of ukraine into the news. host: he was elected two months ago. how long is his term? guest:

an unexpected win for zelinski as well as the president in 2016. >> president zelinski had a career ins and our president spent time on tell sprition with great success. when i net with president zelinski in poland we talked about that. i know they will make that same connection not just on a shared background. but they are non-conventional leaders willing to lead from the front and drive for veal progress. at the end of the day, the present company excepted. the media doesn't focus on an amazing record that in the midst of reckless accusations the last 2 1/2 years, we rebuilt our military, rolling back regulation, and energy revolution. we have seen 150 conservatives appointed at every level in our courts. it's all due to the leadership of president donald trump. whatever the democrats want to do with this latest allegation. i promise you this president, this vice president, this administration is going to keep fighting to deliver to the american people and that's why i think president trump is going to get four more years in the white house. i think we'll re-elect a republican majori

zelinsky vladimir zelinsky and he actually went there early to the airport to visit the prisoners as they were coming down from the from the airplane to greet them and he even gave a small speech talking about the significance of this exchange for the future relation. between russia and ukraine. for example you crane in president told him or zelinsky and russian president vladimir putin have done everything we have promised and did not change our agreements they can make. things easy if you'll step down. and we heard this kind of sentiment echoed pretty much all over the world actually we heard the council of europe say that this was a really important step in normalizing relations between russia and ukraine we also heard from russia's human rights commissioner who said this was a historic step she said and even donald trump commented on twitter he gave his congratulations to both parties involved just on that we've been looking at the pictures all of the people who were coming there maybe some more well know and others give us a sense who has arrived. well at the beginning it was al

ukrainian president vladimir zelinsky said i would also like to thank you for your great support in defense. we are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps, specifically we are almost ready to buy more javelins from the united states for defense purposes. javelin, a weapon the u.s. is selling ukraine. we're ready, lay it on us. we're ready to do it. he explicitly references the military support for ukraine to purchase american weapons to fends off the russians that are currently occupying their country. >> and the very next thing trump says is, i would like you to do us a favor, though. though, though. what's the though doing there? i would like you to do us a favor though, and then the president proceeds to ask two things. he makes his ask. one is almost two ridiculous to get your head fully around but essentially trump wants the ukrainian president to pursue an insane and discredited conspiracy theory that basically the dnc was not hacked by the russians, but rather the security by the dnc hired to do their forensics was actually framing the russians on behalf of some nefarious

the vice president's conversations with zelinsky, take a listen to what he said. >> i think you should ask for vp pence's conversation because he had a couple of conversations also. i could save you a lot of time. nothing was mentioned of anything import other than congratulations. >> do you think we should take up the president's suggestion and see the memorandum memorializing the vice president's conversations? >> i think that would be enlightening also. >> do you expect -- you're not part of the gang of eight and you're not on an intelligence committee. >> i used to be. >> i know you used to be, so i want to ask you do you anticipate -- i've seen a bunch of people coming out having read it saying this is troubling, deeply troubling, this is really bad. do you anticipate that whistle-blower complaint will be made public at some point? >> i would hope so because we're talking about a president abusing his power and more. i think the american public needs to know the extent this president has gone to abuse his power against a much weaker country, by the way, to get what he wants on the

advised volodymyr zelinsky's transition team and has been distant from the administration.police officer at electric car running out of juice in the middle of a high-speed chase in california. the cop pursuing a suspect in a tesla at 120 miles an hour when the battery went down. the suspect got away. they are testing the pilot program. the okay and just is now symbol of hate according to the antidefamation league which added dozens of entries to a database of symbols it says i used by white supremacists and other extremists. other entries include the all haircut, a nod to the white supremacist who shot and killed nine black people at church in south carolina. more news next. ♪ it's made with plants and ♪ ♪ has the cleaning strength of tide. ♪ the first plant-based detergent with the cleaning power of tide. like very high triglycerides, can be tough. you diet. exercise. but if you're also taking fish oil supplements, you should know, they are not fda-approved, they may have saturated fat and may even raise bad cholesterol. to treat very high triglycerides, discover the scien

