scandal keeps growing. impeachment testimony. the former u.s. envoy to ukraine tells congress he warned foreign investigation of joe biden would be seen as election interference. what more did volker reveal? no inner monologue. president trump goes beyond encouraging investigation of biden, encouraging china to do the same. and blowing the whistle. getting new information about a second whistle-blower complaint. an irs official reportedly warned of tampering with the audit of president trump's tax returns. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i am wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." we are following a lot of breaking news on the trump ukraine scandal. tonight, "the wall street journal reports that the president ordered removal of the

u.s. ambassador to ukraine after months of complaints from his allies, including his personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. giuliani reportedly felt the ambassador was obstructing his efforts to get ukraine to investigate joe biden. this as the former u.s. envoy to ukraine reportedly told house investigators that he warned giuliani he was getting bad information about biden and his son. "the washington post" reports kurt volker also told ukrainian officials would be seen as interfering in the election if they investigated biden. tonight, president trump takes his push for a biden probe further, publicly urging china as well as ukraine to look into his potential 2020 opponent. this hour, i'll talk with democrat on the house oversight committee, congressman jimmy gomez, and correspondents and analysts are also standing by. first, let's go to chief white house correspondent jim acosta. jim, a new report is

underscoring rudy giuliani's influence over president trump and their push to investigate joe biden. >> reporter: that's right, wolf. "the wall street journal" is reporting president trump recalled the former ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch because she wouldn't dig up dirt on joe biden. the president was asked why the ambassador was recalled earlier talking to reporters, he danced around the question, did not give a straight answer. should point out in the last few moments, cnn's michael warren was on the phone with rudy giuliani and has confirmed some of the details in that "the wall street journal" report. but wolf, that was not the most remarkable moment at the white house as the president publicly called for foreign interference in the 2020 election, asking china, a u.s. adversary, to investigate biden, unlike his conversation with ukraine's president, no call transcript was necessary today as the president said the quiet part

out loud. in what is fast becoming a game of chicken with house democrats threatening impeachment, president trump is calling on a u.s. adversary, china, to interfere in the 2020 election by investigating his unproven conspiracy theory about joe biden's son hunter's business activities overseas. the president issued his plea after admitting he wanted the same from ukraine. >> they should investigate the bidens. china should start an investigation into the bidens. because what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. >> reporter: biden's campaign pounlsed, comparing his statement to the one in 2016 when he asked russia to dig up dirt on hillary clinton. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.

>> reporter: at a campaign event overnight, biden accused the president of acting out of fear. >> he did it because like every bully in history, he's afraid. he's afraid of just how badly he may be beaten in november. >> reporter: the president is counting on republicans to remain loyal, pointing to the latest poll numbers and fund-raising figures in a tweet, and thanking the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell for his support. mcconnell would play a pivotal role if mr. trump is impeached in the house. >> he read my phone call with the president of ukraine, mitch mcconnell. he said that was the most innocent phone call that i read. i mean, give me a break. >> reporter: the plot is thickening after rudy giuliani admitted to "the washington post" he has discussed his unproven biden claims with an attorney for former trump campaign chairman paul manafort who is in prison. contrast that with vice president mike pence who is trying to keep his distance from the ukraine investigation.

>> it is great to be in arizona. >> reporter: sources tell cnn to expect the vice president to spend much of his time in the coming weeks on the road as aides worry about the ukraine fallout in washington, with questions swirling about what pence knew and when, he latched onto mr. trump's allegations. >> there are legitimate questions that ought to be asked and we're going to continue to ask them since the american people have a right to know whether or not the vice president of the united states or his family profited from his position. >> reporter: the president is amping up accusations on social media. tweeting out a video, slamming the bidens, featuring the group nickelback, to be shut down by twitter after the band complained of a copyright violation. the president is grumbling about being impeached even at official white house events >> that's why they do the impeachment crap. they know they can't beat us fairly. that's the only reason they're

doing it. they can't win. >> reporter: that's not swaying the democrats coming out publicly to state the impeachment inquiry must continue. >> we have no choice but proceed with impeachment inquiry. the only person the president has to blame is himself. >> reporter: another key sign they're gathering up for impeachment battle, the justice department instructed white house employees to preserve documents and emails that may have to be turned over as part of the inquiry. it has become more difficult for the white house and defenders to accuse the whistle-blower complaint that started this of relying on hearsay to accuse the president of asking a foreign government to interfere in the upcoming election, as mr. trump did it out loud today, wolf. >> certainly did. jim acosta, thank you. now to the first witness to appear to congress in the impeachment investigation. sun lynn serfaty, what are you learning about kurt volker.

