White House Official Will Confirm Key Testimony
ROMANS: A top adviser on the National Security Council expected to testify to the House impeachment inquiry committees next week. Sources say he will corroborate key elements of the testimony by the career diplomat who confirmed a quid pro quo in the Ukraine scandal. Let's bring in "Washington Post" White House correspondent Toluse Olorunnipa, live this morning for us in Washington. Nice to see you this morning.</s>BRIGGS: Good to see you, sir.</s>ROMANS: All right. There have been so many impeachment developments this week I feel like we just to kind of pause for a second and reflect on where we are. We have heard from Bill Taylor, Marie Yovanovitch. We're going to hear from this gentleman named Tim Morrison next week. If the president is tweeting "Where is the whistleblower and why did he or she write such a fictitious and incorrect account of my phone call with the Ukrainian president? Why did the I.G. allow this to happen? Who is the so-called informant? Who was so inaccurate? A giant scam!" I feel like outside of the whistleblower there have been so many first -- you know, first-person sources about what happened. Do we -- do we still need the whistleblower?</s>TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, we have seen much of the original whistleblower report confirmed by various people who were involved in the Ukraine dealings. And, Democrats are saying they no longer need the actual whistleblower to testify. We have seen the president putting pressure on the whistleblower -- basically, intimidating this anonymous official. And, Democrats do not want to put this person in danger. They don't want this person to have to testify publicly since they've already provided a lot of information that has formed the basis of the impeachment inquiry. And since we have seen people from the State Department and now, even from the White House -- from the NSC -- confirming or about to confirm what the whistleblower originally said about the president pressuring Ukraine and this quid pro quo to get political investigations in exchange for military aid, it's not clear that the whistleblower is needed to testify. We've already seen the roadmap in the whistleblower report. That roadmap has been followed by Democrats on the committee. And the various people who have testified have confirmed a lot of the things that were in the original report.</s>BRIGGS: "The New York Times" reporting that John Bolton could be soon to come. Quote, "Among the star witnesses who could deliver explosive public testimony in front of live television cameras could be John Bolton, the president's former national security adviser, who has been described in testimony as alarmed by what appeared to be pressure on the Ukrainians by Mr. Trump and his allies." How would that be a game changer in this process?</s>OLORUNNIPA: That would definitely be a game changer. You heard a lot of Republicans early in the process saying the whistleblower had second- of third-hand information. Well, John Bolton would have definitely firsthand information. And some of the testimony that we've seen so far indicates that John Bolton was very concerned about what was happening with the Ukraine deal. He had tried to take a hands-off approach. He had even told his -- told his advisers I do not want to be a part of this, quote, "drug deal" between --</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>OLORUNNIPA: -- what's happening with the president's closest advisers and Ukraine. And if he was concerned about what was going on from the inside of the White House he would be able to fill out some of the holes in this testimony and provide some of the details about what was happening behind closed doors.</s>ROMANS: Republicans, meanwhile, continue to complain about the process, even though the process is pretty standard right here.</s>BRIGGS: The John Boehner process.</s>ROMANS: Right. The -- they complain about the process, not necessarily the facts behind this case. And also, there is this investigation of the investigators -- another kind of tact has been to focus on the investigation. The original investigation, investigating the investigators, now a criminal probe. Is there some concern here that the president has weaponized his DOJ?</s>OLORUNNIPA: There's a lot of concern definitely among Democrats that the president is using the DOJ to pursue his political benefit. There is -- it would be unprecedented, really, for the Justice Department to be investigating itself over what appeared to be by all accounts a legitimate investigation into ties between the Russia government -- Russian government and the Trump campaign. We saw multiple ties back in 2016. We have multiple people close to the Trump administration who either lied about their connections to Russia or were involved in some relations with Russia, and some of them have even gone to jail since then. So to say that this probe was illegitimate or that it was founded based on an attempt to undermine the presidency or undermine his campaign, it doesn't necessarily pass the smell test. But we'll have to wait and see what the Justice Department finds as it investigates itself. This is definitely a political benefit for the president who selected an attorney general who he wanted to pursue his political enemies -- pursue the idea that he was framed and that this entire Russia probe was a witch hunt that was illegitimate from the start.