would depend on whether zelinsky agreed to play ball on the issues.hose clued joe biden. the only guy going down for this? rudy giuliani. when the dust is cleared, r eye will rudey will be under the bus, maybe the ak se "access hollywood" bus. he claims the state department sent him to the ukraine. they say they didn't. having rudy giuliani be your middleman, it's like asking bill cosby to chaperone your date. it's a problem. but rudy says when all is said and done, he will be the hero of this story. he will be, he'll be like those heroes you met out on the street today, begging for tips. meanwhile, the impeachment process marches on. a majority of the house, at least 223 lawmakers now, are on board with the impeachment inquiry, but nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house is in no mood to celebrate. >> every day the sadness grows, because the disregard for our constitution that the president has becomes more clear. >> well, she'll be chugging coors light from a beer bottle. all signs are pointing to impeachment and people are noticing from washington,

president here but we are learning more about the july phone call that president trump had with vladimir zelinskiaccording to "the wall street journal," which shares ownership of the fox news channel, president trump in a july phone call urged ukraine's president to look into joe biden's son, hunter. asked about in the oval office, president trump did not deny it. >> [reporter question] >> it doesn't matter what i discussed but i will say this, somebody ought to look into joe biden because it was disgraceful when he talked about billions of dollars that he is not giving to a certain country unless a certain prosecutor is taken off the case. >> meeting with australia's officer says president trump dismissed a whistle-blower's complaint to the intelligence community inspector general about an alleged promise president trump made to a foreign leader during a phone call. >> it's a partisan whistle-blower. >> moments later, the president acknowledged that he didn't know who the whistle-blower was, but he insisted all of his calls with world leaders have been totally appropriate, and according to "the

he's also scheduled to meet zelinsky face-to-face at the u.n.n thursday, the director of national intelligence is due to appear at an open hearing on capitol hill, and democrat adam schiff tweeted that the whistle blower wants to testify as well. mitch mcconnell slammed pelosi's decision, saying in a statement it simply confirms that house democrats priority is not making life better for the american people but their nearly 3-year-old fixation on impeachment. meanwhile, both sides are looking down the road to next year's presidential election. >> whatever the best-laid plans of candidates and campaigns, all of that is going to fade-in the midst of an all-encompassing washington story. to impeach president trump, it's unlikely they'd have the votes in the senate to remove him from office. >> we have never impeached and remov removed a president from office. and so from the speaker of the house who had resisted impeachment plans, this is a historic day. >> reporter: meanwhile, what was already said to be a bitter election battle now has a tricky n

the original story was that president trump told president zelinski, i'm not , going to give you2 upd until you investigate joe biden. two days later, the false report, the false reporters and the line whistle-blowers. >> sean: second hand, blew back on them.correction. mention of $250 million. no quid pro quo.no mention of m. -- aid. and then, on the other side, the president and his foreign minister has said that it was completely appropriate. there was no pressure. for any crime to be committed the victim has to be --- >> sean: pressured. >> has to be him. has to feel -- when i prosecuted extortion, one of the things i ead to show was you felt threatened. el you didn't feel threatened it doesn't matterif adam schiff, you have to be threatened. no crime, no wrongdoing. not only that, it would beincono not demand an investigation of a vice president taking down billions of dollars from the president of the united states. this makes spiro agnuw look like an angel. and a small 46 time criminal. >> sean: thank you for being with us. join ns now, the author of "the new york times" numbe

while talking about vladimir zelinsky the ukrainian president gave a light hearted reply when asked whether he had indeed been put under pressure by cultural. and then you. know men in. the in on the men and these men to meet senior woman she's the. former us that much jim just tristen political commentator joan william ludden gave us their views on the case. i don't think the republicans in the senate would have just called for something and taken a hostile position to the president i mean look i held office 14 years i've had these conversations there was was definitely back channel discussions they're not going to do something to embarrass the president especially something that that is so groundbreaking is that we don't have whistleblowers that were listening in on conversations that the president made with foreign leaders they just released that those discussions that is that is unprecedented lisa in my political lifetime i've never seen that kind of pressure we have what's called you know separation of powers congress has their powers the president has his powers the courts have their

he made a congratulatory call to president zelinski, which was a landslide election.sident spoke to him about our concern, investing hundreds and millions of american dollars. president trump made it clear that we've got to see reforms. we've got to see honesty in government. his congratulatory call was all about that. he mentioned vice president biden and his son and the context of us wanting to see honest government. that's exactly what the american taxpayer would expect. see when here you have, vice president biden bragging on tape, "you are not getting $1 million. you either fire the prosecutor. why would the vice president want to fire him? why would a vice president of the united states america want a ukrainian prosecutor fired? what conceivable reason would that be? >> vice president pence: it's really remarkable. everything that the media wants to assume of how the president's phone call in july went. he admitted to, on camera, in january 2018, he said that when he was vice president of the united states, he had a quid pro quo. he he said to ukrainian officia,

