"the white house in crisis." stay with us. so i can buy from enterprise car sales and you'll take any trade-in? that's right! great! here you go... well, it does need to be a vehicle. but - i need this out of my house. (vo) with fair, transparent value for every trade-in... enterprise makes it easy. asbut when your team is always dealing with device setups, app updates, and support calls... you can never seem to get anywhere. that's why dell technologies created unified workspace, powered by vmware. ♪ a revolutionary solution that lets you deploy, manage, support and secure all your devices from the cloud. so you can stop going in circles, and start moving forward. at humana, we believe your healthcare should evolve with you. and part of that evolution means choosing the right medicare plan for you. humana can help. with original medicare, you're covered for hospital stays and doctor office visits, but you'll have to pay a deductible for each. a medicare supplement plan can cover your deductibles and co-insurance, but you ma

house chairs investigating trump. it accuses them of violating the constitution and rule of law by depriving trump of his rights during a trial. even though, to be clear, an impeachment trial is not what's happening. it wouldn't take place until much later in the senate. and that's not how any of this works. the letter asserts, quote, president trump cannot permit his administration to participate in this partisan inquiry under these circumstances. of course, participation isn't really optional. the constitution is pretty plain on this, the house of representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment and this is the latest assertions he is fundamentally above the law. the state department ordered a key witness, a trump appointee in the growing ukraine scandal not to appear before congress and there's good reason to believe that witness is at the center of the entire scandal. there's evidence president trump corruptly coercing an occupied country to manufacture dirt on his political opponent. so congressional inve

these are house rules under which adam schiff and the rest of the house committees are operating. as you pointed out at the beginning, 48 members, including kevin mccarthy in his role as minority leader, get to sit in on those hearings and there's equal time for questions and they have been following that rule. so the republicans get as much time as the democrats to ask questions. nothing has come out that doesn't corroborate what we heard particularly from bill taylor. >> and the republican staff is filled in the chairs in the background of that room, so many republican attorneys to re veal helpful information that comes out in those depositions to the president. they're not doing it. we have the right to believe no helpful information is coming out. we'll have to break it here. former ambassador wendy sherman, joyce vance, ellen farkas, matt miller, thank you for joining us. >>> the presidential debates have been fun to watch. but the debate we really want to see is senator lindsey graham debating against congressman lindsey graham of 20 years ago. we will show you what that ver

it doesn't speak to the full house because the full house hasn't spoken. the in the party is pushing this impeachment this is a democrat party impeachment. as i've been saying a silent cue effort. this is why they dispense with traditions involving last three presidents whop went through this process. and you know why else? you don't have anything. they don't have any, mueller report didn't give them anything the mueller testimony didn't give them anything and no russia collusion. there's no ukraine collusion which we'll get to in a minute. but it is even worse, ladies and gentlemen it is even worse. house democrats eager to protect the whistle-blower kind of a whistle-blower is this? kind of a whistle-blower is in hiding? we know name of all of these whistle-blowers they come out they blow a whistle they get lawyers and the public can see who they are and they make their case. kind of a whistle-blower is this? he's a -- he's a cia operative, he's a rogue person who decided to use his position over at the white house to essentially spy on the president of

administration's housing reform plan would be disastrous for our housing system. the trump administration is threatening to end the conservatorship of the government sponsored enterprise. without congressional action to provide explicit government guarantee, it is implemented in this way, it is likely it would create turmoil in the housing market, prevent many americans from obtaining 30 year fixed rate mortgages unblock families across the country from attaining the american dream of homeownership. for this reckless plan administrative action on the table, the trump administration also recommends that congress make several harmful legislative reforms. for example, the trump plan would abolish the affordable --sing goals, which of support affordable housing and replace them with a mortgage fee that trump officials have not bothered to spell out the details for. the plan would fundamentally undermine the federal housing and ministration's ability to create affordable homeownership opportunities. the trump administration has proven again and again that it is not to

than house bills have been signed into law. that's really not what the democratic majority promised the american people when they gave them control. they said they were going to fix our broken healthcare system. they have yet to put a bill on the floor that is leaving 60 million americans uninsured or underinsured or having coverage they can't afford to use. we have a bipartisan trade agreement that speaker pelosi put on the floor today it would pass overwhelmingly in a bipartisan fashion. it's not that the bills aren't out there. sometimes it's just that speaker pelosi didn't put the bills that are bipartisan on the floor. yesterday was a prime example of that. why in the world when you have a bill that's co-sponsored by many of my republican colleagues and why wouldn't you just mark that bill up in the house administration committee and put it on the floor and get a bipartisan win. no, instead they wanted to add other provisions that they knew would result in just a partisan roll call. >> related to impeachment, this week, as

