Biden Accuses Trump Of Abuse Of Power In Whistleblower Drama; Trump Insisting Somebody Should Dig Into Biden's Ukraine Dealings Regarding Prosecutor He Helped Get Fired; Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) Is Interviewed About The Withholding Of The Whistleblower Complaint From Congress, The Trump Administration Asking Ukraine To Investigate The Bidens; Warren Once Again Calls For Impeachment Over Ukraine Controversy
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: Good afternoon. I'm Alex Marquardt, in for Ana Cabrera. Thank you so much for joining me. Abuse of power is the message delivered in blunt terms from a fired up former Vice President Joe Biden to a FOX News reporter asking him about the widely debunked conspiracy theory pushed by the president that involves Biden, his son, Hunter, and Ukraine.</s>JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You should be looking at Trump. Trump is doing this because he knows I'll beat him like a drum.</s>MARQUARDT: Beat him like a drum. CNN's Jessica Dean is live at the steak fry in Iowa where Biden and 16 other Democratic candidates are campaigning this afternoon. It really is quite a scene there. She has this entire exchange with Biden to share with us. First, we have to say repeatedly, there's no evidence of any wrongdoing by either Biden or his son. This has been deeply looked into by the media and others. But this latest chapter started just a few days ago when a whistleblower from the Intelligence Community filed a complaint about communications between President Trump and a foreign leader. And then a source tells CNN that, on a July 25th call with Ukraine's new president, President Trump pressed the Ukrainian leader to investigate Joe Biden's son, Hunter. Yesterday, we saw the former V.P. essentially dodge the question, but today, Jessica, not so much.</s>JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alex, that is exactly right. Today, he went right after President Trump in all of this and really hit right at the heart of it. And as you mentioned, there's absolutely no evidence any of these allegations are true. It has been looked into. No evidence. But this is a page out of the playbook of President Trump and his allies. In fact, Joe Biden kind of knew all of this would come in terms of attacks on his family going back to may at a fundraiser when he told a group, I know they're going to come after me and my family. Here we are. It has now happened. Take a listen to this exchange just a little bit earlier here in Iowa.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. Vice president, how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings?</s>BIDEN: I've never spoken to my son about the overseas business dealings.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How do you know -- how do you know --</s>BIDEN: Here's what I know. I know Trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be asking him the questions. Why is he on the phone with a foreign leader trying to intimidate a foreign leader? If that's what happened. That appears to be what happened. You should be looking at Trump. Trump is doing this because he knows I'll beat him like a drum. And he is using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me. Everybody that looked at this and everybody's that looked at it said there's nothing there. Ask the right questions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Should he be impeached for this?</s>BIDEN: Depending on what the House finds, he could be impeached, but I'm not making that judgment now. The House should investigate it. The House should investigate this. This appears to be an overwhelming abuse of power. So get on the phone with a foreign leader who is looking for help from the United States and ask about me and imply things, if that's what happened, that appears to be what happened, we know that's what Giuliani did. This is outrageous. You have never seen anything like this before.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You said before you entered the race one of your concerns was about your family being brought into this race. Are you comfortable running a campaign in which --</s>BIDEN: I know what I'm up against. I know what I'm up against, a serial abuser. That's what this guy is. He abuses power everywhere he can. And he sees any threat to his staying in power, he'll do whatever he has to do. But this crosses the line. But this crossed the line.</s>BIDEN: This crosses the line.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Sir, what are you calling on the president to do?</s>BIDEN: I'm calling on the president to release the transcript of the call. Let everybody hear what it is. Let the House see it and see what he did. That's what I'm calling on him --</s>DEAN: Senator Kamala Harris just wrapping up here at the Iowa steak fry and she touched on this and expressed utter dismay telling the crowd here we need a new commander-in-chief. I interviewed Senator Cory Booker earlier. He said this is the most shocking thing he has seen President Trump be accused of doing. Alex, we are hearing about it here at the steak fry. Vice President Biden is slated to speak later this afternoon. It remains to be seen if he'll talk about it but we'll keep an eye on it -- Alex?</s>MARQUARDT: The former vice president there calling for an investigation into this. There are, in fact, three House committees that are investigating this. Jessica Dean, in Des Moines, thank you very much. We are, in fact, expecting to hear from the former vice president again later this hour. We will be keeping, of course, a close eye on that. Now, despite, as Jessica and I were saying, this conspiracy theory being widely debunked, President Trump keeps insisting that somebody should dig into Biden's dealings in Ukraine regarding a Ukrainian prosecutor that he did help get fired. This is a very complicated story involving a lot of different people. So how did we get here?</s>MARQUARDT (voice-over): What should have been a routine call between world leaders was anything but. On a July 25th call between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Trump pressed President Zelensky to work with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on digging up dirt on Joe Biden's son. The White House said the two presidents discussed strengthening the relationship without giving specifics. But Ukraine said they talked about the investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA. In May, the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said he was going to Ukraine to push the new president to investigate Joe Biden and his son's links to a gas company. He canceled the trip. But then in July, he went to Madrid to meet with an aide to President Zelensky to talk about Biden. Biden's son, Hunter, had served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, which Ukraine's prosecutor general was supposed to be looking into. But in 2016, Joe Biden, as vice president, played a prominent role in getting the prosecutor fired because he had been ignoring corruption. Biden joining other countries and groups in the widespread push to get Ukraine to clean up its act. Fast forward to 2019, and President Trump, his lawyer, and many supporters pounced, accusing Biden of helping out his son. Now there are questions about whether that push by Trump and Giuliani is tied to the late-August move by the White House to put a hold on $250 million in military aid for Ukraine, which was later released. On September 1st, Vice President Mike Pence met with Zelensky. When asked about the efforts to get dirt on Joe Biden, the vice president danced around it.