WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.570 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Battle lines are drawn as President Trump faces impeachment. 00:05.570 --> 00:09.060 align:start I'm Robert Costa. Welcome to Washington Week. 00:09.060 --> 00:12.230 align:start HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): (From video.) The actions of the Trump presidency 00:12.230 --> 00:16.700 align:start revealed the dishonorable fact of the president's betrayal of his oath of office, 00:16.700 --> 00:22.160 align:start betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. 00:22.160 --> 00:27.120 align:start Therefore, today I'm announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an 00:27.120 --> 00:29.860 align:start official impeachment inquiry. 00:29.860 --> 00:34.190 align:start ROBERT COSTA: A whistleblower complaint sparks action in the House - under scrutiny, 00:34.190 --> 00:38.380 align:start exchanges between President Trump and the president of Ukraine. 00:38.380 --> 00:43.270 align:start Did President Trump abuse his power? Republicans fight back. 00:43.270 --> 00:47.380 align:start SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): (From video.) This phone call is a nothingburger in terms 00:47.380 --> 00:52.450 align:start of a quid pro quo. The president of the United States did not remotely suggest to the Ukraine 00:52.450 --> 00:56.730 align:start if you don't do my political bidding against the Bidens I'm going to cut your money off. 00:56.730 --> 01:01.210 align:start PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) It's a joke. Impeachment for that? 01:01.210 --> 01:05.590 align:start ROBERT COSTA: But the acting director of national intelligence did not dismiss the complaint. 01:05.590 --> 01:08.730 align:start ACTING DNI JOSEPH MAGUIRE: (From video.) I believe that the whistleblower and the 01:08.730 --> 01:12.060 align:start inspector general have acted in good faith throughout. 01:12.060 --> 01:17.420 align:start ROBERT COSTA: We go inside a momentous week, next. 01:17.420 --> 01:26.890 align:start ANNOUNCER: This is Washington Week. Once again, from Washington, moderator Robert Costa. 01:26.890 --> 01:32.020 align:start ROBERT COSTA: It was a chaotic scene at the Capitol this week following Speaker Pelosi's 01:32.020 --> 01:35.250 align:start announcement of an impeachment inquiry. 01:35.250 --> 01:39.750 align:start When I pulled aside senators and House members down by the basement trains and near the 01:39.750 --> 01:44.750 align:start floor, you could sense them adjusting - at times uneasily - to the new political dynamics 01:44.750 --> 01:50.240 align:start and to the serious questions now facing Congress and the Trump administration. 01:50.240 --> 01:55.340 align:start At the heart of the debate, a seven-page whistleblower complaint that claims President 01:55.340 --> 02:00.630 align:start Trump misused his office for personal gain and endangered national security, and that 02:00.630 --> 02:05.070 align:start White House officials tried to keep his conversations with the Ukrainian president, 02:05.070 --> 02:09.700 align:start Volodymyr Zelensky, a secret. The complaint alleges that Mr. Trump 02:09.700 --> 02:14.540 align:start pushed the Ukrainian president in a July 25th phone call to investigate Democratic 02:14.540 --> 02:19.770 align:start presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, all as hundreds of millions in U.S. 02:19.770 --> 02:23.670 align:start military aid for Ukraine had yet to be released. 02:23.670 --> 02:28.030 align:start The president, the whistleblower wrote, was, quote, "using the power of his office to 02:28.030 --> 02:33.610 align:start solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election." The whistleblower goes 02:33.610 --> 02:38.120 align:start on to say the record of the call was put on a separate computer system as a way of 02:38.120 --> 02:40.780 align:start shielding it from wider view. 02:40.780 --> 02:45.730 align:start Joining me tonight, Yamiche Alcindor, White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour; 02:45.730 --> 02:50.970 align:start Philip Rucker, White House bureau chief for The Washington Post; Nancy Cordes, chief 02:50.970 --> 02:56.330 align:start congressional correspondent for CBS News; and Kaitlan Collins, White House correspondent 02:56.330 --> 03:02.500 align:start for CNN. Let's begin with Speaker Pelosi's decision. Here is what she said Thursday. 03:02.500 --> 03:07.290 align:start HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): (From video.) It's a sad week for our country. 03:07.290 --> 03:13.840 align:start Very prayerfully and patriotically, we had to come to a decision to move forward with an 03:13.840 --> 03:20.080 align:start impeachment inquiry of the president of the United States. This is nothing that we take lightly. 03:20.080 --> 03:26.690 align:start We wanted to have a full - fuller understanding of the facts. 03:26.690 --> 03:33.020 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Why was this complaint the breaking point for House Democrats? Nancy, you've 03:33.020 --> 03:38.380 align:start been on Capitol Hill all week. I've seen you in the hallways. Why now for Speaker Pelosi. 