but trying to pressure house democrats in particular to get vulnerable house democrats to actually put forward a vote and put their name, yes or no, in favor of this impeachment inquiry. so there's a political dimension to this as well. i think it's interesting a source close to these discussions told our colleague jim acosta that the days of playing nice are done. that's a message from the white house. we also saw that in a tweet from the president where he's attacking, continuing to attack the house inquiry, jim. >> jeremy diamond, thank you, very much. >>> our cnn legal analyst jennifer rodgers is still with us, political reporter of bloomberg and the bureau chief from the "chicago sun-times." lynn, let me begin with you, we had congressman mike quigley on, obviously from illinois, but he believed, he wasn't sure, but he surmised that the next step on the intelligence committee would be to subpoena. to subpoena someone, and if you get nowhere with that you hold them in contempt. what choice do democrats on the committee have? >> well, they don't have much choice. and i talked to rep

the white house announced the white house itself federal offices will end subscriptions to the washington post, new york times . their competitors of your that bloomberg. >> i think they will be okay. >> does that make your job more difficult when news sources are ended or criticized in that way by their decision? >> the washington post andthe new york times do a lot of their business online now . the washington post gives free subscriptions to government employees. if you have a.government email address you get a free subtraction so i don't think it damages them and subscriptions to that paper. and there's sort of like a dual game that goes on in thisadministration . the president likes to be on us and use us as a prop in his political rallies but we have not been kicked out of the white house, we've not been kicked out of air force one. we're still in close proximity to the president, he talks to us a lot. thereis a lot of news that comes out of the white house and his and ministration talks to us, they work with us as the press. they work with thepress and understand the value of the p

he's still a white house employee. but he was most important to this conversation because he was on that phone call between president trump and the president of ukraine that kicked off this entire impeachment inquiry. so he could speak to the phone call. he could also to speak to bolton, who they want to get in here, reacted to it. but he's now the first person to take this issue of the bat the between congress and the white house to the courts this is not his battle to decide essentially. he wants the judicial branch to weigh in on whether or not it's appropriate for him to follow a congressionally mandated subpoena or the guidance of the white house, which is not to come testify. you heard adam schiff saying that's not good enough. they are going to put his lack of forthcomingness to speak to the committee in a bucket that says he's obstructing and he must thehave something damning say. they are hoping to essentially move on with the inquiry. >> there has been, as you know, a fair amount of consequential testimony al

that's alarming to this white house. each senator, as they walked from the train up to their office to the vote, they would tell us, sorry, can't comment. i'm not going to be a juror in this possible senate trial. and you have a lot of unease behind the scenes among those senate republicans because they don't know the facts. every day's a new day. bringing another ambassador, another national security official, who is not singing in unison with the white house when it comes to the president's conduct. >> and jeremy bash, witnesses who are active duty or retired military also bring a bearing and an ethos that a lot of civilians don't have. chiefly, chain of command. this guy is prepared to testify that twice he kicked it up the line to the chief counsel in the nsc. he is the kind of witness, it appears, who could do some thorough damage. >> lieutenant colonel vindman is a soldier, a wounded iraq war veteran, combat veteran, someone who clearly is not a partisan actor and doesn't really even have a policy ax to grind. he's

new house demands as democrats press for documents on the ukraine can scandal may hit the white house with a subpoena tonight. >>> ready for a stand off. the president is threatening to defy impeachment investigators unless their inquiry is approved by the full house. mr. trump is trying to persuade americans against him that they can see with their own eyes and that came out of his own mouth. >>> with conditions. we're breaking down a series of damming text messages that show how the trump administration pushed ukraine to investigate joe biden. cnn obtaining new information about crucial testimony. >>> changing his story. a trump appointee told a gop senator that aid to the you yan was tied to the push for investigations. why did the diplomat later deny any quid pro quo. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're many tin "the situation." >>> the white house could be hit with gn a new issue knsubpoena at any m. in separate move, democrats are asking vice president pence for documents related to his possible role in the push for

house speaker nancy pelosi says mr. trump had a meltdown during a white house meeting on syria. she claims he was shaken by the number of republicans who voted for a house measure condemning his syria troop withdrawal. democrats say they walked out after mr. trump insulted pelosi to her face. tonight the president also is trashing his gop ally turned critic on syria, senator lindsey graham. graham is warning that mr. trump's syria policy is the biggest mistake of his presidency that could leave him with american blood on his hands. i'll talk to a democrat who was at today's white house meeting on syria, senator bob menendez. jackie speier is also standing by, along with our correspondents, analysts and other guests. first let's go to the white house, our correspondent abby phillip, is on the scene for us. abby, the president apparently exploding as he faces severe criticism for his syria policy in addition to the impeachment investigation. >> reporter: that's right, wolf. the temperature in washington seems to be going up precipitously as the pressure over impeachment and also t

