i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters, and we start with president trump threatening house speaker nancy pelosi over impeachment, saying he will not turn over any documents until house democrats hold a full vote on the impeachment inquiry. >> we'll be issuing a letter. as everybody knows, we've been treated very unfairly, very different from anybody else. if you go over not only history,

you go over any aspect of life, you'll see how unfairly we've been treated, and this is not about politics. this is about corruption. if you look and you read our constitution and many other things, i have an obligation to look at corruption. i have an actual obligation and a duty. >> the president there trying to portray himself as a champion against corruption saying, quote, we are investigating corruption, while saying his calls for foreign countries to investigate the biden family had nothing to do with politics. the president's comments today coming in the wake of damning new text messages handed over to the house intelligence committee, and they show u.s. diplomats tasked with carrying out u.s. policy in ukraine believed that the military aid to ukraine was indeed tied to ukraine investigating the biden family. and now a rare rebuke by a republican, utah senator mitt romney, tweeting, by all appearances, the president's brazen and unprecedented appeal

to china and ukraine to investigate joe biden is wrong and appalling. and it's important to remember that all of this started with this whistleblower complaint. and we're now learning more about what kurt volker, who is the first official to testify on the whistleblower's accusations, revealed to congress during his closed door testimony. sunlan serfotti is covering this on capitol hill. what can you tell us, sunlan? >> reporter: kurt volker spent nine hours in the room, and it shows the envoy of ukraine trying to defend himself, portraying him as someone who is constantly trying to tamp down the influence of president trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, and specifically his influence over president trump as it relates to his demands to launch these investigations.

certainly volker under scoring he was trying to get president trump to see the ukranian government as one serious about making these reforms. volker says of a conversation he had with trump, quote, he said that ukraine was a corrupt country full of terrible people. he said, they tried to take me down. in the course of that conversation, he referenced conversations with mayor giuliani. it was clear to me that despite the positive news and recommendations being conveyed by this official delegation about the new president, president trump had a deeply rooted negative view of ukraine rooted in the past. he was clearly receiving other information from other sources, including mayor giuliani. that was more negative, causing him to retain this negative view. and that certainly keeps in line with what we saw reflected in those text messages released from the committee last night, not only the extent of rudy giuliani's involvement, his influence over trump but certainly volker's efforts behind the scenes here to really

intercede. one other thing from this testimony, volker also said that he was not aware of any effort to urge ukraine to investigate former vice president joe biden. he clearly is separating investigation demands for biden and his son hunter biden and that energy company he was a part of. brianna? >> president trump is back on the defense today. he's claiming there was no quid pro quo of any kind between him and ukraine's presidents, but damning text messages between u.s. diplomats and a senior ukranian telling a different story. walk us through these text messages and what they tell us. >> these are pages and pages of texts turned over to house democrats. they really show how the administration was determined to push ukraine to investigate joe biden and his son and also pushing them to investigate the supposed ukranian influence on

the 2016 election. of course, the president has repeatedly suggested it was ukraine and not russia that hacked the dnc servers. that's a claim that has been thoroughly debunked. so here are some of those texts, really seeming to push the president's points. this first one, july 25th, it was the same day as that now consequential phone call between the president and ukraine's new president zelensky. so in this text, u.s. special envoy kurt volker, who we know abruptly resigned last week, he tested zelensky's aide saying, heard from the white house. assuming president z says he will investigate and get to the bottom of 2016, we will nail down a date to visit washington. so there's that text. then we really start to see the full extent of the coordination between volker, other top u.s. officials and even a key trump ally. so this next text is from volker to rudy giuliani, and also

gordon sondland. he's a prom anatoinent donor an ambassador to the eu. he was pleased with your phone call. mentioned z making a statement. can we all get on the phone so i make sure i advise z correctly as to what he should be saying? that's a text from early august. the statement in it that volker refers to there was planned to be a public release by ukraine committing to pursue investigations of corruption. the release of that statement, though, never happened. but these texts really do show that the trump administration had a vested interest in what the statement by ukraine was going to say. so days later, fast-forward to august 30th. the top american diplomat in ukraine, william taylor, he tells kurt volker that the president has canceled his trip to ukraine, and then the next day, taylor texted sondland