zelinski brings up rudy giuliani, trump says he will have mister giuliani give you a and i will have william barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. despite the fact that giuliani isn't a us government employee the president says he's doing work on its behalf. >> also find out where the phony witchhunt started, it is a media hope that a democrat hoax, where did it start? we want to find out where it started. >> he also asked to look into joe and hunter biden saying biden was bragging he stopped prosecution so if you can look into it it sounds pretty horrible to me. sources who actually know how presidential phone calls work say this krantz ripped was standard procedure, however he administration for decades has called for leaders and also told fox news they are confident it is accurate. we will learn more when the acting dni is on capitol hill. >> we will watch closely, thank you. this fox news alert, republican chris towery serves on the house intelligence committee says the whistleblower complaint has been declassified, urging everyone to read it. we don't have it yet. joini

charges insisting that he was targeted for something doing his job as a journalist meantime president zelinsky welcome to 35 returning equally in person as their plane landed in kiev some of their relatives were also there to meet them the trade involved $24.00 ukrainian sailors seized for violating the maritime border with russia and ukrainian film director alike sense soft convicted of plotting terrorist acts in crimea. will be exchanged hers rekindled hope that a solution can be found to settle a long running ukrainian crisis. we see the agreed mutual release of people detained in russia and ukraine as a positive signal we should see another important step to breaking the deadlock in the current russian ukrainian relations russia and ukraine just want large numbers of prisoners very good news perhaps the 1st giant step to peace congratulations to both countries are ukrainian president waldemar zelinsky and russian president vladimir. have done everything we have promised and did not change our agreements to. make. pretty. easy but this is the 1st time for about 5 more than 5 years close in

is part of a white house cover up has there been any reaction today to all of this from president zelinsky. good evening brant no they are keeping very tight lipped here in kiev and i think probably for their purposes rightly so ukraine can only lose a situation there's nothing to gain if they seem to be too enthusiastic helping president trump in his campaign as it would seem against the biden family he will come in and ukraine will come in for criticism from the democrats the other way around as we've seen. very dependent on us aid financially and militarily so i think the real hope here is in kiev to sit this out to be as quiet as humanly possible and hope that somehow these passions and the ukraine can kind of keep itself out of this and you not be forced to choose between 2 sides yeah and what about you this is not something sure but it has really long legs into there a fear in kiev that u.s. foreign aid to ukraine could be reduced or cut altogether because of the scandal. well look u.s. support for ukraine has up till now being a bipartisan issue there was kind of consensus that help

senator ron johnson met him he had with ukrainian president vladimir zelinski.n september 11th, senator murphy was back in the u.s. and brief report is about meeting saying that president zelensky was baffled as to why the trump administration put a hold on $391 million in military aid and wanted to reach a resolution to keep the money flowing. murphy also conceded that he and zelinski did not talk in depth in the ukrainian president never brought up anything about a request fromut president trump. on september 20th, last friday,, the whistle-blower story went public and on monday, senator murphy's narrative about his meeting with zelinski changed. withth murphy saying the entire new ukrainian of an administration concerned, "that the aid that was being cut off to ukraine by the president as a consequence for theirun unwillingness, at the time, to investigate the biden burlesque." the conservative free beacon others assumed what murphy said the entire administration he meant president zelensky as well, but now murphy says his comments were "unclear," in other wo

presidency a transcript summary of a july phone call between trump and ukrainian president vold a mere zelinsky shows strong urging the ukrainian leader to investigate presidential candidate and political rival joe biden now the call has prompted u.s. house democrats to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against president drop they're calling his actions quote an ambiguous damning and shocking abuse of the office of the presidency. these are the documents the white house released hoping to diffuse the controversy over president trump's telephone call with his ukrainian counterpart below the news alinsky instead they seem to back up claims that trump pressured zelinsky to investigate the business dealings of democratic rival joe biden's son. trump continues to deny the allegations and says democrats are harassing him. this is radically was or whatever and if you take a look at the democrats they went down to see the president of ukraine and they are sent for all sorts of things and don't go with the republicans and stay with us and like it's a political war they shouldn't have done that it's th