if the white house and its congressional allies truly want a transparent process, the white house would provide the documents congress requested. it would not defy subpoenas. it would not prevent executive branch employees from testifying. you can't just flip a switch, one day suppress evidence and the next are you against it transparent -- and the next argue against a transparent and open process. rather than stomp their feet in a fit of staged political theater, house republicans, all republicans, should join in getting all the facts. that's what we ask for in this chamber. we are not prejudging the facts. we want the facts to come out, not some, but all. that's our responsibility, to get the facts out, all of us. matters as great as the ones that form the basis of the impeachment inquiry require us to put country over party. that's what immigrants will do. -- that's what democrats will do. that's what republicans must do as well. all the facts will come out, and will hoping to obstruct regret the day when they said all they want to do is open up the process. our republican friends ma

this afternoon the rules committee in the house voted to move that approved language forward to the house floor. >> when our founders drafted the constitution more than 230 years ago, they included a process that could lead to removing a president from office if he or she abused their power. this congress, with our existing authority under the constitutior and the rules of the house, is in the midst of an impeachment inquiry right now. i don't know whether president trump will be impeached. only the facts and how we respond to them will dictate that. but i can tell you this. this process determining whether he should be impeached will be open to the public view just as it should be.d >> congressman mcgovern of massachusetts. earlier today two more witnesses testified to lawmakers about how outsiders appeared to be trying to influence this administration's policy on ukraine. state department officials catherine croft and christopher anderson each met behind closed doors with house investigating committees. anderson was special adviser for ukraine negotiations until this past july. in his o

there is no requirement under house rules that we have a full house vote. and there is no precedent that we have a full house vote that really drives -- chris: wait, wait, wait. congresswoman, you say there's no precedent, there have only been two times under the history under the rules we now have in the both the hillary clinton case and the richard nixon case, there wases a clear precedent. the full house voted and authorized a full impeachment inquiry, so there's a precedent. >> there is no requirement, again, under the constitution and no requirement under house rules that that is the procedure that we follow. but, chris, let me jutte -- just say this, this past ten days has been painful for members of the house on both sides of the committee. obviously, it's been quite painful for the senate even though too many senators are quiet on this issue. and so we need to conduct a very methodical, very author owg investigation. with we need to review all documents as we begin the process of making a very, very important historical decision. and so based on the

>> i thihe conveniently if whit house does note cooperate members should not the leadership house republicansi wouldn't show up i would say can't a canningry court have at. >> it that is what they are doing the letter lace it straight out, you are invalid, illegitimate the hell with it just so nice to see the president stand up here, and tell them exactly where they stand. >> well, look, it is as i said going to be a long slog the polls are going to change every day on this. >> you know i am not so sure it will be i really -- let me just defensively's advocate for a bit he i just really,brief the american people are smart enough to see what is being pulled in washington, i mean this is am t . >>. >> orchestrating kri to bubble up from the swamp, and be ready to talk, hearsay with are a coordinated effort to change the rules of the complaint -- and the complaint itself by whistle-blower, by the way, why isn't anyone talking about the 8 whistle-blowers who were prosecuted by president obama more than every president before him darlings of left-wing media, my goodness being so tough on these whis

, including a vote in the full house. but the white house says the resolution confirms the impeachment has been an illegitimate sham from the start as it lacked authorization by a full house vote. he tweeted nervous nancy pelosi is doing everything possible to destroy the republican party. our polls show it will be just the opposite. the do-nothing dems will lose many seats in 2020. they have a death wish led by a corrupt politician, adapt schiff. house investigators heard from the first witness who was actually listening in on president trump's july 25 phone call with the ukrainian president zelensky. while he has been an employee of the national security council since 2018. president trump dismissed him in one tweet calling him a never trumper witness. he said why are people i never heard of testifying about the call. just read the call transcript and the impeachment hoax is over. he says the democrats can haul as many witnesses as they want up to capitol hill. but it does not change the fact that the transcript is out

don't sell your house. don't sell your house. we're going to get those jobs coming back, and we're going to fill up those factories or rip them down and build brand new ones. that's what's going to happen. >> that was president trump making a promise in youngstown, ohio in 2015. fast-forward to 2019 and he can't make that promise. a gm plant will close. what are you hearing about all this, allison? >> as you can imagine, there is a lot of sadness, because for 16 years this was these workers' livelihood, their life. yes, they're letting go employees, but they have to get rid of their house. president trump said he would revive manufacturing, keep jobs here in the u.s., and it was with that promise he won the swing state of ohio. so a lot of people losing their jobs, they actually heard his speech in youngstown 15 feet down the road from the plant. he told them not to sell their houses and now they have to do just that. in youngstown, ohio, they're not going to forget the promise donald trump didn't keep. the timing is unclear as t