03:38.380 --> 03:43.520 align:start NANCY CORDES: Couple of reasons. Number one, this complaint - this issue Democrats 03:43.520 --> 03:48.840 align:start feel is easier for the American public to understand than the Russia issue. 03:48.840 --> 03:53.310 align:start It goes to the heart of the president's actions, whereas the Mueller investigation that 03:53.310 --> 03:57.120 align:start we all lived through for two years had to do with a lot of the people around the 03:57.120 --> 04:01.910 align:start president, layers removed from the president. This was the president himself in a phone 04:01.910 --> 04:07.710 align:start call with the Ukrainian president, also withholding military aid, and that gets to the 04:07.710 --> 04:12.410 align:start heart of national security, foreign affairs, something else that's deeply troubling to 04:12.410 --> 04:15.600 align:start Democrats and privately to some Republicans as well. 04:15.600 --> 04:20.540 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Kaitlan, inside the White House do they feel the same way, that this moment is different? 04:20.540 --> 04:23.190 align:start KAITLAN COLLINS: Yeah. They didn't at the beginning of the week. 04:23.190 --> 04:26.530 align:start They were dismissing it as this was starting to develop, starting to take shape. It was 04:26.530 --> 04:30.450 align:start just you guys are overplaying it in the media, Democrats are taking advantage of it. 04:30.450 --> 04:34.700 align:start A lot of that changed after Nancy Pelosi launched this formal impeachment inquiry, came 04:34.700 --> 04:38.170 align:start out, and then the next day of course the president - or that day the president made the 04:38.170 --> 04:42.080 align:start decision to release that transcript and it came out the next day, and it was much worse 04:42.080 --> 04:45.380 align:start than they thought it was going to be. So people who typically in the past have 04:45.380 --> 04:49.230 align:start dismissed everything - they weathered the incremental developments in the Russia 04:49.230 --> 04:53.000 align:start investigation - they realize this is different and it's making them nervous. 04:53.000 --> 04:56.050 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What was part of that tipping point for the Democrats? 04:56.050 --> 04:59.500 align:start You look at the op-ed some of the moderates, the House freshmen wrote in The Washington 04:59.500 --> 05:03.380 align:start Post. Was that on Speaker Pelosi's mind as she moved forward? 05:03.380 --> 05:07.120 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The sources I talked to close to Speaker Pelosi told me very much what 05:07.120 --> 05:11.940 align:start Nancy just articulated, which is that for a long time Democrats were articulating this 05:11.940 --> 05:15.770 align:start idea that they felt like the president was using the office wrongly - that he was doing 05:15.770 --> 05:19.740 align:start things that was completely out of the norm, that he was profiting from the presidency, 05:19.740 --> 05:23.340 align:start that he was essentially just a bad actor in the White House. But this week they got 05:23.340 --> 05:27.430 align:start something that they could explain to the American people almost in the old Twitter 140 05:27.430 --> 05:31.770 align:start characters. It was this really, really short thing to say the president was on the 05:31.770 --> 05:35.720 align:start phone with a foreign leader trying to get them to meddle in the 2020 election. 05:35.720 --> 05:39.380 align:start That's it, that's the argument that Democrats are making. That's a lot different 05:39.380 --> 05:42.490 align:start than the - than the Mueller report and all the things that were going on there. 05:42.490 --> 05:46.670 align:start So I think Nancy Pelosi also felt I think a little pressure from her caucus because we 05:46.670 --> 05:51.270 align:start saw John Lewis, the conscience of America in a lot of ways, this iconic person, this 05:51.270 --> 05:55.110 align:start civil rights leader, come to the House floor and say I am now in favor of impeaching the 05:55.110 --> 05:59.250 align:start president or an impeachment inquiry. And what we saw there was John Lewis going out before 05:59.250 --> 06:03.240 align:start Nancy Pelosi, so she was following her caucus and a lot of people were ready for this. 06:03.240 --> 06:06.760 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Phil, you cover President Trump day in, day out. 06:06.760 --> 06:11.360 align:start When you read the whistleblower complaint and you saw how he had an interaction with the 06:11.360 --> 06:16.150 align:start Ukrainian president, what did it reveal to you about how he uses his power? 06:16.150 --> 06:21.140 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: It revealed, Bob, a pattern of behavior in such granular detail in that 06:21.140 --> 06:24.560 align:start whistleblower complaint. And it wasn't just the whistleblower, by the way; it was 06:24.560 --> 06:29.640 align:start corroborated based on the whistleblower's contacts within the government, other White 06:29.640 --> 06:33.500 align:start House aides, other officials who were alarmed by the president's behavior, and it 06:33.500 --> 06:37.220 align:start documented a president who really sees himself as above the law. 06:37.220 --> 06:41.350 align:start We have just had a two-year national conversation about how it is illegal and improper 06:41.350 --> 06:46.270 align:start for a president or a government official to coordinate, to seek help in a campaign from a 06:46.270 --> 06:50.860 align:start foreign government or a foreign leader, an yet that's what the document shows President 06:50.860 --> 06:53.710 align:start Trump tried to do with his Ukrainian counterpart. 