ukrainian president zelinsky and asks him to investigate it and you know this is the 1st time that i've heard truth from mr trump since his electoral campaign in 2016 just very simply explained what has been telling us about joe biden this is trumpeted in the media he calls the ukrainian government and says don't you dare prosecute if you don't fire this prosecutor. if you don't fire this prosecutor we're not going to give you $2000000000.00 in loan guarantees or whatever he was supposed to give can you imagine i did that and of calderon mr trump but the problem is that this is the truth from 8 to z. this is how it would work but the interesting thing here going is that. for some reason we can speculate why this is really come up in the news you know obviously it's an entire gambit there's nothing new about that but as our gentleman friends here pointed out this is part of the public record and then what's being talked about publicly is if it's news it's not news it's not news that they were officials from the d.n.c. visited ukraine during the 2016 election looking for dirt on paul meta

ukrainian president voted dimmer zelinsky and russian president vladimir putin have done everything we have promised and did not change over agreements that. will ship and we heard this kind of sentiment echoed pretty much all over the world actually we heard the council of europe say that this was a really important step in normalizing relations between russia and ukraine we also heard from russia's human rights commissioner who said this was a historic step she said and even donald trump commented on twitter he gave his congratulations to both parties involved give us a sense. well at the beginning it was all speculation you know there were it was unknown who the prisoners were there were blacked out windows on the buses but now we have identified them and let's go over the main ones one of the primary prisoners that was there were exchanged was ukrainian filmmaker all legs sense of now he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in russia on terrorism charges during the crimean referendum of 2014 he was accused of being part of a terrorist organization that plotted bombings of civilian i

that there was any quid pro quo in his july 25th phone call with ukraine and president vladimir zelinski>> did you tell the ukraine and later that they would have the aid only if the investigator joe biden and his family? >> no i didn't. i did not make a statement that you have to do this or not going to give you -- i wouldn't do that. >> sources tell fox news that the whistle-blower who filed the complaint with the intelligence community's inspector general did not have firsthand knowledge of that conversation. president trump suggested that to prove his point the white house may release at least a partial transcript of the phone call. >> i may do it, because it was a very intense and gnomic innocent called on both his part -- it was a very nice call from africa to see it and i hope you get to see it soon. >> president trump and white house aides are debating whether to do it. there are fears releasing a transcript would be a dangerous precedent, a slippery slope that could lead to demands for other transcripts of other calls. >> i could do it very easily but i'd rather not do it. i don

this is something the administration has worked on with president volodymyr zelinsky who some accusedf being a public -- a puppet, the television station, one plus one, where volodymyr zelinsky got started as a comedian with a tv series. there is a lot of challenges to be worked out. >> this isn't the first administration that had to deal with ukraine. there were a lot of issues and negotiation back and forth with the obama administration to joe biden. >> the obama administration had issues with the ukrainian general prosecutor. to august 29th is out of office. the previous one was someone many believed was corrupt himself. there was a consensus in the european union and the obama administration that he should be removed and there is a famous clip of vice president biden demanding he be removed. heather: we enjoy having you with us, appreciate your expertise. have a good weekend. the time is 19 after the top of the hour, donald trump's pressure campaign working. californians taking steps to crack down on the homeless crisis but will it work? ♪ eó2w congress as the us annual survey rev

waive so a white house transcript of that call shows that trump repeatedly urged ukraine's volodymyr zelinsky to investigate whether joe biden sought to interfere in a conflict of interest probe of the ukrainian gas company for which his son hunter biden worked at the time trump was with holding nearly $400000000.00 in aid without explanation under fire trump denies using any pressure what these guys are doing democrats are doing to this country is it straight but they're going to tie up our country because frankly this so tied up this so it's made up as the director of national intelligence testified here on capitol hill president trump was at the united nations talking to steph he told them he wanted to know who told the whistleblower about his phone call adding that they were close to a spy and then he said something that sounded menacing. according to the whistleblower several senior u.s. officials were concerned by the president's call now exhibit number one in hearings to decide whether to impeach donald trump john hendren al-jazeera washington still ahead on al-jazeera a large detentio

waive so a white house transcript of that call shows that trump repeatedly urged ukraine's volodymyr zelinsky to investigate whether joe biden sought to interfere in a conflict of interest probe of the ukrainian gas company for which his son hunter biden worked at the time trump was with holding nearly $400000000.00 in aid without explanation under fire trump denies using any pressure what these guys are doing democrats are doing to this country is it grace but they're going to tie up our country because frankly this so tied up this so it's good up as the director of national intelligence testified here on capitol hill president trump was at the united nations talking to staff he told them he wanted to know who told the whistleblower about his phone call adding that they were close to a spy and then he said something that sounded menacing. according to the whistleblower several senior u.s. officials were concerned by the president's call now exhibit number one in hearings to decide whether to impeach donald trump john hendren al-jazeera washington. still ahead on al-jazeera britain's prime mi

a political rival a memo of a phone call shows president trump urging his counterpart volodymyr zelinsky to open a corruption probe connected to presidential candidate joe biden the call prompted democrats in the u.s. congress to launch a formal.