sounding an alarm. he says, are we now saying that white house meetings are contingent on investigations? some sent in, call me, meaning take this off line. the assistance is referring to $400 million in aide finally released on september 11. but september 9, two days before, taylor again brings up this point, i think i said on the phone it's crazy to hold skurlt r recall. that's when they texted back hours later, defending the president, saying, i believe you're incorrect about the president's intentions. bill taylor texts, the president has been very clear no quid pro

quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency. we stop the back and forth by text. they also push some of trump and rudy giuliani's conspiracy theer r -- theories of ukraine in the 2016 election which they say was due to hillary clinton, but a lot of damning techs messages here. brianna? >> thank you for walking us through all of that. there is a lot to talk over with former u.s. attorney greg browa broward, and cnn analyst gloria borger. there is so much to go over with these text messages that so beautifully walked us through

here, but it's a lot. to you, what are the headlines that really stand out when you look at all of this? >> well, i think what you see in these text messages, first of all, is a state department officials who were concerned there would be a quid pro quo. that comes through loud and clear in taylor's text in which sondland hours later, which i think is key here, responds, no, no, that's not what the president wants. then there was concern, and if you look at the opening statement that cnn has gotten, it's very clear that volker was worried, and that he finally seemed to be saying to the president of ukraine, look, you want to get your money? you have to kind of say something to appease the president -- >> on the issue of corruption. >> and appease rudy giuliani. even on the bidens, and they

were all ready to do it. and the company that hunter biden was on the board of, you have to say something and that will get you your money, but at no time, he said very clearly, did he urge ukraine that it ought to investigate biden. and also went out of his way, i should say, to say that joe biden is somebody that is a man of integrity and dedication to our country. so he pushed back on any notion that joe biden could be corrupt. >> i wonder, cara and greg, as you look at this, though, the idea of investigating corruption and investigating burisma, which is the company that hunter biden was on the board of, if that's one and the same as investigating the bidens. even though volker said, at no time was aware of or took part in investigating joe biden.

>> there are code words with a political name when you're trying not to make it political. the president has made it pretty clear to him, burisma, that investigation is about the bidens. when you look at what the president has defined for us even if his officials in the state department is trying to speak in a way which is potentially passable, i suppose, in terms of what they're trying to arrange here, you can connect all of those dots and that's what i think democrats are clearly doing. fine, we were talking about the 2016 elections, it's pretty clear the 2016 elections they were all supposed to investigate was supposed to put a floor down ahead of the 2020 election.

>> it's one thing for the u.s. government, through the fbi, through the doj, to encourage on our efforts generally. this is a very specific attempt -- you know, i'm a former federal prosecutor in las vegas, of all places. i think i would know an extortion attempt if i see one. this is a quid pro quo where something is being offered or held back in exchange of doing something for someone else. now the text messages, i think, fill in the blanks. i don't think there is any other way to look at this. >> at one point the diplomats are consulting with rudy giuliani or informing him of what zelensky might say publicl publicly. but that, gloria, does not suit

what giuliani thinks the president wants -- we're going to investigate biden. i remember when giuliani wanted to be secretary of state and they turned him down, and now he's behaving here as if he is the secretary of state. and the secretary of state is actually calling rudy giuliani to kind of say, well, you know, we passed this along, we passed your concerns along, because he knows this is what the president wants. so it's everybody saying, okay, how do we get the aid to ukraine, because everybody seemed to be convinced except for maybe the president and rudy giuliani, that the aid needed to go to ukraine and how do we work around this so we can get the money where it belongs to this country that is trying to fight russian aggression.

or is this ftoo far? do you look at that and say that is a crime? >> in the traditional sense, this would be a huge political problem for any president, bag back to vancient history like te last president, sflright? it could be a campaign violation due to details that need to be worked out. there is actually a federal statute that prohibits extorting foreign officials. that, i guess, should be examined. >> but who would examine it is my question. >> it's a hypothetical question. >> it is, and none of this should surprise us given the conduct we've seen since the beginning of this administration. what surprises us is the still

most deafening silence on capitol hill in regards to amtrak. it's no longer -- >> unencumbered by that. >> they're fighting about how outrageous this is, but the fact that no one with some small exceptions is willing to come out and say, enough is enough many. >> mitt romney speaks more and who boldly, but it's the. to criticize the president and say it doesn't pass the smell test here. >> just going back to the, so how much worse could it get for