>> reporter: wolf, kurt volker is behind closed doors, telling them about warning flags he was giving to president trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. "the washington post" reporting this evening that volker said he told giuliani he was receiving untrustworthy information about joe biden and his son hunter, and he essentially said to giuliani, do not trust these sources, you should be careful about putting faith in those accounts. this keeps in line with what we're hearing from a source familiar with volker's thinking going into the deposition this morning when he said he was essentially trying to get the biden, giuliani issue off the table. this has been a very lengthy day on capitol hill. volker arrived here a little after 9:30 this morning. now it is entering in the eight hour mark of testimony. >> i know we're going to get more information coming out. thank you very much. meantime, bring in congressman

jimmy gomez, democrat on the oversight committee. thank you for joining us. we certainly have a lot to discuss now. let me start with the report from "the wall street journal" that president trump ordered removal of the u.s. ambassador to ukraine after she was targeted in a smear campaign by rudy giuliani. what concerns does that raise? >> it raises a lot of concerns. it raises that anybody that doesn't agree with this president, anybody that doesn't follow along to try to make sure they can get dirt on a political rival will be removed. and he sent a message to everybody, do not cooperate with congress because if you do, then we're going to remove you. >> the former ambassador, marie yovanovitch, career diplomat, will appear before your committee, talking about the oversight committee, along with intelligence and foreign affairs committees next week. what do you want to ask her? >> we want to find out who was

pressuring her, what questions were asked, did anybody try to get information made up. did she explicitly tell the president and the white house that the information we're looking for did not exist or was completely false. we want to see what kind of interactions we have, and was there undue pressure on her just to make things up to comply with the president's request. >> you also serve on the ways and means committee. you know "the washington post" is reporting that a career irs official whistle-blower was told that at least one treasury department political appointee tried to interfere with the irs audits of either the president or vice president's tax returns. do you know the specifics, first of all, of that complaint? >> i do not. i haven't seen the complaint. >> do you want this complaint to be made public because as you know there are privacy laws when it comes to tax returns.

>> yeah, i would want to first consult with the chairman of the committee as well as the rest of the committee to determine that. but i want to make a few points when it comes to the whistle-blower complaint. it really adds credibility to our request of the presidential tax returns. from the very beginning, we wanted to audit, make sure the presidential audits were done in a way that was free of political pressure and done in a way that really was true to its core. and that's why we started to look into it. that's why we asked for the presidential tax returns. that's why we invoke 6103-f, the statute that let's us get it. this is something that goes to the heart of what we have been doing. if the whistle-blower complaint is true. additionally, it shows the importance of whistle-blowers. whistle-blowers inform the public, inform congress that something is going on in the executive branch or any other department that something is

going on that's not right, and they can report it without fear of repercussions, without being fired, without being demoted, without being suspended. that's why it is important to have the whistle-blower protection, because it is necessary to get the information. >> as far as you know, congressman, are there other whistle-blower complaints in addition to those involving ukraine and now the irs that have not yet been made public? >> not that i know of, but you never know. i think different committees handle it differently. chairman neil has been -- holds his cards close to the chest to be sure we protect integrity. he believes the lawsuit within ways and means committee to get presidential returns is necessary and is the best course of action. i'm not sure if there are other whistle-blower complaints. i guess we'll find out soon enough. >> congressman gomez, stand by for a moment. manu raju is on capitol hill, getting more breaking news.