ukrainian counterpart billowed amir's alinsky instead they seem to back up claims that trump pressured zelinsky to investigate the business dealings of democratic rival joe biden's son. continues to deny the allegations and says democrats are harassing him. it was directly whatsoever and if you take a look at the democrats they went down to see the president of ukraine and their sin for all sorts of things and don't go with the republicans and stay with us and like it's a political war they shouldn't have done that it's the single greatest witch hunt in american history probably in history but in american history it's a disgraceful thing the conversation details were made public today after house democrat leader nancy pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into the matter a move she's defended. the president of the united states. check his constitutional responsibility has asked a foreign government to help him in his political campaign that cannot stand who will be held accountable for that in the top democrat had long resisted calls for impeachment hearing a backlash from voters who still su

a political rival a memo of a phone call shows president trump urging his counterpart volodymyr zelinsky to open a corruption probe connected to presidential candidate joe biden the call prompted democrats in the u.s. congress to launch a formal and each month inquiry against the president from our lives in washington also coming up it's back to business parliament resumes in london the prime minister suspended it with the supreme court overruled and is now bracing the for 8 grade c. battled with lawmakers and a disaster in the making in the world's oceans scientists on the un's climate panel warn of a dire threat to humanity rising sea levels and super storms more flooding and more draft. thank you so much for your company everyone always starts this broadcast in the united states where the white house has released a memo of a telephone conversation between president gul trump and ukraine's president of a lot of well the document shows that trump pushed selenski to investigate former u.s. vice president. joe biden and biden son who worked for a ukrainian energy firm that phone call has

spoke with president galinsky to investigate that was included in the transcript with president zelinski. we know afterwards they sent notification to the white house of budget and management through the 21st we know the deliberations takes five days and instead it was for two whole months. we try to glean what could be the cause does the department have the objection to the money moving forward? know they didy not. know they did not any substantive questions over these months? know they did not. and the policy motivation urgently needed security funding. motivation. policy on the contrary there is a political motivation for fear the willingness to use the powers of his office for grossly inappropriate behaviorna than he international stage. we need to know exactly who is a trump administration and they played a role of the appropriated funding and how. i am calling for unanimous omconsent to my bill the uk and freedom assistance and accountability act of 2019. the bill would require the inspector general state department investigation from omb to obligate these funds by legislation woul

besides the phone call is that is that it says senior white house officials wanted the phone call with zelinsky of ukraine president locked down is the quote what does that mean and what does it tell us that they that they wanted to do something to get away get rid of this call. well essentially it shows that the tell staffers and aides and there were about dozen reportedly present at the time of the phone conversation that they were so concerned about the content of the conversation about the political fallout about how it could damage president trump that they just simply wanted to make it disappear that they wanted to cover it up as nancy pelosi said in the report you just played and in doing so they used a computer system that was originally made for material of concern for the national security obviously the whistleblower. of all of that he says this is rather a political cover up and that simply poses a big threat for the president and that can be seen by the response of the white tell stuffers and. so democrats it's pretty clear where they stand on this issue they are livid and want to g

all the focus on this whistleblower the best evidence of what president trump said to president zelinsky is a transcript of what president trump said to president selenski i'm not casting aspersions on the whistleblowers good faith or their intent. but a 2nd hand account of something someone didn't hear isn't as good as the best evidence of what was actually said and to that point despite good faith the whistleblower is in fact wrong. in numerous respects and i know everyone is not going to have time to read the whistleblowers complain but the whistleblower says that i am deeply concerned talking about the president that there was a serious or flagrant problem abuse or violation of the law whistleblower then goes on to say i was not a direct witness to the events described however i found my colleagues accounts of this to be credible and then talking about those accounts of which this whistleblower complaint is based on the whistleblower tells us the officials that i spoke with told me and i was told that and i learned from multiple u.s. officials that and white house officials told me t

president zelinski said they did not. >> i think nobody pushed me. >> there was no pressure. >> that key take away coming during the meeting between the ukrainian leader and donald trump who says the call was all about a joint effort to root out corruption. >> the president wants to stop corruption. he was elected number one on the basis of stopping corruption which unfortunately has plagued ukraine. >> reporter: the text of the call reads donald trump, there's a lot of talk about biden's son, biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. zelinski says he or she will look into the situation, to the company you mentioned in this issue, the issue of the investigation of the case is the issue to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and look on the investigation of the case. donald trump then says i will have mister giuliani give you a and i will have attorney general william barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. i'm sure you will figure it out. as you might expect joe bi