06:53.710 --> 06:58.870 align:start ROBERT COSTA: If that's what it shows, why did the White House choose to release a memo about the call? 06:58.870 --> 07:02.020 align:start KAITLAN COLLINS: It's a mystery to so many people, and it's interesting to see who was 07:02.020 --> 07:06.000 align:start divided in the West Wing of who wanted it out there - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo 07:06.000 --> 07:10.420 align:start saying don't do this, advising the president that it was going to set a bad precedent. 07:10.420 --> 07:14.330 align:start But the attorney general, Bill Barr, was pushing for it. He was saying, yes, we should 07:14.330 --> 07:17.980 align:start just release it, it's going to help dispel some of this drama that's been surrounding it. 07:17.980 --> 07:21.480 align:start Then of course it comes out and you see how many times the president was telling the 07:21.480 --> 07:25.190 align:start Ukrainian president to get with the attorney general, equating him with his personal 07:25.190 --> 07:29.270 align:start attorney, and it left a lot of people in Trump world wondering why they pushed for it. 07:29.270 --> 07:32.730 align:start Some people in the aftermath have said they think that Barr realized it was going to be 07:32.730 --> 07:36.980 align:start ugly no matter what and he wanted to just get it out there and not have the drip, drip, 07:36.980 --> 07:41.320 align:start drip of information, but it's still confounding to people. 07:41.320 --> 07:44.270 align:start ROBERT COSTA: And congressional Republicans were pressuring the White House as well 07:44.270 --> 07:50.620 align:start because they were wondering why the president delayed the aid, 250 million (dollars) set 07:50.620 --> 07:55.380 align:start aside by the Pentagon, by Congress for Ukraine, held up by the president. 07:55.380 --> 07:59.990 align:start Even if it wasn't a quid pro quo, do Republicans worry about the aspect of foreign 07:59.990 --> 08:03.230 align:start interference that's raised by this memorandum? 08:03.230 --> 08:08.510 align:start NANCY CORDES: Absolutely, and the fact that we learned this week that even the leader of 08:08.510 --> 08:14.340 align:start the Senate, Republican Mitch McConnell, who should ordinarily be a top ally of this 08:14.340 --> 08:21.220 align:start administration, even he says that he was left in the dark about why that aid was withheld 08:21.220 --> 08:27.300 align:start for months. He says he spoke to the secretary of state, he spoke to the secretary of 08:27.300 --> 08:33.510 align:start defense and was given no explanation. So you really saw the leader of the Senate 08:33.510 --> 08:37.800 align:start putting some distance between himself and the president on this issue, not throwing 08:37.800 --> 08:42.160 align:start him a lifeline at all, saying even I didn't know what was going on. 08:42.160 --> 08:46.880 align:start And yes, that is troubling to Republicans because they see a huge strategic advantage in 08:46.880 --> 08:51.740 align:start an alliance with Ukraine, they believe that the U.S. needs to protect Ukraine against 08:51.740 --> 08:55.910 align:start Russian aggression, and that made this whole situation all the more troubling. 08:55.910 --> 08:58.660 align:start ROBERT COSTA: This was more than a phone call. 08:58.660 --> 09:01.890 align:start You talk to Rudy Giuliani all the time as a reporter. He was - 09:01.890 --> 09:04.480 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: We all do. (Laughter.) 09:04.480 --> 09:10.600 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Seems like - (inaudible). But he was mounting a pressure campaign. What 09:10.600 --> 09:16.170 align:start alarm did that raise among Democrats when they read the report and maybe even some Republicans? 09:16.170 --> 09:20.970 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Rudy Giuliani is claiming that the State Department called him up and 09:20.970 --> 09:25.390 align:start said we need your help with Ukraine. So that in and of itself is Rudy Giuliani essentially 09:25.390 --> 09:29.710 align:start saying that he was being tasked by the United States to be a diplomat to Ukraine. 09:29.710 --> 09:33.850 align:start That's problematic to Democrats. They say, how is the president's personal lawyer now 09:33.850 --> 09:38.720 align:start acting as a sort of ambassador to the Ukraine? It's also because, of course, he's the 09:38.720 --> 09:42.430 align:start president's personal lawyer. So what you see is the president, at least in the Democrats' 09:42.430 --> 09:47.330 align:start eyes, and in some Republicans' eyes, putting his own - his own political interest in front 09:47.330 --> 09:51.520 align:start of the national interest of this country. You also have in Rudy Giuliani someone who 09:51.520 --> 09:54.820 align:start is saying now that he wants to testify before Congress. 09:54.820 --> 09:57.940 align:start And I think that that's going to be an interesting - I think an interesting decision 09:57.940 --> 10:01.730 align:start on his part, because Democrats are very, very eager to talk to Rudy Giuliani. 