what are you learning? >> reporter: we're learning more about testimony that kurt volker has been in, former u.s. envoy in ukraine, about eight hours and counting behind closed doors. some details now coming out. we're told he told the ukrainian government not to get involved, not to interfere in u.s. elections, he said to stay out of politics. essentially that's the message he conveyed to the ukrainian government. that's significant because the president of the united states had a phone call with the president of ukraine and in that phone call, the president urged president zelensky of ukraine to investigate his political rival, joe biden and hunter biden. in the aftermath of that, we're told that kurt volker told the ukrainian government to stay out of u.s. politics. we're learning more, wolf. we're learning he told lawmakers today that the ukrainian government had questions about why the military aid had been withheld. he did not have any good answers

for the ukrainian government when he was asked about that as well. wolf, we're also learning about a meeting that had actually been planned between the ukrainian government, administration, president zelensky, and president donald trump in washington, but that meeting had been put on hold. and it is not entirely clear why it was put on hold. volker said the ukrainians raised concerns that the meeting was put on hold. if you recall from that transcript, rough transcript they released about the phone call, in that phone call, the president, they discuss a possible meeting. the president says feel free to call, come to the white house when you want. give us a date, we'll work it out. i look forward to seeing you. at the same time, we also are hearing that there were concerns about rudy giuliani's source of information, according to our sources that he did, volker did raise concerns to giuliani that

the source he relied on for information was not credible, and he perhaps did not rely on that. that's how that conversation transpired. again, this has been going on all day. there are a lot more details to learn. getting early glimpses of what happened. after the president of the united states talked to the president of ukraine to investigate joe biden, afterwards we're hearing now that u.s. special envoy at the time to ukraine told the ukrainian government don't interfere in u.s. politics. >> i take it the ukrainians were understandably upset there was a freeze on u.s. military and economic aid to ukraine, the high level meeting with the president was being put off. tell us a little more about that. >> yeah, that's a big source of questioning all along, whether or not the president of the united states used political leverage to get the ukrainian government to investigate the bidens by holding off on

military aid, why not providing that military aid approved by congress. also now this meeting that apparently they had been discussing to have in washington with the ukrainian government, and there had been apparently from what we're told a lot of questions why the meeting was not happening. and this was discussed in the closed door testimony and also discussed in that phone call between president trump and president zelensky. it was clearly on zelensky's mind as they discussed moving forward, they discussed all of the aspects in that phone call. the president of course in that same phone call said investigate, you should investigate joe biden, you should investigate hunter biden. in that context, some may raise concerns whether the president was using that meeting as leverage. we don't know if volker said that was the president's intention at all, but at the moment, we're learning that was a clear source of concern from the ukrainians why the meeting didn't come forward and why aid did not come forward.

according to what we're hearing, volker didn't have good explanation for the ukrainians, why the aid had not been provided. >> suspicion was they were using a high level meeting that didn't happen and economic and military aid as pressure on the ukrainians to come up with dirt on joe biden. stand by. i want to bring back jimmy gomez from the oversight committee. the committee was involved in today's deposition of the special envoy, kurt volker. does manu's reporting line up with what you're hearing from colleagues in the room, and this deposition has been going on for what, seven or eight hours. >> wolf, we haven't been briefed on the deposition. when we get back, we will be briefed. i look forward to that. i want to just according to the reports of what we're hearing, i want to be clear it doesn't matter if the information that rudy giuliani was seeking was inaccurate or wasn't truthful. the reason why is that the president of the united states never should have asked a

foreign government to investigate a political rival so he can win the 2020 election. he should never have asked china to interfere and investigate joe biden or to win the 2020 election. it is always done in this context, right? there's always something outstanding. money for defense of the ukrainians that's out there, he puts some meetings off. right now this administration is going into trade negotiations china. china is suffering because of the trade war, so are our farmers and people in the united states. but what kind of incentive, pressure does this put on china, right, when the trade war is costing them billions and billions of dollars. so the president is abusing his office and trying to put pressure on foreign governments to interfere in our election and that is something, that is at the core of why we're conducting the inquiry. that's why a lot of people think he should be removed from office. >> congressman jimmy gomez, thanks for joining us. >> thank you so much.