him. he does not seem to be afraid of the pressure coming from capitol hill, and republicans werely. looking at other parts where you could explain this away. >> sf you were like, twhaets frl. any opening is being exploited to say this isn't exactly airtight. people were talking about hearsay in the whistleblower report, saying it is legal to talk about corruption in campaign. when it's this one specific case, it's not brought up in any other country. >> what about china? >> it's a different defense which is, i did it, but so what? that's the defense. jim acosta has gotten the republican talking points here, and as i go through them, they're all about process. democrats refuse to accept the

results of the 2016 election, the whistleblower is a democrat, et cetera, et cetera, but none of the republican intelligence committee talking points are about saying what trump said is okay. i think that speaks volumes about what republicans can say and will say at this point. >> i should add the whistleblower's identity is supposed to be a secret. just breaking news, we're just getting word that hackers linked to iran tried to attack a 2020 presidential campaign. plus, a democratic lawmaker is going to join me live to respond to president trump sitting in his white thohouse candidates.

>> i can't speak for him. >> i know you can't speak for him, but you can speak for yourself. you wouldn't do only half

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president trump making demands now of house speaker nancy pelosi, the president

saying today that he's sending a letter to the speaker saying that the white house will refuse to turn over documents requested in the impeachment inquiry unless there is a full vote in the house. we have california congressman ted lu with us. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, brianna. >> you're on the house intelligence committee. tell us -- is the president here -- what are you reading here what he's asking of the speaker? >> sure. let me first say impeachment is one of the greatest powers of congress. it should always be our last option, reserved only for those instances until we can't wait until the next election. we're at one of those times because the president continues to solicit foreign powers to interfere in our electoral politics. if he wants to clear his name, he can provide all the information. instead he's refusing to provide it, obstructing it. if he wants to have a vote of congress, that's fine. a majority of congress have

publicly stated they will support impeachment inquiry. it won't be a hard vote for us. >> do you think the speaker will go for that, then? >> it will be up to the speaker, but we already have well over a majority of members of congress that publicly came out and said they support this impeachment inqui inquiry. once the white house said this, they ever to provide all the documents based on their own terms. >> kurt volker, the envoy for ukraine negotiations, they have his testimony and also text messages that congress has at their disposal that reveal a lot of discussions of diplomats who were in touch with rudy giuliani and were discussing what the ukranian president needed to do to be basically right with the u.s. what is your reaction to these text messages? >> the text messages confirm this was not a one-off

conversation that donald trump had with the ukranian leader. this was a months-long conserved campaign orchestrated to get ukraine to target an american citizen for political services. this scandal is not hard to understand. he blocks ukraine from aid. a week later he's on the phone and trump asks for a favor, one of which is to investigate biden. then these text messages confirmed that our own diplomats understood they were withholding aid for political purposes for this political campaign. >> so what do you do with this information? the ball is entirely in the court of democrats at this point. >> that's a great question. we're going to continue to investigate. i know that kurt volker came to congress voluntarily. he sat there for nearly ten hours. he showed the cooperation that is expected of all witnesses. next week we're going to have masha, the u.n. ambassador

recalled by president trump. i do want to say, though, the evidence that has already come out, there is more than enough to draft articles of impeachment right now. >> kurt volker in his opening statement, his testimony that was submitted to congress, he said, at no time was i aware of or took part in an effort to urge ukraine to investigate former vice president biden. what do you make of that in the context of the text messages that you have read which mention burisma, which is the energy company that hunter biden, the former vice president's son, was on the board of? >> it's not clear what he means when he was not made aware of, because clearly at some point he was made very well aware of because he's the one that gave us all those text messages. it's a little ambiguous, is what kurt volker was saying. what we do know is there is a months-long orchestrated campaign to get ukraine to investigate biden, and this was

after donald trump specifically blocked critical military aid to ukraine that congress had specifically appropriated. >> i want to ask because yesterday trump said he wasn't interested in political rivals. yesterday he said he should investigate joe and hunter biden. >> the president might want to watch the video of his remarks yesterday on the south lawn. i served in active duty in the military because i believe america is an exceptional country, and we are all americans. the american president should never, ever solicit a foreign government to target a political rival. that is unamerican, it's wrong, and it's abuse of power. >> congressman ted lieu, thank you so much. >> thank you, brianna. republicans have remained mostly silent since the president asked the countries to investigate the bidens. they're starting to feel the heat on their own districts.