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As President Trump has made clear, we have great concerns about issues of corruption.</s>MARQUARDT: Whatever the alleged promise that the whistleblower says that the president reportedly made, Democrats in Congress are vowing to get to the bottom of those claims.</s>ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): They deserve a thorough investigation. That's what we're intent on doing and, come hell or high water, that's what we'll do.</s>MARQUARDT: Come hell or high water, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said. Now the acting director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, who is the one who blocked the whistleblower complaint from Congress, is due to testify in front of Schiff's House Intelligence Committee next Thursday. He will also be testifying in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee at some point next week. Of course, we expect Maguire will have to explain why the White House and the Department of Justice have told him not to hand over that whistleblower complaint.</s>MARQUARDT: Now to discuss all of this and more I'm joined this afternoon by Democratic Congressman John Garamendi, from California. He does sit on the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for joining me this afternoon.</s>REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Sure.</s>MARQUARDT: There's so much to discuss. Let's start with Ukraine and the whistleblower complaint. You are, in fact, going, I understand, to Ukraine later this month. And I imagine you plan to sit down with the leadership there and ask about these conversations that they had with Rudy Giuliani and President Trump. But we know from Rudy Giuliani, who is, of course, the president's personal lawyer, his own admission to our Chris Cuomo, in addition to our own reporting, that he and the president have pressured the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, to investigate Biden and his son. What specifically, Congressman, do you want to find out?</s>GARAMENDI: We certainly want to find out about that. The original intent of the trip was to look at the work being done in the Eastern European countries, including Ukraine, to push back on Russia's aggression in Ukraine. And also to bolster the NATO presence in Eastern Europe. In the intervening weeks since we planned this trip, we now have all of this occurring and, yes, this will be part of it. Particularly the $250 million and perhaps another $140 million that the Ukrainian military needs to be prepared to deal with Russia. We will meet with the various ministers. Whether we will have an opportunity to meet with Zelensky or not remains to be seen. In any case, this is a major, major problem in the relationship between the United States, Ukraine and, certainly, a major problem between the president and the Congress.</s>MARQUARDT: Congressman, we are hearing from the Ukrainian foreign minister. He was saying that, counter to this reporting there was pressure from the President Trump to investigate Joe Biden and his son, the Ukrainian foreign minister right now is saying, "I think there was no pressure during that call between the Ukrainian president and Donald Trump." So what evidence have you seen of pressure from the American president to Ukraine? You were just mentioning that military aid money to defend against Russia.</s>GARAMENDI: Well, that is one thing we know for certain is that the president, following the phone conversations, did decide to withhold or delay the $250 million that has previously been approved to be delivered to Ukraine. That we know for a fact. We also know that, when it hit the fan, that there was a whistleblower or just before that the president did release the money. Those are things we do know. As to what came of the conversation and what was said in the conversation, there's reporting that eight times the president did suggest that there be an investigation. We do know that Rudy Giuliani was in Madrid, I guess, actually Portugal, to meet with the leadership in the Ukrainian government. Those are things that are known. We also know that the president's troops are stonewalling Congress and stopping the legitimate and necessary, by law, release of the information that the whistleblower has presented, appropriately, through the channels. Now, those are things we know. Beyond that, I would expect the Ukrainian government to try to stay out of the line of fire, to try to minimize whatever was said, and to make nice to the president, who will, for some time, until the next election or the next impeachment, continue to be in power here in the United States. And so the foreign minister is doing exactly what I expect a foreign minister to do, no, no, not a big deal. We'll see. We have to have this investigation. Bottom line, we have to end the stonewalling that the administration has put around the investigations that Congress has legitimately and constitutional right to investigate.</s>MARQUARDT: Well, the House Intelligence Committee is, in fact, investigating. You do not sit on that committee.</s>GARAMENDI: That is correct.</s>MARQUARDT: We do understand that Joseph Maguire, the acting DNI, is going to be testifying in an open session, so not a closed session where he can talk about classified information, but an open session. What do you expect that he can reveal? And I should note to our viewers, we do know from our own reporting he was pressured by the White House counsel and the DOJ to not pass along this whistleblower complaint to Congress. What more clarity do you think we can get from the acting DNI next week when he testifies to the House Intel Committee?</s>GARAMENDI: Well, I would expect one question. That is, why are you not following the clear letter of the law. The clear letter of the law says, when there's a credible whistleblower that goes to the I.G. and the I.G. finds it to be credible, that then goes to the fellow that is going to be appearing next week. And he has two weeks to deliver that information to Congress. He has not followed the law. So undoubtedly, the question will be, why are you not following the law. From there, it'll go back to the Attorney General Barr and to the White House that are saying, block it, don't do it. We'll see what happens here. The committee is very capable. Adam Schiff knows exactly what is going on. We'll see what comes of that. For me, I have a larger question or a different question and that is, why did the president remove $770 million of money that NATO needs to bolster its defenses in Eastern Europe. This is an enormous gift to Putin. The president has taken that money to build a border wall somewhere along the Mexican border. That's one big gift to Putin. To say nothing of this controversy in the Ukraine.</s>MARQUARDT: You're referring to the $3.6 billion of military funds diverted for the border wall.</s>GARAMENDI: Yes.</s>MARQUARDT: That, Congressman, is a whole other matter we'll have to discuss some other time. Congressman John Garamendi, thank you so much for joining me today.</s>GARAMENDI: Thank you.</s>MARQUARDT: All right. Well, Antonio Brown, the football player is out of a job again. The NFL player is addressing his release from the New England Patriots after new allegations against him. And Senator Cory Booker is facing a really do-or-die moment on the campaign trail. Why he says he could drop out of the race soon. That's coming up.