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kurt volker's deposition has been going on for seven or eight hours, and continuing as we speak. former special envoy to ukraine. he testified he warned rudy giuliani, not a diplomat or government official, the president's personal lawyer, not to trust information he was getting from his ukrainian sources. volker was clearly walking a fine line, trying to contain giuliani, at the same time doing what u.s. national security required. >> well, all of the developments today. the one thing they have in common is that they all raise the question of what does american foreign policy exist for, does it exist to get donald trump reelected or does it exist to advance the national interest because the idea that rudy giuliani is engaging in foreign policy for the sole and exclusive purpose for getting joe biden is exactly the same as

donald trump saying china should investigate biden too. i mean, all these stories, the heart of the issue of abuse of presidential power, and we're going to see whether congress cares about it or not. >> and marie yovanovitch, a career diplomat, foreign service officer, worked in democratic and republican administrations was removed from her post because she apparently wasn't doing what rudy giuliani wanted her to do. >> and she apparently was hated by the prosecutor in the ukraine because she was pushing for them to do more reform in ukraine, once again going back to the point that all of the controversy focuses on the president wanting to go after joe biden for his own personal gain as opposed to promoting any sort of u.s. foreign policy interests. in addition to that, yovanovitch is still employed by the state department, is constantly raked through the mud by this

president and those around him, and we need to remind him and the viewers, rudy giuliani was never an employee of the state department or this government. why he was doing government or the president's business in ukraine is beyond me, but it does seem like people like yovanovitch and volker were still promoting u.s. policy, noting this was the president's right-hand man, needed to work with him in any capacity they could. >> stand by. there's more information we're getting now. i want to bring in sara murray. you have been doing a lot of reporting on this. what are you learning now? >> well, as you point out, this is someone that worked at the state department a long time, whose reputation is dragged through the mud by the president. even though the president acts like he has no idea what's going on, "the wall street journal" is reporting he is the one that wanted her out.

tonight, they're saying donald trump ordered the removal of marie yovanovitch, after rudy giuliani complained she was hampering efforts to dig up dirt on joe biden. trump said he couldn't remember if he was the one who recalled her, while trashing her reputation. >> i don't know if i recall or somebody recalled her, i heard very bad things about her a long period of time, not good. >> throughout this, the state department down played that, saying she was concluding a three year diplomatic assignment in 2019 as planned. documents that made their way from giuliani to secretary of state mike pompeo, to the state department inspector general landed with congress wednesday, included accusations against yovanovitch. >> apparently the material came may this year, it coincided with the moment in which ambassador

yovanovitch was recalled. >> saying she disparaged the president, gave them a do not prosecute list. also among documents, exchanges with state department officials that tried to shield her from the fake narrative. >> it is an honor to appear before you today. >> she remains a state department employee, spent more than three decades there, served as an ambassador under three presidents. >> ambassador yovanovitch is one of the most experienced diplomats, one of the most successful foreign service officers that i nguyen my whole career. >> she made tackling corruption her mission. >> the old oligarch system is still clinging to life, and corruption is its life support. >> the whistle-blower complaint and the call with president zelensky setting off alarm bells about why she was removed. the former ambassador from the

united states, the woman was bad news and people she was dealing with in ukraine were bad news, so i just want to let you know that, trump said on the call, according to the rough transcript. it was great you were the first one told me she was a bad ambassador because i agree with you 100%, zelensky replied. trump said well, then she's going to go through some things. diplomats condemned the attacks and rallied to her defense. she will have an opportunity to break her silence when she's slated to provide a deposition to congress. >> i am sure that will be intriguing. very important. thanks for that report. it is amazing what's going on. here's an american diplomat, career professional, 30 years, working in the state department, doing all sorts of important assignments, all of a sudden she's being attacked first by rudy giuliani, then the president of the united states. >> look, you know this, it is the president's prerogative to put whatever or whomever he