10:01.730 --> 10:05.020 align:start They're also very eager to talk to I think a number of other people mentioned in this 10:05.020 --> 10:09.290 align:start complaint because I think like the Mueller report, what we see in this complaint is a 10:09.290 --> 10:12.320 align:start whole number of people around the president doing two things. 10:12.320 --> 10:16.160 align:start Either, one, helping his actions along, if you're Rudy Giuliani, or, two, trying to 10:16.160 --> 10:19.550 align:start mitigate what he's doing by giving Ukraine advice to say, look, this is how you can 10:19.550 --> 10:23.240 align:start navigate the president telling you to do this, and investigate the Bidens. 10:23.240 --> 10:27.110 align:start NANCY CORDES: And it's interesting to see the debate play out among lawmakers about 10:27.110 --> 10:31.210 align:start whether they should have Giuliani testify because, on one hand, obviously he's at the 10:31.210 --> 10:36.320 align:start heart of this controversy, there is no one who knows more about how all this went down. 10:36.320 --> 10:41.020 align:start On the other hand, if his appearance before Congress is anything like his cable news 10:41.020 --> 10:46.860 align:start appearances, it's going to be, you know, frankly, a little over the top. And Democrats 10:46.860 --> 10:55.430 align:start do worry that it has the potential to sort of turn the entire impeachment process, which 10:55.430 --> 11:00.440 align:start they'd like to be very serious, into something of a circus. And so that's the tradeoff. 11:00.440 --> 11:03.790 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: And at a certain point there may start to be questions within the Trump 11:03.790 --> 11:08.190 align:start orbit about whether Rudy Giuliani is effectively serving as the president's lawyer in 11:08.190 --> 11:12.620 align:start this case. He is now an actor and a principal, a subject of this investigation, given 11:12.620 --> 11:17.170 align:start his many months of the pressure campaign, as Yamiche was talking about, in Ukraine. 11:17.170 --> 11:20.090 align:start And at what point does that become a distraction for the president? 11:20.090 --> 11:24.230 align:start At what point is he too focused on explaining his own actions with Ukraine that he's not 11:24.230 --> 11:27.110 align:start focused entirely on defending the president? 11:27.110 --> 11:30.190 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What about this issue of a separate computer server? What do we know 11:30.190 --> 11:33.170 align:start about how the White House counsel's office, the national security officials are using 11:33.170 --> 11:36.240 align:start that, and maybe shielding some information from others in the administration? 11:36.240 --> 11:38.710 align:start KAITLAN COLLINS: Well, that's what so interesting about what happened today. 11:38.710 --> 11:41.720 align:start You saw the president on Twitter questioning the credibility of this whistleblower, 11:41.720 --> 11:45.510 align:start saying that they had a lot of inaccurate information. Really, we've seen the opposite. 11:45.510 --> 11:48.600 align:start A lot of what was in this complaint has actually come to match what the White House 11:48.600 --> 11:50.720 align:start itself has confirmed. 11:50.720 --> 11:53.810 align:start One of those things - one of the biggest parts, I think, that we learned in the complaint 11:53.810 --> 11:57.370 align:start was that the transcript of this conversation with the Ukrainian president was moved from 11:57.370 --> 12:01.340 align:start where these transcripts with heads of states, calls with heads of state are typically 12:01.340 --> 12:05.200 align:start stored, and it was put on a server where you have to essentially enter a codeword to be 12:05.200 --> 12:09.260 align:start able to access this information. It's typically for national security information, 12:09.260 --> 12:13.840 align:start really sensitive stuff, not just readouts of calls with foreign leaders. This was put 12:13.840 --> 12:17.750 align:start there in an effort to limit the amount of people who could see it. That was really 12:17.750 --> 12:21.420 align:start interesting to people. And that - the White House hadn't commented on it, but today 12:21.420 --> 12:25.640 align:start the whistleblower's complaint said White House lawyers directed staff to move it there. 12:25.640 --> 12:28.950 align:start Today we saw - we got a statement from the White House saying it was a National Security 12:28.950 --> 12:32.140 align:start Council lawyer who told officials to move it there. 12:32.140 --> 12:35.550 align:start What that tells you is the White House counsel's office wants to say: We didn't have 12:35.550 --> 12:39.500 align:start anything to do with this. It was a National Security Council lawyer who did it. 12:39.500 --> 12:42.420 align:start So that's something that people are going to be paying attention to. 12:42.420 --> 12:45.180 align:start ROBERT COSTA: We just also learned Friday that the House Foreign Affairs Committee has 12:45.180 --> 12:47.250 align:start subpoenaed the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 12:47.250 --> 12:50.720 align:start Could we learn more about this whole operation if he's called to Capitol Hill? 12:50.720 --> 12:54.120 align:start NANCY CORDES: Absolutely. And what they really want from Pompeo is documents. 