the reality is that doj and the white house have been openly stonewalling the house's efforts to get information by subpoena and by agreement, and the white house has flatly stated that the administration will not cooperate with congressional requests for information, unquote. phil mattingly joins us now from capitol hill tonight with the latest reaction. phil, what's the word there tonight? >> reporter: there's really one word from a lengthy statement from speaker nancy pelosi that kind of best encapsulates what i've been hearing from democrats in the wake of that hearing. that's how they view the 75-page opinion by the district court judge, and it is really is for two particular reasons, and they definitely intersect. the first is the actual nuts and bolts of the impeachment inquiry the white house, the white house counsel's office has made clear their opposition to pretty much agreeing to anything, whether it's witnesses, whether it's documents, anything at all is based on the fact they don't believe it's a valid or legitimate inquiry. this makes clear or gives democrats something

and i'll be honest, we can take the headline, white house stymies congress, white house refuses to hand over information, we could run that same headline every three months in this administration began. so i don't think for once the democrats are not shocked and amazed that the white house is lying or not providing information. they can have this vote whenever they want. here's the other key part about this. every piece of information that they have asked for, that this administration refuses to come forward with can be part of a complaint about obstruction of justice into an investigation of inappropriate behavior the president has already admitted to. that's their option, to take everything that donald trump is doing now and make that a part of their case in a stronger case that for once, according to the polls, not only are people in favor of the impeachment inquiry, but we have now moved to a point where americans are actually recent polls show, americans are in favor of donald trump being removed from office in a vote. that's something that works in the democrats' favor. >> interes

right now the house rules committee is debating the house resolution the democrats introduced to be voted on tomorrow to outline the process of the impeachment inquiry going forward as a source tells cnn that a star witness for house democrats is willing to return to capitol hill to testify in public, that is bill taylor the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine and as did alexander vindman and as sun land serfaty reports their testimony could back up damning depositions already on the record. >> reporter: two new witnesses testifying on capitol hill in the house democrats' intensifying impeachment probe. christopher anderson aide for ukraine kurt volker spoking to lawmakers behind closed doors. telling lawmakers about the concerns voiced by former national security adviser john bolton over rudy giuliani's shad yes ukraine operation. anderson, according to his opening statement, obtained by cnn saying bolton cautioned mr. giuliani as a key voice with the president on ukraine and could collide with increased white house. and today corroborating the testimony the committees have heard from other wit

served as white house cabinet secretary and as chief counsel of the house oversight committee. your response to what the president is now trying to allege against the bidens here, a claim of course that has been debunked by fact checkers. >> this is a little ironic. every story that mentioned hunter biden you could simply just substitute jump, jr., ivanka trump, mar a lag oh. the today that this president would try to make hay out of the scandals of his political opponents is laughable. even when you go and debunk stories like this, the president is succeeding in getting the allegations out there and having the media take another pass at them. and so in some sense, it is actually accomplishing what the president wants, even if there's nothing there. >> and that's the challenge when i talked to biden advisers. they say we see how the president trump play book worked in 2016 and there is why team biden is making an aggressive push against the baseless claims against their candidate. you mentioned ivanka trump or the trump kids. let's talk about ivanka trump here because it's toug

it is my privilege to commute to the historic house as well as to the white house historical association. tonight's we had to fear many former officials from the and other administrations have the print of the validation and were honored at you here tonight this year marks the 50th anniversary of patricia nixon becoming the first lady of the united states under her leadership white house collection added over 600 paintings and furnishing elements to the white house collection which is the most of the significance of this will be discussed in tonight's program but it's very important lost here at the white house of our mission which was inspired as most of you were all of you know by first lady jacqueline kennedy to be the private nonpartisan private partner to the white house for conservation and preservation restoration of those beautiful staterooms in the white house for the acquisition of items for the permanent collection at the white house as well and for education programs programs like this where we teach and tell the stories of the white house and its wonderful history going back

this morning we reported that white house lawyers are drafting a letter to the house speaker, saying they are not compelled to comply with any document requests from the impeachment inquiry that the speaker has said that house democrats opened until she makes the vote. white house officials say there is precedent in past impeachment inquiries for the house vole vote to be held. the house speaker says she is under no obligation to hold such a vote, to hold this impeachment inquiry. if appears a standoff once again between the white house and democrats on capitol hill. the president is sls in miss remarks this morning on the white house south lawn insisting again there was no quid pro quo involving holding security assistance to ukraine in exchange for asking the ukrainians to investigate the president's political rival joe biden and also circumstances surrounding that investigation into the 2016 election. of course we have seen the text messages now in the past day between ambassadors involved in ukraine. and it was very clear from the text messages, kait, that there was significant p