wants into countries around the world. that is up to the president. but what is highly unusual and downright wrong i think objectively to say is for as you said for a president to publicly trash somebody who doesn't seem to have done anything bad when it comes to her fundamental post, mission, to represent the united states. what she seems to have not done right in his view is carry out his political wishes which according to manu's reporting, special envoy to the ukraine also told the ukrainians don't listen to the president, it is not your job to get involved in american politics. >> special envoy kurt volker who is now testifying before congress behind closed doors. there was a sitting u.s. ambassador, marie yovanovitch, there as well. apparently they both agreed what rudy giuliani wanted to do, namely pressure the ukrainian

government into digging up dirt on the president's potential political rival in the 2020 election was a bad idea. >> yeah, absolutely. look, i always defended the president's right to have the advisers that he or she wants to govern, but this is not a case of a president looking at this particular adviser, saying you're not doing what i would like you to do to govern, this is a case of looking at someone that's a career foreign service officer that has an outstanding reputation by all accounts, has done a fantastic job, looking at that person, saying you're not getting on board with what i'm trying to accomplish. look, i think between the testimony that she will give, and testimony kurt volker gave today, the picture is coming into focus with regard to what exactly the president was trying to do. and if we look at the historical ones, look at 2016, it is clear that if the intelligence community were to find through routine intelligence collection that a foreign government was interfering in our election, a package would be produced and given to the sitting president

so the president could make a determination as to how to deal with that issue. that's exactly what's happening here, except in this case it is the president himself that's inviting that foreign interference. if that were happening, found a u.s. person was soliciting that foreign country, that person would be guilty of a crime. >> interesting, jeffrey, secretary of state mike pompeo according to the reports supported getting rid of the ambassador, marie yovanovitch, and that's causing all sorts of distress inside the state department, the career diplomats, foreign service officers, morale is not very good now, based on what they're seeing from leadership. >> you know, there's an interesting difference between what went on when the president was trying to fire robert mueller. there were all these people around the president who were trying to protect him from himself. there was don mcgahn, white house counsel, rob porter, staff secretary.

they were trying to preserve the rule of law. all those people have left the building. there's no one left who will tell the president no, even though what he's engaging in appears to many to be impeachable conduct. he is surrounded, his attorney general, secretary of state, they're all enablers at this point. >> and the vice president, you heard what the vice president, he came out and supported everything that the president said earlier in the day today, including let's bring in china, let china of all countries investigate the former vice president of the united states. >> well, the vice president had a couple of days to mull the president laying out there that why don't we release the transcript of the vice president's call with zelensky as well. who knows what he was implying with that. i do have a hard time believing this vice president especially in light of the fact he was publicly lied to by michael flynn about having conversations with the russian ambassador

about sanctions, and had to hire a lawyer squenubsequently after that, would say listen, i don't read transcripts, i take you at your word, prior to going and having a meeting with zelensky, this was only a couple of pages, he had an eight hour flight for the meeting, to not have read the transcript and have his own personal adviser, kellogg, tell him what was said on that phone call is very difficult to believe. he also a few years ago had talked about the need to root out corruption and to never take any foreign information from any other world leaders when it comes to elections or anything. so now he seems to be placating, saying what the president said is correct. i have a hard time believing he had no idea what was said in the transcript or that he thought it was kosher. >> let me play a clip. this is the president earlier today, not asking canada or the united kingdom or a friendly

country to look into the former vice president, but china to do so. watch this. >> what did you hope zelensky would do about the bidens after your phone call? >> i would think if they were honest about it, start a major investigation into the bidens. it is a simple answer. they should investigate the bidens because how does a company that's newly formed and all these companies, and by the way, likewise, china should start an investigation into the bidens because what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. so i would say that president zelensky if it were me, i would recommend they start an investigation into the bidens. >> what do you think? even if china were to investigate the bidens, could the u.s. believe anything the

chinese informed the u.s. government? >> absolutely not, but let's take a step back. the initial outrage, even among republicans who may be calling it troubling, inside they felt outrage was the motinotion of a. president asking a foreign leader to dig up dirt on a domestic opponent. it just so happened at that time it was ukraine. wouldn't matter if it was canada, england or any of the u.s. allies, and it doesn't matter if it is china also. it makes it especially egregious, which is your point, that he is in a trade war with china. he makes clear he doesn't trust china at all, the reason he is making it difficult for farmers because they can't sell things to china now, he says you've got to do what's right patriot cli to hold china's feet to the fire. this is the country, this is the leadership he wants to investigate his domestic political opponent? it makes no sense. >> and there's another point