12:54.120 --> 12:56.480 align:start They've been asking for these documents for weeks. 12:56.480 --> 13:03.620 align:start They want to know more about foreign affairs officers at the embassy in Ukraine, who 13:03.620 --> 13:08.810 align:start apparently expressed concern about Rudy Giuliani's freelancing in that country as a sort 13:08.810 --> 13:14.270 align:start of quasi-diplomat. And you know, what exactly the concerns were that they were expressing. 13:14.270 --> 13:19.380 align:start They want to know more about, you know, Giuliani is arguing that he did this all at the 13:19.380 --> 13:25.300 align:start behest of the State Department. And so Democrats have been asking for an enormous 13:25.300 --> 13:29.080 align:start cache of documents from the State Department. They haven't gotten anything so far. 13:29.080 --> 13:33.540 align:start And so they took the next step this week. They now say that they - that the 13:33.540 --> 13:38.170 align:start secretary of state has a week to turn the documents over. Let's see if the 13:38.170 --> 13:43.700 align:start administration is more receptive to this tactic now than it has been in the past. 13:43.700 --> 13:47.640 align:start ROBERT COSTA: And so we're grappling with the substance of the complaint. There's also 13:47.640 --> 13:52.710 align:start the politics. Acting DNI Joseph Maguire testified before Congress Thursday to address 13:52.710 --> 13:56.740 align:start questions about the whistleblower complaint and why he and the White House delayed 13:56.740 --> 14:01.320 align:start handing it over. Political battle lines were quickly drawn. The chairman of the 14:01.320 --> 14:05.310 align:start House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff laid out the Democratic argument. 14:05.310 --> 14:08.380 align:start REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): (From video.) The president of the United States has 14:08.380 --> 14:13.640 align:start betrayed his oath of office, betrayed his oath to defend our national security, and 14:13.640 --> 14:18.960 align:start betrayed his oath to defend our Constitution for his personal political benefit. 14:18.960 --> 14:23.260 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Ranking Republican Devin Nunes laid out the GOP case. 14:23.260 --> 14:26.840 align:start REPRESENTATIVE DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): (From video.) In the Democrats' mania to overturn the 14:26.840 --> 14:31.250 align:start 2016 elections, everything they touch gets hopelessly politicized. 14:31.250 --> 14:35.230 align:start With the Russia hoax it was our intelligence agencies which were turned into a political 14:35.230 --> 14:43.050 align:start weapon to attack the president, and now today the whistleblower process is the casualty. 14:43.050 --> 14:47.010 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What a pivot point for President Trump, his entire presidency on the line, 14:47.010 --> 14:49.410 align:start impeachment now on Capitol Hill. 14:49.410 --> 14:53.550 align:start Has he changed his own view of how he's going to move forward in the next year? 14:53.550 --> 14:56.240 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: He doesn't seem to have changed his view. 14:56.240 --> 15:00.100 align:start He's following a traditional playbook that we've seen from him, which is to try to go 15:00.100 --> 15:04.720 align:start after and discredit the accusers, and then to counterattack, and then kick up a lot of 15:04.720 --> 15:09.200 align:start dust, to create distractions, in this case, around Biden, to divert attention from the 15:09.200 --> 15:13.580 align:start facts about his own conduct. This is probably going to continue. 15:13.580 --> 15:18.170 align:start The problem that he faces is that the White House is understaffed right now, in some 15:18.170 --> 15:23.670 align:start respects they're demoralized over all of the heat that they've been facing, and they 15:23.670 --> 15:26.230 align:start don't have a full operation. They don't have a war room - 15:26.230 --> 15:29.710 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Are there tensions about how to move forward strategically? 15:29.710 --> 15:32.930 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: There are. I mean, there's actually talk of bringing in an outside - 15:32.930 --> 15:38.120 align:start an outside team that can handle this PR battle and the legal battle so that other 15:38.120 --> 15:41.440 align:start people in the White House can focus on governing. But remember, it's - there's an 15:41.440 --> 15:45.230 align:start acting chief of staff right now. The press secretary is actually holding three jobs 15:45.230 --> 15:49.060 align:start at once. It is not a fully running machine at the moment. 15:49.060 --> 15:51.570 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Will there be a war room? 15:51.570 --> 15:55.150 align:start KAITLAN COLLINS: Less talk of a war room, more of a team that could potentially be on 15:55.150 --> 16:00.170 align:start the inside or outside that would help strategize communications, essentially just fight 16:00.170 --> 16:04.460 align:start back against the Democrats and provide them with someone who could spearhead that 16:04.460 --> 16:08.330 align:start strategy. What's been interesting is that there are people who are outside the White 16:08.330 --> 16:12.800 align:start House now from Trump's campaign world that are trying to get into this, trying to step in. 16:12.800 --> 16:14.850 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Like who? 16:14.850 --> 16:17.300 align:start KAITLAN COLLINS: Corey Lewandowski, the president's former campaign manager. 