Interview with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next breaking news, Trump ramping up his attacks on the whistleblower. Democrats entering a new stage in their impeachment investigation. Plus, the President pressing Nancy Pelosi for a vote on the impeachment inquiry and he's not alone, because now there are some Democrats supporting the idea, so does Pelosi? And Bernie Sanders, his first major sit down interview since suffering a heart attack, what he's saying tonight about the future of his campaign? Let's go out front. Good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news, growing unease in the White House tonight as fears of the impeachment probe deepen. And tonight, Trump is losing his cool. The timestamps on his Twitter messages show he barely slept last night. And today he lost his cool as he went back to his go-to attack lines targeting the whistleblower and the complaint, which is at the center of the impeachment investigation.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They heard a whistleblower who came out with a false story. People say, "Oh, it's fairly close." It wasn't close at all. What the whistleblower said bore no relationship to what the call was. We have a transcribed call done by professionals and the call was a perfect call.</s>BURNETT: OK. So he keeps saying it and some people may believe it, so it's time for a fact check. I want to start once again with the story, which was true. And you say, "How do you know that?" Well, we have that professionally transcribed call and we have the whistleblower's complaint, so we can compare them on the core issues here. They're more than fairly close. I mean, for example, according to the complaint, the President claims Ukraine was behind the interference in the 2016 election. According to the transcript, the President says, "They say a lot of it started with Ukraine." Now, by the way, not only do those two things match, but I need to mention that that is a debunked conspiracy theory even according to Trump's own former Homeland Security Advisor, Tom Bossert. OK. Then, take this example. The whistleblower complaint says, "Trump pressured Mr. Zelensky to initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden." So what was actually said according to the professional transcript released by the White House was worse, because it was after Zelensky brings up U.S. military support that Trump asks for this investigation. The Ukraine President talks about getting Javelins. "We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes." Trump's reply, "I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it." He goes on to say, "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me." So the story that Trump calls false is actually not only backed up, but made worse by his professionally transcribed call. OK. So now let's go to the other allegation that the President today when he was losing his cool threw out there.</s>TRUMP: Then it turns out that the whistleblower is a Democrat, strong Democrat, and is working with one of my opponents as a Democrat that I might end up running against.</s>BURNETT: So let's lay out why this is false on both fact and insinuation. First the facts, the whistleblower's attorney responding a short time ago writing, "Our client has never worked for or advised a political candidate, campaign or party." He added, "Our client has spent their entire government career in a political civil servant positions in the Executive Branch." OK. So let's get to the insinuation, which is what this is all about. That the whistleblower's career history was kept secret, that this complaint is political, because the whistleblower is a Democrat. Now, the whistleblower told President Trump's handpicked Inspector General about his or her politics. Trump's Inspector General looked into the whistleblower's past and even though the whistleblower is a registered Democrat, the IG made clear that the person's political beliefs 'did not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern appears credible, particularly given the other information the ICIG obtained during its preliminary review'. So he deemed it credible and urgent on merit. The messenger is not the issue, the message is the issue and the message was deemed urgent and credible. Oh, and by the way, President Trump's Acting Director of National Intelligence testified that the whistleblower acted in good faith.</s>JOSEPH MAGUIRE, ACTING DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I believe that the whistleblower and the Inspector General have acted in good faith throughout. I have every reason to believe that they have done everything by the book and followed the law.</s>BURNETT: So what the President said today was false, so it comes as House Democrats are now preparing a whole flurry of new subpoenas. Sources tell us they don't expect their witnesses to show up voluntarily. The White House is going to pull them as they did earlier this week, so they are now threatening with subpoenas. Let's go to Kaitlan Collins out front live outside the White House. Kaitlan, you're getting some new reporting about the White House saying it's cooperating, but behind the scenes maybe not, a different preparation.</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Behind the scenes we're seeing they're actually kind of preparing for impeachment to happen, acting like it could very well happen which they're starting to realize and they say the President is starting to understand because at first they had thought the President was in denial over this. And that's evident enough in itself that they are bringing on Trey Gowdy as outside counsel to the President, an idea the President was initially resistant to. He was telling people he didn't want to bring on anyone, hire any new additional lawyers or form any kind of impeachment defense strategy team, because he thought it would make him look weak and now we're saying that Trey Gowdy is expected to be named soon as this outside counsel to the President. Now, all of these comes as there are questions inside the West Wing about who exactly is going to be the person running this impeachment defense strategy. There are some people whose say it's Jared Kushner, the President's Senior Advisor and son-in-law. There are some people who say it's the Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney. And then, of course, there are a lot of people who say, "Nope, it's just Trump himself." And as with the Gowdy situation, if the President can be convinced of it, and once he's on board, then they'll move forward with that idea. Something else we're seeing is the White House and the President's campaign working to schedule some of these rallies and some aide said they believe that's because the President needs a way to channel some of his frustration that you've seen him expressing not only there in the Roosevelt room today, but also on Twitter over this. And that includes not only a rally in Minneapolis tomorrow night, but another that was scheduled pretty close at the last minute for Friday night. Now, the question is going to be going forward whether or not aides feel like the President is focusing too much on this impeachment inquiry and not enough on anything else, leading him to lash out as you saw him do today during an event that was not obviously related to impeachment. So that's really the question going forward. But, yes, Erin, you're seeing the White House say, publicly, we are not going to be cooperating with what Democrats are doing right now. But behind the scenes, they're kind of gearing up facing this, realizing that it could be inevitable.