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republicans are largely staying quiet on this issue of the president publicly calling on china to investigate the biden family. a few like retiring texas congressman will hurd called it terrible. senator mitt romney weighed in on it a while ago, he called it appalling. there are few willing to go on the record about this. senator kasich joins me now. i want to ask you first and get your perspective pazas a republican, but first i want to ask you your reaction to these text messages. the president and his supporters have been saying there is no quid pro quo, but these text messages paint a very clear picture that military aid from the u.s. and a visit from the president were very much linked to ukraine having an investigation into burisma, this company that joe biden's son was on the board of, and also

investigating 2016 ukranian-linked conspiracy theory. what's your reaction to this really taking issue with the president saying no quid pro quo? >> well, first of all, i haven't had a chance to really look in depth at those text messages. it looked as though there was something being said that if you want to have a meeting with the president, we would like you to do this. i need to really go to the bottom of that and think that all the way through. but let me also tell you, brianna, what's really bothered me. this whole business of the president trying to get the chinese to get in the middle of this and to conduct an investigation against biden is just shocking, frankly. and our founders warned us about foreign, you know, entanglements, and for the president to not double down has gotten me really, really disturbed, upset, and it's forcing me to continue to think through all of this very, very

carefully. and then the question gets to be, as we see the president's continuing aberrant behavior, never seen anything like this, are there guardrails? are there limits to what we should tolerate in terms of presidential conduct, whether it's the name-calling which he's done all along, but the way in which he's behaving is really concerning to me. and then the question gets to be can there be some sort of bipartisan agreement that this behavior is out of control and unacceptable? when i see some of these -- at least this one senator say, well, i don't see anything wrong with it, that shocks me, because we can't have somebody operating completely outside the norms of presidential behavior. this has serious consequences. the investigation should continue, the inquiry should continue, the more evidence that

gets gathered, that if there is more and more evidence that absolutely creates a quid pro quo, then even people who are republicans might have to say be grud grudgingly, yeah, this is terrible, we need to do something. but we have a ways to go and they need to proceed carefully. >> most republicans aren't saying what you're saying. i think we wonder if maybe they're thinking it as they work through some of this, but they're not saying it. does not saying that normalize what the president has done and do long-term damage? >> well, i think they need to look themtselves in the mirror and understand why they're not willing to say anything. i've been saying this for two and a half years. it's why i didn't support him. it's why i didn't go to the convention in my own state because i'm frankly shocked at where we are today, but some of what we've seen over time doesn't surprise me. there's another thing we have to ask ourselves. say the house passes impeachment

resolution, it goes to the senate and doesn't go anywhere. let me ask this question. we all ought to think about this. should we go forward with these proceedings? is this the most effective way? or do we let the people decide this in an election that's just around the corner? that doesn't mean that we don't take this action. it's just something we have to ask ourselves as we move down the road here. >> you said before, one of the questions you're thinking through is are there guardrails? a lot of people would look at this, a lot of observers, a lot of lawyers would say there don't really seem to be guardrails here. do you think there are guardrails that keep president trump operating in the norm? >> no, i don't think there are guardrails. there aren't limits to what he can do. >> so what can be done? >> that brings to mind this coupled with what we're looking at, ukraine, now his activity in china and the volker texts and

all these things have to be reviewed. i do think nancy pelosi ought to have a vote of the impeachment inquiry inside the house. i think that is an important step. but i think they have to be serious, which they're trying to be, i don't think they should be in a rush. we got to let the facts speak for themselves and let the facts determine the outcome in this. and if we can make it less partisan, and if we can get reasonable republicans -- you're not going to get the vast majority, but reasonable republicans to say, yeah, i think this is very serious and action has to be taken, that is how i think the country can move together in a less divided way. that's why the inquiry is so important. that's why the facts are important. that's why the investigation into additional quid pro quos are important. that's why the activity around china -- the chinese, we're in the middle of a trade war with them and now we're asking them to do us a favor and check this out? i got to tell you, brianna, on the scales, and i've tried -- look, i voted on impeachment.

i know how serious this is. it is gut-wrenching for members to make a decision. but on the scales about where we are now, this action on china is putting more and more evidence here in terms of the need to move forward, in my mind. i'm trying to be honest and fair and all that, and balanced. >> governor, thanks so much. john kasich, we appreciate it. >> thank you. we are following breaking news now. a stunning report from microsoft. the company says hackers backed by iran tried to target at least one 2020 presidential campaign between the months of august and september. microsoft has not revealed which campaign was targeted but says the attempts were unsuccessful. the company says the hackers also tried to attack accounts belonging to current and former government officials and also journalists. the white house says it's not handing over any more documents to democrats until the house speaker holds a floor vote on

impeachment. plus the president claiming he has the absolute right to ask other countries to investigate on his behalf. we're going to show you the pattern that we found.