. >> we talked with ed zelinski who is the president, and that prompted democrats to start screaming from the rooftops of the president should be impeached for him. and there was no quid pro quo. >> they have to behave only if they investigated joe biden and his family. >> president trump: what he did is they said, and what the president, he was investigating a company on the board of which hunter biden was a member. and they released a partial transcript of it. >> president trump: i may do it because it was a very innocent call, on both his part and mine, it was really a congratulatory call because he had just one -- it was just confirmed that he was the new president and i think you will do an excellent job. that biggest part was corrupti corruption. he's looking for the same thing as i am. i hope you get to see it and i hope you get to see it soon. >> shepard: the president is current there. a couple reasons to not do it. and that's the slippery slope part of it. if you redact one word from it the whole thing becomes invalid. >> the bigger picture, this whistle-blower complaint is

zelinski begins by ingratiating himself and he tries to enlist the support of the president. he expresses interest in meeting with the president and says his country wants to acquire more weapons from us to defend itself. and what is the president's response? it reads like a classic organized crime shakedown. its rambling character and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the president communicates. we've been very good to your country. very good. no other country has done as much as we have. but you know what? i don't see much reciprocity here. i hear what you want. i have a favor i want from you though. and i'm going to say this only seven times so you better listen good. i went you to make up dirt on my political opponent understand, lots of it. on this and on that. i'm going to put you in touch with people, not just any people. i'm going to put you in touch with attorney general bill barr. he's got the whole weight of the american law enforcement behind him. and i'm going to put you in touch with rudy. you're going to love him. trust me. you know what i'm ask

the wall street journal reports not only was the a with vladimir zelinski but trump pressured him to work with rudy giuliani on a probe targeting joe biden's son hunter. the younger biden had business ties to ukraine at one point. he said they did not appear to be a quid pro quo from the president to his counterpart. here's what the president said about this earlier today. >> joe biden and his family? >> doesn't matter what i discussed, the partisan whistleblower. >> reporter: rudy giuliani, the president's friend and personal attorney took in august meeting with an aid to the ukrainian leader. week later the trump white house started to take a second look at the status of $250 million in foreign aid to ukraine, those have been released to the country, giuliani said he did not know about the funds during the time of his meeting. >> did you ask ukraine to investigate joe biden? >> know, i asked the ukraine to investigate the allegations there was interference in the election of 2016 by the ukrainians for the benefit of hillary clinton for which -- >> so you did ask ukraine to look int

aid was a direct result, encoding, direct result, of the conversation between president trump and zelinskihe couldn't possibly be true because if you look at that juls where we started setting it up. the meeting was set up three days before the telephone conversation. just to get even more careful about it, the ig has to be one of those sloppy us guys around because zelinski makes it clear on page four of the transcript that i already had talked to his aid when he tells the president that. so this guy doesn't know what happened. he gets the prosecutors confused, he falsely asserted -- i talked to two people, my representatives, one of who i was specifically told not to talk to because he was described as a crook. this is still -- >> laura: i want to ask you this. so where did the state department get its marching orders from here because people i think are extremely confused. all of these wild allegations about you, you have a series of tax that refute pretty much every single one of them and so the state department was then -- it was then told to connect you with them how? how did that ag

he clearly only had one reason for making this call, that was to strongly encourage president zelinsky to find information that could hurt trump's opponents and help his campaign. that is the conclusion any region person who read this is would draw. but the president has repeatedly claimed that the call in question was perfect. >> the conversation i had with the president of ukraine was absolutely perfect. that call was a great call. it was a perfect call, a perfect call. it was a beautiful, warm, nice conversation. the conversation, by the way, was absolutely perfect. i said absolutely nothing wrong. it was perfect. we had a great conversation. it was a warm and friendly conversation. it was a totally appropriate conversation. it was a beautiful conversation. we had a great call. it's a very honorable call. it's a nice call. by the way, the conversation was absolutely perfect. absolutely appropriate. it was a perfect conversation. everything we said on that call was perfect. there was a very, very fine conversation. an absolutely perfect conversation. but what i said was so good. it w