about that which is whose interest are we supposed to be following when we deal with china? as dana points out, we're in a big trade negotiation. should we give them a better deal if they agree to give us dirt on joe biden? that seems to be what the president is saying. i mean, if the national interest is dictated by which country gives dirt on joe biden, that's a completed perfect version of everything that american foreign policy has stood for. >> the president alluded to that when it was reported earlier that he specifically said to president xi he would not speak out vocally about the protests in hong kong, and perhaps that was in return for a trade deal as well. but if the president is thinking this helps him with regards to a trade deal, he needs to remember one thing. he is not president xi, he is not president for life. the chinese and ukrainians and whoever else the president may be pressuring in one way, shape

or form about helping him are now between a rock and hard place. if they help him, they may benefit now, they also know this president won't be around forever, they have to deal with democrats at some point in the future. it is not in their best interest to give into the president, knowing they may have a democratic president to deal with in a few years. >> wolf, a lot of people wonder why it matters so much. people say what's the national security interest here. you know, presidents need to deal with other countries on a level playing field. if you have a situation like the president is creating wherein he gets one country to give him something while he gives them something, wolf, the next time our president needs to negotiate with that country, if he does this under the cover of darkness, no one knows about it, that country has leverage over the president of the united states. when it comes to national security issues, the president of the united states can never be in a situation in which another country has leverage because of some sort of back room deal he made. >> did we ever find out if rudy

giuliani has security clearances? he seems to be leading the way in conducting u.s. national security policy towards ukraine. >> i asked that question a number of times, still not gotten an answer. i will keep at it. >> everybody stand by. a lot more. lots of breaking news. we'll be right back. (melissa) somebody would ask her something and she would just walk right past them because she didn't know they were talking to her. (deborah) i just could not hear. i was hesitant to get the hearing aids because of my short hair, but nobody even sees them. (avo) our nearly invisible hearing aids are just one reason we've been the brand leader for over 70 years. (deborah) when i finally could hear for the first time, i started crying. i could hear everything. (avo) get special anniversary savings and your chance to win a seven day hawaiian cruise. call 1-800-miracle today.

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second whistle-blower complaint involving the president of the united states. jeffrey toobin, "the washington post" reporting the second whistle-blower told one treasury department political attempted to improperly interfere with the annual audit of the president or vice president's tax returns. i suspect there's going to be more whistle-blower complaints, but what do you think about this? >> well, let's see if it is true. i think, you know, that's a potentially serious allegation. remember, the president has said all his tax returns are under audit basically from the beginning of time. that's why he doesn't release his tax returns. i mean, that seems to be a complete lie and has always seemed to be a complete lie. but as president, there is a custom, even a law that the president's tax returns are always audited. so it would be improper if some political appointee tried to put the finger on the scale one way

or the other. >> dana, you have been doing reporting on this as well. >> absolutely. look, this is an issue that has been dogging the president since when he was a candidate, why he didn't release them. i defer to jeffrey on the law. whether it is proper or not to release them, political history says that it is. >> every president since nixon has done so. >> that's right. if any of the democrats become president, they're going to make it the law, they all say. but tampering with it is a totally different thing. >> we never even got a straight answer to the question of whether or not the president is under audit. you would think the irs could at least answer that question. >> routinely supposed to every sitting president -- >> i hope the irs doesn't answer that question. i mean, one thing the irs is very good at is protecting privacy of taxpayers. the person who should answer that question is donald trump. donald trump should be able to answer the question of whether