it's like someone calling 911 and saying the house is on fire and people go they see the house is on fire. you don't need the information. plus there's a reason why we have the whistle-blower protection act. and you see by watching their behavior why you would want to protect the anonymity of that whistle-blower. again, there's an expiration date on all of this. after this vote that's going to take place tomorrow, all of these process complaints become obsolete. and i think it's dawning on a lot of them they're going to be moving into this next phase where the president is going to force them to defend, go to the wall, smear patriotic americans, and they don't know how it's going to go. and we've seen how the president behaves under pressure. >> i don't think they're convincing their 40% of the country. they're simply equipping them with talking points. give me the talking points that i can recite, so they say this thing about the whistle-blower. >>> up next, why was acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney left in the dark on that raid to kill al baghdadi, and is acting chief

and served as dean of the house. at this time i would like to bring forward my colleague and the amazing john lewis, who will have comments about the passing and honoring of our colleague , john all are mourning conyers who impacted so many of s in this country. mr. lewis: mr. speaker, i wanted to thank the young lady from michigan. well, you're still very young. for bringing us together to . nor john conyers the former dean of the house of representatives. and the co-founder of the congressional black caucus. ohn conyers was born at a time when we needed someone to stand up, to speak up and speak out and to get in the way of what i call good trouble, necessary trouble. as a matter of fact, john conyers and martin luther king jr. were born the same year. , faith, maybe history maybe god almighty placed two of them here -- the two of them here to work together. before being elected to congress , mr. conyers served in the korean war, and on the staff of representative john dingell. when the people of michigan , he ed m

one house is controlled by democrats. the other house is controlled by republicans. they don't agree on the big issues. they're not going to get a lot done between now and election day, regardless of impeachment. >> there's been almost a hundred hours of secret closed door hearings involving key witnesses, the depositions, sworn depositions coming forward and witness after witness they seem to be corroborating this notion that there was some sort of quid pro quo that ukrainians would get the aid they want. the meeting with the president that they want in exchange for dirt on the bidens. and that's a significant moment. but moving from secret to public televised hearings will be very significant. >> it will be. and it will change the nature of the impeachment inquiry thus far. there has been a -- as you pointed out, a remarkable amount of unan imity among all the people that have testified, even those who disagreed on the interpretation of the events. most people corroborate the events as they've been laid out and so when you get to the public phase it's going to put

but house democrats say that's not good enough. >> reporter: yeah, the house democrats are very frustrated by this, particularly because they did get another court victory last week bolstering the impeachment inquiry from the start. but democrats have made it clear from the word go that they are not going to wait and have these prolonged court battles over testimony, over the subpoenas of documents. if a witness doesn't show up or if they refuse to honor a subpoena, democrats have said they're going to use that as evidence of obstruction, essentially to say thank you very much, we will take your noncompliance as evidence that you have something to hide and we will move on. rather than get bogged down in these extended court fights. there's some fear that by delaying this entire process you could loose the public poemt um necessary to be successful in an impeachment fight. so rather than go through a protracted court process, democrats will say we're going to consider this obstruction and move on. >> garrett, we heard from the republicans there at the open of the show. have we heard from ad

i remind the house in the no pointng window, at did this house take no deal off the table. the negotiations were carried out with the risk of no deal. the prime minister brought back to deal and half of her own side would not vote for it. i will give way. generous been very with his interventions. the is going back to argument he is trying to make. the dispatch box on that side, the argument is they have to have the eu to protect them on workers rights because there is most likely a permanent conservative government that will threaten those rights. where does that exist that the labour party doesn't have the courage to say they would fight an election and make the case for workers rights in wind that election. that is democracy in action. >> the point is this. been answered. why do you right into the bill that you want to diverge? >> thank you for giving way. didlabor government manylate to go beyond times, including granting 6 million workers and extra eight days paid leave. much of the time you were doing that, it was being opposed. particularly by the prime minister who

the next job building housing. our job is to build more housing sooner. we have been advancing more and more housing in our development plans over time, and in fact have done that more recently in some of the schematic design approvals where we have been making additions to what was previously planned for these sites. we have very happy about that. there are a couple things to point out for you that are important. one is that in this first major phase of development, 39% of all the hissing units are af-- the housing units are affordable housing units. we also have another important fact, which is within the project as a total, when you consider candlestick and shipyard together and look at all of the affordable housing proposed, which is a total of 3,345 units, of that you have over half is at a 60% a.m.i. or below. we are really. i think that is important that is something that is important to the community itself. now, you had begun to jump start this new plan when a year ago you made a recommendation to the board of supervisors to approve some amendmen