16:17.300 --> 16:19.620 align:start A few other officials. They've got a list. 16:19.620 --> 16:22.570 align:start And there have been conversations about starting this inside the White House. 16:22.570 --> 16:26.630 align:start They haven't made it up to the president yet because what we're hearing is multiple 16:26.630 --> 16:30.490 align:start people say the president is kind of in denial about the situation he's in. 16:30.490 --> 16:32.790 align:start He doesn't realize the gravity of it. 16:32.790 --> 16:36.250 align:start He essentially doesn't think he needs a team like this to come in, to help, and of course 16:36.250 --> 16:39.600 align:start there are mainstays inside the White House who are also pushing back because it's a very 16:39.600 --> 16:43.300 align:start territorial West Wing. So that'll be the question of whether or not they go forward. 16:43.300 --> 16:46.880 align:start But of course, he's going to need someone to help him push back against this, and right now - 16:46.880 --> 16:49.340 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: But he'll drive it all himself, as he always does. 16:49.340 --> 16:51.090 align:start KAITLAN COLLINS: Yep. 16:51.090 --> 16:53.610 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: And we saw on Twitter this morning him launching a series of attacks that 16:53.610 --> 16:55.820 align:start he presumably thought up himself. 16:55.820 --> 16:58.150 align:start ROBERT COSTA: So if it's political war from the White House, whether they have a war 16:58.150 --> 17:00.500 align:start room or not at the end of the day, what about Democrats? 17:00.500 --> 17:04.200 align:start Can they keep this impeachment narrowly focused on Ukraine? 17:04.200 --> 17:07.320 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Nancy Pelosi says she wants to keep this narrowly focused. 17:07.320 --> 17:11.150 align:start And it's smart on the Democrats' part to just talk about this call instead of saying, 17:11.150 --> 17:16.110 align:start well, let's really try to back up Hunter Biden. Let's try to make the case that Joe Biden 17:16.110 --> 17:21.240 align:start wasn't corrupt. Let's try to see if Don Jr. and emoluments, and all the issues with the 17:21.240 --> 17:24.640 align:start president's own children and whether or not they're profiting from the president's tenure 17:24.640 --> 17:28.130 align:start here. They don't want to have all those other conversations. 17:28.130 --> 17:31.530 align:start I think they learned in the Mueller report that there were so many different avenues to 17:31.530 --> 17:35.300 align:start go down that the president kind of threw things on the wall and they all got distracted, 17:35.300 --> 17:39.280 align:start and the American people, frankly, got confused. If you just keep talking about this call, 17:39.280 --> 17:43.590 align:start just keep saying, look, he was on the call with the president of Ukraine. He's pressuring 17:43.590 --> 17:47.530 align:start him, he's pressuring him. Democrats want that message. But I want to also say, on the war 17:47.530 --> 17:51.770 align:start room aspect, I've been talking to people inside the White House, as we all have. 17:51.770 --> 17:55.300 align:start And they sound like they just are still trying to formulate what to do. 17:55.300 --> 17:58.090 align:start But then when you talk to the Trump campaign they're saying, well, we're going to be 17:58.090 --> 18:02.040 align:start putting out millions of dollars of ads to try to fight this online, on Facebook, and in 18:02.040 --> 18:07.880 align:start TV ads. So what they have is essentially a war room operating in the Trump campaign. 18:07.880 --> 18:11.620 align:start But that is set up to reelect the president, not to fight impeachment. 18:11.620 --> 18:14.910 align:start ROBERT COSTA: So the Trump campaign and Corey Lewandowski may be ready to go to the 18:14.910 --> 18:19.640 align:start barricades, but what about Senate Republicans? Are they going to do the same? 18:19.640 --> 18:24.160 align:start NANCY CORDES: Well, there are two camps. There are Republicans who are still standing 18:24.160 --> 18:28.050 align:start by the president. Anytime you ask them they say this whistleblower just has 18:28.050 --> 18:30.780 align:start secondhand information, the president has the right - 18:30.780 --> 18:34.440 align:start ROBERT COSTA: OK, that's what they say publicly, Nancy. What do they say to you privately? 18:34.440 --> 18:37.460 align:start NANCY CORDES: Well, I mean, there is a group that is standing by him. 18:37.460 --> 18:40.400 align:start And they say it's unfair, and all Democrats care about is impeachment. 