</s>BRIGGS: Toluse, long Friday for you, man. World Series in 14 hours. You got tickets?</s>OLORUNNIPA: Go, Nats. I'll be watching it on T.V. like a lot of us.</s>BRIGGS: All right, me too, buddy. Enjoy the weekend. Go, Nats!</s>ROMANS: All right, good luck, Toluse.</s>OLORUNNIPA: Thank you.</s>ROMANS: All right, a major reversal by Joe Biden. Just a month ago, in New Hampshire, Biden said this.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No super PACs. No money at all coming from people that you don't know where it's coming from.</s>ROMANS: Well now, the Biden campaign has dropped its resistance to the creation of an outside group. The campaign is facing big fundraising shortfalls. It spent more in the third quarter than it took in. But solving the problem this was could create complications in a primary fight where some of Biden's rivals are railing against outside money.</s>SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't need a super PAC. I am not going to be controlled by a handful of wealthy people. I will be controlled by the working people of this country.</s>BETO O'ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's no room for political action committees or super PACs. There's no truth to the idea that corporations are people and money is speech.</s>BRIGGS: Moments ago, the Biden campaign out with a plan to grow the middle-class by strengthening unions. Biden promises to check the abuse of corporate power and make it illegal to classify workers as independent contractors. In other 2020 news, Rep. Tim Ryan dropped out of the 2020 race. His campaign failed to gain much traction in a large field of better- financed, better-known Democrats. Ryan will, instead, run for reelection to his Ohio congressional seat. Not running for reelection to the House, Tulsi Gabbard. The Hawaii congresswoman says she's all in on the White House bid despite the fact that she's hovering around one percent.</s>ROMANS: All right. Vice President Mike Pence taking a hard line with China. He backed Hong Kong protesters, he mentioned Taiwan's democracy, he called China's military increasing provocative, and he slammed the communist Chinese treatment of Uighur Muslims. Now, Pence's speech closely watched as President Trump works to complete a partial trade deal. Pence emphasized the U.S. wants to engage and not fight with China, but he laid out China's bad behavior -- intellectual property theft, Chinese fentanyl flood the U.S., China's growing surveillance state. And then, he blasted U.S. businesses for siding, he says, with China. He pointed to Nike for removing Houston Rockets jerseys from its Hong Kong stores when China complained about a tweet from a team executive. He claimed Nike and the NBA were muzzling free speech in exchange for business with China.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nike promotes itself as a so-called social justice champion. But when it comes to Hong Kong, it prefers checking its social conscience at the door. In siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing free speech, the NBA is acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of that authoritarian regime.</s>ROMANS: All right. NBA commissioner Adam Silver responded this way.</s>ADAM SILVER, COMMISSIONER, NBA: You've adhered to our core values from the first moment. To the extent that there was any doubt about that, we reinforced that those are our core values. And I'll just say, once again, we're going to double down on engaging with the people of China and India and throughout Africa -- around the world, regardless of their governments.</s>ROMANS: I mean, maybe he has supported the team exec, but didn't China wanted that executive fired? The NBA did not do that.</s>BRIGGS: I would argue Silver supported him more so than the Rockets' owner. And I think he's been very strong in pushing back -- walking that tightrope here. Here's what NBA Hall of Famer and TNT broadcaster Charles Barkley had to say to the vice president.</s>CHARLES BARKLEY, RETIRED NBA STAR: Vice President Pence needs to shut the hell up, number one. All American companies are doing business in China. I don't understand why these holier than thou politicians -- if they so want to worry about China why don't they stop all transactions with China? President Trump has been talking about and been arguing with tariffs for China for the last two years. But I think it's unfair for them to do all their business in China and just because this thing happened, try to make the NBA and our players look bad.</s>BRIGGS: Charles believes that companies should put profits and business first. Look, this story is not over. It's an interesting collision.</s>ROMANS: It is.</s>BRIGGS: Daryl Morey continues to say no comment. He's the Rockets' G.M. show started all this with a now-deleted tweet.</s>ROMANS: And the vice president, Mike Pence, has said there's no effort underway to decouple the U.S. from China, but he was very critical. He was the China hawk yesterday --</s>BRIGGS: Yes.</s>ROMANS: -- for this administration. All right, here's what to watch today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rising rent and home prices are pushing Americans further from the places they work. This is straining the backbone of our communities. 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