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our breaking news. president trump threatening house speaker nancy pelosi to hold a formal vote on impeachment on the house floor before he cooperates with the impeachment inquiry. >> we'll be issuing a letter. as everybody knows, we've been treated very unfairly, very different than anybody else. if you go over not only history, you go over any aspect of life, you'll see how unfairly we've been treated. and this is not about politics, this is about corruption. if you look and you read our constitution and many other things, i have an obligation to look at corruption. i have an actual obligation and a duty. >> kaitlan collins is at the white house. kaitlan, what can you tell us about the president's strategy here, because it appears to be changing from yesterday. >> reporter: yeah, it does. and about that letter the president was talking about, we had been hearing thfrs is was ie

works. essentially it's framing this white house argument we've been hearing since last tuesday that unless nancy pelosi places a vote on the floor that they have to comply with these document requests, these requests for officials to go up to capitol hill and sit down with house democrats and talk about impeachment inquiry. so essentially they're going to send her this letter daring her to hold a floor vote. that's counting on the fact we've seen a surging number of democrats saying they support impeachment inquiry. they're going to make the argument that could change once they actually have to go on the record. they haven't sent this letter yet. we had heard they were going to and the president announced it this morning. we're waiting to see if they actually sent it to democrats. the question is, does it change anything? if they do hold this vote, which democrats don't feel they need to, will the white house fully cooperate? some have questioned whether or not they will. of course, the interesting part came a few minutes later where the president said he thinks it

went to a trial in the senate, the republican-led senate, he thinks he would win. but he did concede at one point that he does think house democrats do have the votes to move forward with an impeachment. so it kind of changes the president's frame of mind where we were told by officials that he was still maintaining the same kind of defense, that he doesn't think calling these leaders personally to tell them to investigate the bidens or asking china to investigate the bidens, he doesn't think there's anything wrong with that. the president defending his actions saying he has the absolute right to do so. it's not the first time he's given that reason. plus the former special envoy to ukraine telling congress he found no credibility in the president's allegations against the bidens. what else we're learning about what kurt volker said to congress in his testimony on capitol hill.

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when the president declared on twitter that he has the absolute right to ask other countries to conduct

investigations on his behalf, it was part of a pattern of similar defiant declarations going back almost to the beginning of his administration. and in this case despite clear evidence to the contrary, the president is saying his power overrides u.s. law which states you cannot solicit that information from foreign powers. chris, whenever the president uses the i have the absolute right phrase, it's usually when he's under fire. >> let's go through a few examples that will be reminiscent of that tweet you just read. he's at mar-a-lago, he gives an interview to the "new york times." i have an absolute right to do what i want to do with the justice department. this is about the mueller probe, this is obviously one of the many times he insisted he had a right to get rid of the mueller probe. that's not absolutely clear.

again, glossing over the facts. there's more of this. as has been stated by numerous legal scholars, many people are saying, i have the absolute right to pardon myself. june 2018. this is in the wake of rudy giuliani, he was in the middle of it even back then. rudy giuliani saying that trump probably could pardon himself, but he probably wouldn't. not entirely clear he can do this from a legal perspective a. couple more. this, may 2017, as president i wanted to share with russia facts pertaining -- he goes on, this is the may 10th meeting, the day after comey got fired. he meets in the oval office with the two -- two of the top russian officials. he says the pressure has been relieved from me now that comey is fired and he tells them classified information that comes out he should not have told them. this is his defense. i have the absolute right to do

so. the absolute right or whether you should or not is a different thing. beyond the tweets, we have a couple other absolute right demands by donald trump. >> i have an absolute right to call national security. >> i just wish iran well. they had a big problem. and we had a photo and i released it which i have the absolute right to do. >> here's the key, if you hear donald trump saying i have the absolute right, rick your ears up because the next thing that's coming, he almost certainly does not have the absolute right to do. brianna, back to you. >> that is a very good little way to read that. chris, thanks so much. we have more on the damning text messages that the trump administration pressured ukraine to investigate joe biden and his son. just in, we're learning that the former diplomat testified to congress about rudy giuliani and the president.

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you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. it's friday afternoon. let's get you caught up to speed on the impeachment investigation of president trump and we begin with the batch of text messages released by three house committees. so these messages between top diplomats suggest what the president denied regarding