it does not speak for the full house, because the full house has not spoken. democrat parties is pushing this impeachment, this is a democrat party impeachment, as i have been saying, a silent coop effort if their is why they dispense with all traditions involving last 3 presidents who went through this process, you know why else? they don't have anything, they don't, mueller report did not give them anything, mueller testimony did not give them anything, there is no russia collusion, there is no ukraine collusion, it is worse. ladies and gentlemen, worse. house democrats eager to protect the whistleblower, what kind of whistle-blowerrer is this? in hiding? we know the names of the whistleblowers, they come out, they plow blow a whistle, they t lawyers, public can see who they are, this is a cia, operative. he is a rogue person. who decided to use his position at the white house to essentially spy on the president of the united states that is what he did. gathering information on the president of united states, noi first hand information what so ever. none. so

and the majority of house. we want to give the government the power to negotiate with big pharma for lower prescription drug prices for millions of americans who are being bankrupted by the fact that they can't afford their prescription drugs. it's a very dangerous situation. but we are moving forward on that. we are moving forward on gun safety and minimum wage. we are moving forward on environmental protection. we would love it if we had cooperation from the senate and the president. >> melissa: thank you, sir. we appreciate your time. >> thank you for having me. i really appreciate it. >> melissa: will bring it out to the couch. your thoughts? >> jason: thanks for having me. i served with congressman asking. i find them to be a nice guy. i just fundamentally disagree with pretty much everything he just said. first of all, the house is about to go on a 12-day recess presenter tell me you have urgency to give usmca an oldies of the things done, or even this so-called "fake, so the sham of an impeachment inquir

the white house counsel cept this off the hook cross-eyed letter to the house of representatives and they released it publicly because they wanted to make clear that they intended this letter to be their final word on the subject. based on this letter nobody from any point in the administration should participate. it wasn't a particularly legal or even legal ish argument. but that is being put forward as the official position of the white house. and that crazy letter from the white house has now been used and cited by other government agencies in their efforts to try to block witnesses from those agencies from testifying when they've been called to testify before the impeachment committees. for example, the department of defense referred to this crazy white house counsel letter this week when they warned the defense secretary laura cooper she shouldn't show up to testify to the impeachment proceedings this week. telling their own officials they shouldn't show up and testify. the white house says the impeachment isn't real. it's a little bit nuts. i should say, federal agencies have n

the whole house vote begins. not only does white house want pelosi to hold the vote but they want pressure on red state democrats to see how they're going to vote and they also want a full roll call of how everybody voted on this impeachment question in order to use it against them in the 2020 election. neil? >> neil: i know it's a game at this point, but do you get the sense that nancy pelosi has 218 votes in the house to move here? >> as of the beginning of this week, it appeared she did. but when you -- i mean, saying that you have them in a whip could be behind the scenes is one thing. but if you have to put this to a full vote, might come out differently. again, you have a lot of red state democrats that are up for re-election in states that the president won handily in 2016 and could win again in 2020. they may not be particularly inclined to vote for impeachment if they have to put their name to it, neil. >> neil: thanks, john. comes down to this. impeach the guy that brought you this economy. the presiden

the democratic chairman of three house committee released a draft subpoena ordering the white house to produce documents relate to the president's effort to dig up dirt on joe biden in ukraine. one of the chairman adam schiff appears with nancy pelosi a few minutes ago, he gave the white house a stern warning. >> any effort by the secretary or the president or anyone else to interfere with the congress' ability to call witnesses will be considered as evidence of obstruction of the law. they are going to prevent witnesses from coming forward to testify on the allegations and the whistleblower's complaint, that'll will create inference those allegations are in fact correct. we don't want this to drag on months and months which appears to be the administration strategy. the inspector general will meet with democrats and republican members at the house and senate intelligence and foreign relations oversight and appropriations committee. the meeting comes after urgent request to present documents. house democrats have five deposition planned. two depositions have been agreed to. the first o

costa. >> house democrats are appalled by the white house in this administration. their decision to block witnesses in addition to blocking all of these documents. we're seeing the beginning of a drawn out fight that is almost unprecedented in american history. congress being tested as an institution. >> only because it is such a unprecedented day, so surprise that democrats are appalled. >> i would love to send ambassador sondland to testify but he would be testifying before a compromised kangaroo court where rights have been taken away and true facts are not allowed out. importantly his tweet which few reported i think you're incorrect about president trump's intentions, no quid pro quo s quos of any kind. i want to share a tweet by chris hayes. the reason sondland is so dangerous is he was speaking directly to the president. >> so unfortunately the president is not playing out any sort of legal argument in the constitution. it say most where that you don't have to comply with congressional requests. if you don't like what the questions are or if you this it is a