he is under audit. it is improbable he has been audited every year for decades. the fact he hasn't released tax returns, i think the answer clearly is that he doesn't want to release his tax returns, and he got elected in spite of it, why should he release them now. >> let's get back to ukraine for a moment. cnn has been doing some checking. we've gone back to 2016. interestingly enough there were several presumptive republican nominee senators on the same page as then sitting vice president, joe biden, calling for reforms to ukraine's prosecutor general's office, and judiciary and saying that was a priority. they were all sort of agreeing with each other. >> yes. look, this is something that was easy to check, easy, we have been discussing this the past few days as well, it was only a few years ago you had not only the president of the united

states who sent joe biden there to focus on getting rid of some corruption there as far as their prosecutors but you also, and this specific prosecutor, u.s. politicians from both sides of the aisle, and you had many other leaders from other western european countries, in particular the head of imf. there are only so many times you can keep repeating this. of course, you have the president and those of his supporters that will deny that and continue to focus on the narrative that this was somehow joe biden and joe biden alone going out there, focusing on getting rid of one person to benefit his son financially. >> they signed a letter in 2016. everybody stick around. more on the breaking news as the president and his allies keep trashing joe biden. the former vice president is now firing back with even more fury. ♪ (dramatic orchestra)

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firing back. let's go to our senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny. as mr. trump escalates his attacks, biden is wrapping up his defense. >> wolf, he is indeed. joe biden is in california this evening and he is keeping one eye on what president trump is saying. his campaign pushing back on that all day long, but joe biden giving a bit of news at a fund-raiser in palo alto, california. he's announcing his fund-raising haul for the last three months of this summer, $15.2 million. wolf, important to note how this squares with the the rest of his rivals there. as you can see, bernie sanders, $25.3 million. pete buttigieg, $19.1 million. kamala hairs, $11.6 and cory booker. we are still waiting for elizabeth warren's figure. she has not yet released that, and wolf, all of this is coming as all eyes are on joe biden. he's long wanted a face to face

one-on-one competition with president trump. of course, he has a primary to get around and that's exactly what he's getting in terms of rhetoric on ukraine. this is what joe biden said last night in reno to the president. >> i'm not going anywhere. [ cheers and applause ] >> you are not going to destroy me, and you're not going to destroy my family. ye i don't care how much money you spend, mr. president, or how dirty the attacks get. trump knows there are no truth in the charges against me. none. zero. every independent news organization that has reviewed the charges at length has found it to be a flat-out lie, his assertions. every single one of them. >> so joe biden pushing back aggressively on president trump, wolf. we should point out the trump campaign raising $125 million over the last three months.

so certainly has a lot more money to wage this fight. most biden advisers say it's a good thing to have him elevated into one-on-one competition with the president, but wolf, that is unclear because certainly a lot of information and disinformation out there about biden's family, as well. >> separately, jeff, what are you learning about bernie sanders' health? >> we are indeed, wolf. he is still in a nevada hospital, and he is sending a message that he does plan to be in that debate in ohio and jane, his wife, is by his side and expected to be released soon. >> we wish him the best and a speedy recovery. jeff zeleny, thank you very much. much more news right after this. let's be honest, insurance can feel a little

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breaking news out of vancouver in washington state. an active shooter situation is unfolding. police confirm a suspect has barricaded himself inside an apartment building for retirees. three people apparently have been shot. officers are communicating with the suspect trying to get him to surrender peacefully. some residents have been evacuated from the building and others are sheltering in place. cnn, of course, will continue to follow this story and bring you updates. also, a u.s. military training exercise went dangerously wrong in mississippi. at least 22 paratroopers were injured when wind blew them off their course from their planned drop zone. some got tangled in trees and

had to be rescued. it happened during practice jumps by a combat team based in alaska. seven were hospitalized. to our viewers, thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." erin burnett "out front" starts right now. out front next, breaking news. president trump says it, ukraine and china should investigate the bidens and we have more breaking news. we have found out trump brought up biden during a june phone call and the breaking details are next plus the first witness in the impeachment inquiry still behind closed doors in capitol hill and we are learning tonight of revealing texts he provided and a second whistle-blower complaint about the trump administration and this one from an irs official regarding tax returns. let's go out front. good evening. i'm erin burnett. out front tonight, breaking news. trump's quid pro quo. the president's