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Kaitlan, from the White House. And I want to go out front now to Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York. A member of the Judiciary Committee, also the Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. So Congressman, look you're one of the leaders here of the Democratic Party and according to our reporting, look, you all have pretty much said you're not going to expect anyone to show up voluntarily or maybe they themselves would like to come but they're going to be not allowed to do so by the White House. So what are you going to do now?</s>REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Well, I think we're going to continue to follow the facts, apply the law and be guided by the U.S. Constitution. We're not going to let Donald Trump's strategy of obfuscation, obstruction, the cover up, the stonewalling delay us from uncovering the truth and presenting that information to the American people. The bottom line here is that we know the central facts that are an issue that Donald Trump withheld without justification $391 million in aid from Ukraine at a moment when they are very vulnerable and under attack from Russian-backed separatists in Crimea. We know that Donald Trump on a phone call on July 25th pressured a foreign government to target an American citizen for political gain. That is textbook abuse of power. Those facts are not in dispute.</s>BURNETT: Well, as we just showed, that's the transcript, that you can see, but look you all have said you're going to find more facts, you're going to interview people. The former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine actually was relevant to that call, Marie Yovanovitch, she's an important player. She's scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill for an interview Friday. It would seem, I would assume, that she herself would probably be fine with doing that. But obviously she was a State Department employee during all this, so is there any chance she shows up?</s>JEFFRIES: I think it is likely that she will show up based on the fact that she's no longer operating within the umbrella of the Department of State. You are going to see cooperation moving forward from patriotic Americans who understand that the wrongdoing that occurred here by Donald Trump undermine our National Security, undermine the integrity of our elections, undermine the United States Constitution. That's why people are stepping forward.</s>BURNETT: So you think because she's no longer a current employee, she'll be able to defy their requests?</s>JEFFRIES: Well, that is correct. Well, their request has no basis in law.</s>BURNETT: OK.</s>JEFFRIES: And so their ability to restrict people who are no longer within the umbrella of the Trump administration is limited. In fact, it's a nonexistent, Erin.</s>BURNETT: OK. So there are small but influential group of Democrats who some of them privately, but some of them publicly saying the House should go ahead and hold that impeachment inquiry vote that the President in his letter said, "You have to do that or else." It doesn't say he's going to cooperate if you all do it, but obviously it was done for Clinton, it was done for Nixon. There is precedent for it, although not constitutionally required. Here are two Democrats today.</s>REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): I do think that it's time for us to put a vote on the floor resolution for the inquiry structured in such a way that it can move forward with full power of the Congress behind it.</s>REP. BETO O'ROURKE (D-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'd love to remove that as a talking point or a reason for the kind of obstruction that you're seeing from the President.</s>BURNETT: So you're the Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. You're talking to everybody all of the time. What are you hearing? Is there going to be a vote?</s>JEFFRIES: Well, the support still exists for the position that Speaker Pelosi has articulated in a strong fashion. She's a constitutional officer. The Speaker of the House is one of the few positions actually mentioned in the United States Constitution. When she declared that we are in the midst of an impeachment inquiry, that has the full force and weight of the United States Constitution and we also know that the overwhelming majority of the House Democratic caucus and one independent in the Congress support impeachment. So a majority in terms of the inquiry, so a majority of the House of Representatives supports an inquiry.</s>BURNETT: Right. No, I mean, constitutionally of course, I guess the question is politically, as Beto O'Rourke said. Get rid of the talking point where they say you did it for Clinton, you did it for Nixon, why not do it now, what are you afraid of. Do you end up worried that you'll end up being in that position? I know that would give them the ability to call witnesses. They could call Hunter Biden. Obviously, there's concerns that you have, but do you think it's possible that ...</s>JEFFRIES: Well, it's our expectation and as the Speaker has consistently indicated, we're going to treat President Trump fairly. We just want to get to the bottom of what occurred with this whole sordid episode and present that to the American people, because we believe the facts are on the side of serious wrongdoing, having occurred. And the question really is what is the President afraid of. He's going to continue to throw up procedural roadblocks to us uncovering evidence. If he has nothing to hide, stop hiding from the American people. Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, the secretary or the Attorney General, Rudolph Giuliani, all of the President's men continue to hide from the American people, because they can't address the substance of the allegations here which is the undermining of our National Security.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Congressman Jeffries. I appreciate your time.</s>JEFFRIES: Thank you.</s>BURNETT: Good to see you in person. And OUTFRONT next, Trump challenging the way Democrats are conducting the impeachment investigation.</s>TRUMP: You can't have lawyers, you can't ask questions, you can't have anybody present ...</s>BURNETT: So is there anything to that or not? The experts are next. Plus, the Vice President and the Secretary of State coming to the President's defense tonight. Though, could they soon find themselves in trouble for what they did in the Ukraine controversy? And Joe Biden taking an apparent shot at Elizabeth Warren, is he getting worried?</s>JOE BIDEN, FORMER UNITED STATES VICE PRESIDENT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It takes proven ability to get things done. We're not electing a planner.