one of them, the big one is cost of housing. and i think what we all want is for housing in san francisco to be more affordable. we recognize there is not enough supply. unfortunately, affordable housing programs are really not effective in getting us the supply that we need. so what we really need to do -- so here's why. if i'm a developer in san francisco and i want to build, i'll go to the mayor's office of housing and community development, they'll tell me, okay, you can build the project, but you have to make 25% of the below market rate housing. or you pay a huge fee. and also it's going to take a year or two maybe to get the approvals you need to get the surveys done, to start your project. well, if i'm a developer i'm looking at that, i don't want to build here. i'm going somewhere else. so what with we need to do, instead of creating these programs to fix the problem, we just need to let people build. we need to make it very easy and give people the tools they need to build in the city. we'll get more market-rate housin

she believes that the constitution and the house rules and house precedent clearly allow the speaker and the judiciary chair to begin an inquiry. we're going to have a vote in the house once the arts. >>les are referred to us but now we need to focus not on the debate but getting the information and building the case. >> but legally if you had such a vote and it was approved, which i assume it would be given the democratic majority, wouldn't that give you stronger legal basis to fight giuliani's refusable to comply for example with subpoenas and other executive branch refusal stonewalling on the subpoenas? >> i don't think so. wolf, technically it may give a slightly greater legal authority under u.s. versus nixon. but the reality is the administration is just going to continue to stonewall. and they're trying to run out the clock. they hope to keep appealing these decisions, appealing to the supreme court and hope that the supreme court won't hear this until 2021. so anyone who thinks they're getting slightly more legal precedent is going to force compliance by the administration is

in fact, my colleague, jeremy diamond over at the white house says that house investigators are reached out to another white house official, robert blair, an assistant to the president, senior adviser to acting white house chief of staff, mick mulvaney, asking him to come in and testify as well. he has not committed to that. they do not know if he's going to. but the significance here, he was another official who was on the july 25th call. this net is growing wider and they're now getting more testimony from people with direct knowledge of what occurred, guys. >> and to be clear, gordon sondland was pretty direct and definitive in his testimony. he said, if ambassador bolton, dr. hill, or others harbored any misgivings about the impropriety of what we were doing, they never shared those misgivings. he shared that definitively and under oath. now we're hearing that hill, bolton, and vindman did share those misgivings. >>> house speaker nancy pelosi is now giving republicans what they've been asking more if an official vote in the full house on the impeachment inquiry. it will force lawma

if the white house. even a claim to executive a privileged in order not to release those documents then they would see that. as obstruction of congress and that could lead to a potetential separate article of impeachment and now and the latest development. in and the request for documents is that now and the house democrats are asking the same. from the vice president mike pence they want all his documents because so far mike pence's at defense has been that he didn't know about that phone call between donald trump and working as a landscape. and add the house democrats and want to know whether that was true whether the he had. an aide that was briefed on the call or he had any sort of knowledge of what happened during that call all of this. happening house and the house and intelligence committee is currently a questioning and the inspector general of the intelligence community. the man who received the. first of that whistle blower complaint and demanded an urge. concern and trying to give its it's a c

the housing production houses are identified in element 2022. so there are two primary components of this initiative. the comprehensive policy are and program invent tor inventory ine assessments. each of those ideas are qualified by the complexity, the quality, by the implementation resource needs and a couple of other qualities. and the ideas to future consideration have the potential to increase community stability and are available in an interactive website for people to understand them better and to sort. they have not been fully vetted for legal funding and feasibility consideration. and then out of that inventory, we summarize primary components into a report and an executive summary focusing on key elements for implementation which i will go over. but first i wanted to give you a sense of what one of these assessments looks like because there are a lot of them. this protects sros and tenants. the strengthening enforcement and we go into details on how that could happen. moving on to key priorities. based on community input and close yar

preservation of existing affordable housing has to be just as important as building new affordable housing in our city. the small sites acquisition program is just an incredible, incredible opportunity to do just that. yes, it may seem like six units is small, but just think about what six units means to the families who live here. who had this bill -- had this building been purchased, they may not have been able to continue to live here. this is an opportunity to not only protect the existing community that is here, but to maintain affordability on this building permanently. that is what our small sites acquisition program has done to date. we have been able to preserve 278 units in 34 buildings, with 110 more units in the pipeline and another 12 buildings and that has been absolutely incredible. supervisor mar has been a champion for this program and identifying properties all over our district. i want to give a shout out for supervisor sandy fewer who is also really helping to push and highlight this program, which has led to us adding an additional $75 million to help with small sites