18:40.400 --> 18:45.190 align:start There is another group of Senate Republicans who feel deeply uneasy about the president's 18:45.190 --> 18:52.900 align:start strategy, who frankly are worn out by - after defending him for several years, but who 18:52.900 --> 18:57.490 align:start can see where this is all headed. That's the reality. They can see now this is going to 18:57.490 --> 19:02.050 align:start land in the lap of the Senate, whether they like it or not. And in fact, Leader 19:02.050 --> 19:05.830 align:start McConnell himself has said: We go immediately into an impeachment trial. 19:05.830 --> 19:08.410 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What's your read on McConnell? 19:08.410 --> 19:14.810 align:start NANCY CORDES: You know, I think that McConnell is - he's walking a fine line here. 19:14.810 --> 19:20.970 align:start He is someone who in the past has always stood by the president if he can find any 19:20.970 --> 19:26.890 align:start rationale whatsoever. He really tries to - you know, to parse out the times when he - 19:26.890 --> 19:31.790 align:start when he looks for distance with this president because that's not a very comfortable 19:31.790 --> 19:38.010 align:start place to be, particularly in this party. But I do think for the first time Republicans 19:38.010 --> 19:46.000 align:start appear to be thinking about what could possibly come next. I mean, that's several steps 19:46.000 --> 19:50.600 align:start down the road. They don't want to go there yet. But the reality is this is no longer 19:50.600 --> 19:55.230 align:start just a PR war. We're now looking at real life developments. The ambassador, essentially, 19:55.230 --> 20:00.140 align:start to Ukraine has just stepped down. Democrats in the House are planning to conduct 20:00.140 --> 20:04.590 align:start depositions with five State Department officials just in the next two weeks. 20:04.590 --> 20:07.980 align:start So you know, we're going to see a snowballing effect here. 20:07.980 --> 20:12.930 align:start ROBERT COSTA: How significant are the statements by Senator Sasse of Nebraska, Senator 20:12.930 --> 20:17.870 align:start Romney of Utah, where you're seeing some concerns as Republicans? 20:17.870 --> 20:21.550 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: They're pretty significant because I think it's pretty clear that they 20:21.550 --> 20:26.000 align:start speak for a number of their colleagues who are just afraid to say so attributing their 20:26.000 --> 20:30.120 align:start own names, and the dynamic can change quickly as Nancy was just pointing to. 20:30.120 --> 20:34.560 align:start If you have more evidence coming forward in this impeachment inquiry in the House, if you 20:34.560 --> 20:38.910 align:start have a vote on the House floor to actually impeach the president and it kicks over to the 20:38.910 --> 20:42.530 align:start Senate, it could be a very different calculus that some of those Republican senators 20:42.530 --> 20:46.520 align:start make. And they don't - the Democrats do not need all of the Republican senators 20:46.520 --> 20:49.740 align:start to vote to convict the president, they only need, what is it - 20:49.740 --> 20:51.550 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Two-thirds. 20:51.550 --> 20:54.480 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: Seventeen or twenty? It's a two-thirds majority of the chamber, 20:54.480 --> 20:57.100 align:start and there's a world in which that could actually happen. 20:57.100 --> 20:59.730 align:start KAITLAN COLLINS: And Trump has always been deeply mistrustful of these people. 20:59.730 --> 21:03.000 align:start He doesn't think that they're all on his side, and a lot of them privately don't like the 21:03.000 --> 21:06.830 align:start president. They're these mainstay establishment Republicans who the president has made 21:06.830 --> 21:11.110 align:start their life very difficult. And so I agree, I don't think that it's likely, but I just 21:11.110 --> 21:13.500 align:start don't think it's guaranteed that he'll be fine. 21:13.500 --> 21:15.290 align:start PHILIP RUCKER: Exactly. 21:15.290 --> 21:18.060 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Well, and part of the thing that may crack - open these cracks even wider, 21:18.060 --> 21:22.330 align:start public opinion. And for now, here's where public opinion stands: a new PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist 21:22.330 --> 21:26.610 align:start poll shows Americans are still divided on this start of an impeachment inquiry; 21:26.610 --> 21:31.900 align:start 49 percent of adults surveyed nationally approve, 46 percent disapprove. 21:31.900 --> 21:36.090 align:start The divide is more stark when broken down along party lines: 88 percent of Democrats 21:36.090 --> 21:43.650 align:start approve, 93 percent of Republicans disapprove. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, Senator Cory 21:43.650 --> 21:49.120 align:start Gardner of Colorado, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, all up for reelection in 2020. 