the white house is refused to cooperate with the house impeachment inquiry. and the president is publicly and repeatedly start to bully and intimidate the whistleblower. is additional facts we're unearthed, is additional facts are an earth, we have a responsibility to consider them to the best of our country and mind. the whistleblower was doing courageous and patriotic act and must be protected. the constitution congress the branch of government, that role must be respected. the matter at the heart of the inquiry consider the very integrity of her democratic collections. and must be investigated thoroughly and completely and in a nonpartisan matter. our founding fathers interference in our elections and consider it one of the greatest threats facing our republic. once again, the wisdom of the founding fathers shines through. if a foreign country and metal, inner affect the outcome of our elections, americans will quickly lose faith in a democracy if russia controls her lunch actions or china or iran. what the heck do we vote for. so the alleged offense by th

there was complete cooperation by the white house. the clinton white house cooperated every step along the way, even though there was intense disagreement on the overall impeachment, and that's totally contrary today. republicans have painted themselves in a corner by relying on the process argument that nancy pelosi has now taken away from them. >> julian epstein, thank you for joining us. e.j. dionne, thank you for joining us. that is tonight's last word. "the 11th hour with brian williams" starts now. >>> an active duty u.s. army officer in dress uniform zprag the decorations he earned overseas and in 20 years of service to our country. >>> showing up to tell congress what he saw, what he heard the president say in that now-critical phone call to the president of ukraine. even before he can appear, he's the victim of a smear campaign on the right, questioning his loyalty, even as a purple heart recipient. it was too much even for some republicans to bear today, and they said so just as the democrats laid out the road map that may r

nancy --ull house vote. nancy pelosi has indicated she would vote for the inquiry, but it is speculation, so we will see. plenty of other activity as well. new testimony behind closed doors, deposition from another state department offenial, george george kent is the eurasian, you create -- ukraine, russia assistant deputy secretary. we also had rudy giuliani respondingna to a subp from the house for documents from him. he's obviously a central figure now. look at what he said in this letter that came out a few hours ago, to the house, which wants documents from him. he wrote defiantly, this appears to be an unconstitutional, baseless and illegitimate impehment inquiry. is rejecting their subpoena. it is interesting. he is a former prosecutor himself, and he knows the power ofe subpoenas, and here rejecting it. judy: an expert on russia who worked on the national security council, fion hill, testified yesterday before the committee. reverberations today about what she had to say? lisa: quite a lot. fiona hil

and the white house. they intend to just say, you're not turning it over, great, more evidence for obstruction. part of the reason the house democrats think they can do that is because what they have in their hand already, they believe, is so strong. they have the transcript, they have the whistleblower report, they have the testimony of these witnesses, including kurt volker as geoff just laid out. they feel like they can and should move quickly to take advantage of what has been growing public support and to that end the house speaker nancy pelosi continues her outreach. she's been on television essentially nonstop since late last week trying to lay out the stakes of what the house is doing. she did that this morning in an interview. take a look. >> the facts are there and we are proceeding to get further evidence as we go forward. it doesn't hinge on whether mitch mcconnell has the guts to really do what the constitution requires or what the impact is in the election. i will say this, having said all o

with respect to counsel housing, we have raised more cancel housing buildings. to hisave vent indignation, which i shared. announcement of historic significance, our last offer to the eu of a withdrawal made not tos been , and note of commons after discussion in the cabinet, most of whose members know nothing about it, but in the in which the prime wasster, who i remind you one of those who voted to stop us leaving the european union at began the march, speech to tackle parliament. if a deal is obtained. -- obtained, i would be delighted. i will apologize to the prime minister and or prevented deal that is agreed amongst the 28 member states of the european union. can the foreign secretary reassure me as seems to be honest otherwise, that this is not just a party political campaigning lloyd to blame the european union and the lack of furygreement and to arouse so that the people apartment can escape responsibility, which seems to lie with the spartans on the far right of the party for whom the prime minister used to be close allies. >> can i just, on the specifi

residents in the premarketing opportunities for market rate housing. this requires developer concurrence under the d.d.a., but that's a concurrence that they've indicated they would give. and it would prioritize income qualifying post d.d.a. income residents in newly constructed units. so as each unit of affordable housing becomes available, we would go through the process of filling those, and any income qualifying pre-d.d.a. how's holds could be placed into them followed by income qualifying post d.d.a. residents before going to the -- to the mohcd's larger preference framework for the filling of new affordable units. we're proposing that these benefits extended to post d.d.a. residents be suborted to post d.d.a. residents, meaning we would seek to place all income qualifying post d.d.a. residents and then all post d.d.a. residents. these could be made with tida board approval. unlike the transitional housing rules and regulations, these changes would not extend the offer of in lieu payment benefits to post d.d.a. residents and would not offer replac