21:49.120 --> 21:52.030 align:start When you're talking to your White House sources, are those the people they're paying 21:52.030 --> 21:56.490 align:start attention to on the Republican side, is it the senators who are retiring like Lamar 21:56.490 --> 21:59.420 align:start Alexander of Tennessee, maybe all of them? 21:59.420 --> 22:02.010 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: I could imagine that the White House is looking at all of these 22:02.010 --> 22:05.650 align:start people. I think of Representative Turner from Ohio. In the meeting - in the hearing 22:05.650 --> 22:09.540 align:start with Joseph Maguire he says, look, I have a message for the president: this isn't OK. 22:09.540 --> 22:13.810 align:start So I think the White House is in some ways keeping their ears open for all Republicans 22:13.810 --> 22:17.490 align:start who are thinking about this. I also think it's important to look in that poll, we asked 22:17.490 --> 22:22.300 align:start people in that poll how much of this is going to impact how you vote in 2020. The 22:22.300 --> 22:26.240 align:start majority of people said it was not going to have any factors, like 58 percent of them. 22:26.240 --> 22:30.450 align:start So it's important to also note that as Republicans think about how this might impact the 22:30.450 --> 22:33.920 align:start election, we're already getting a sense from people that this isn't going to impact their 22:33.920 --> 22:38.360 align:start vote, which is in some ways pretty remarkable because this was a historic week in Washington. 22:38.360 --> 22:41.690 align:start ROBERT COSTA: How does this - how is this different than we've seen impeachment before 22:41.690 --> 22:46.530 align:start in American history? You now have Twitter, cable news. You have a conservative 22:46.530 --> 22:50.730 align:start infrastructure out there that's echoing the president at very turn. 22:50.730 --> 22:54.870 align:start Does that buoy the White House, that they feel like even if the Republicans are cracking 22:54.870 --> 22:58.480 align:start at times that they feel like they have a wider universe of support? 22:58.480 --> 23:01.820 align:start KAITLAN COLLINS: Well, and with Trump in particular he's got something about him that 23:01.820 --> 23:05.900 align:start has helped him evade things that would have brought any other politician down - of 23:05.900 --> 23:09.970 align:start course, there are so many stories over the last few years since he's been in office, 23:09.970 --> 23:14.070 align:start since he was on the campaign trail. With the president we're talking about having a team 23:14.070 --> 23:19.070 align:start to help him strategize, fight this off, publicly defend him; he may not need that because, 23:19.070 --> 23:23.700 align:start of course, he's the president, he's got his Twitter, he's sometimes his own best spokesman. 23:23.700 --> 23:29.050 align:start But he also has, you know, entire news channels that typically are in his favor. He's got 23:29.050 --> 23:33.560 align:start radio shows. He's got a huge Twitter following of people that are ready to defend him. 23:33.560 --> 23:37.550 align:start That could help, potentially. That's still something that's an open question. 23:37.550 --> 23:40.440 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Nancy, when you're on the Hill and you're talking to Democrats and some 23:40.440 --> 23:43.360 align:start Republicans, what's the timeline? Are we looking at an impeachment vote in the House 23:43.360 --> 23:46.710 align:start next spring, is it going to be next summer, maybe this fall? 23:46.710 --> 23:50.450 align:start NANCY CORDES: The timeline really depend on which Democrat you talk to because there are 23:50.450 --> 23:55.150 align:start some, particularly from swing districts, who don't want this to overshadow the agenda for 23:55.150 --> 24:00.140 align:start the next six months. They believe that that would be very difficult politically for them. 24:00.140 --> 24:05.800 align:start So you - I was talking to one swing-district Democrat this week who had just kind of come 24:05.800 --> 24:09.950 align:start over from the other side and was now supporting an impeachment inquiry who said that he 24:09.950 --> 24:13.320 align:start thought that perhaps they could vote by the end of this week. 24:13.320 --> 24:19.300 align:start So - (laughter) - so there are Democrats who want to get this over and done with, and 24:19.300 --> 24:24.260 align:start then there are others who say look at this whistleblower report, we have 17 new leads to 24:24.260 --> 24:29.150 align:start follow, new names to track down, so much more investigating to do, and they want to 24:29.150 --> 24:36.130 align:start follow every thread to the end and be able to put together the most airtight case 24:36.130 --> 24:43.170 align:start possible. So the reality is I think Speaker Pelosi herself has said multiple times 24:43.170 --> 24:46.370 align:start that she wants to be expeditious - that was her word this week, "expeditious." 24:46.370 --> 24:48.370 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Expeditious. 24:48.370 --> 24:50.080 align:start NANCY CORDES: And I - (laughs) - I - 24:50.080 --> 24:52.510 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Well, expeditious is what this show has been. (Laughter.) This has been 24:52.510 --> 24:54.250 align:start quick. It is already the end. 24:54.250 --> 24:55.990 align:start NANCY CORDES: What? 24:55.990 --> 24:58.580 align:start ROBERT COSTA: I know. (Laughter.) Thank you for sharing our evening with us. 24:58.580 --> 25:00.880 align:start We will continue the conversation on the Washington Week Extra. 25:00.880 --> 25:04.140 align:start We will look at how the impeachment debate affects the 2020 presidential race. 25:04.140 --> 25:29.710 align:start Catch it on our website, Facebook, or YouTube. I'm Robert Costa. Have a great weekend.