we start a two-hour broadcast tonight with some breaking news. a cabinet official who recently told "the washington post" he didn't have control over the, quote, tone, the message, the public face, and approach, unquote of his department has announced his departure. the department of homeland security chief, kevin mcaleenan, is out. it occurs the same day a judge said that the administration could not use military funding to build the border wall. here with more tonight is cnn's kaitlan collins. so what do we know about his departure? >> reporter: anderson, this is sudden with the president just now tweeting, announcing the news himself. but of course if you talk to people here in the white house, they saw this coming for a very long time, ever since kevin mcaleenan first got named to this job under, of course, an acting position. people never envisioned him taking the job in a permanent role, and he was often someone at odds with the president and some of his top advisers, including stephen miller, ken cuccinelli, and their roles and where they wanted to go on immigration. now, there were times where the president was pleased with what kevin mcaleenan was doing.

there were other times where the president would lash out and blame him for the border policies, the high border crossings. but something else that's interesting that happened in recent weeks, kevin mcaleenan gave this interview to "the washington post," anderson, where he talked about how essentially he lamented the fact he didn't feel he had control over the tone, the policy at the department at a time when he said they felt like they were in very polarized times. we're told that that interview, kevin mcaleenan didn't understand that he was on the record based on what someone close to mcaleenan later told cnn. and essentially he thought that interview was going to land a little bit harder in the west wing than it did. and of course it came at this time where this impeachment inquiry against the president was ramping up. so there was a bit of a distraction. but then now the president tonight announcing he's leaving to go spend more time with his family. he's going to announce a replacement for mcaleenan, he says, next week. >> so not surprising to a lot of people who knew him and knew the situation, but was this -- is there reason to believe this was

a sudden decision, and was it a decision, do we know, on mcaleenan's part or on the president's part? >> this appears this was mcaleenan's decision, that essentially he had been kind of despondent was the word people used to me. ever since that interview came out, people in the department said they had noticed a change in his attitude since that interview came out. he said, again, he didn't know it was on the record. we should note he's had a really troubled time in this job. there was one time based on cnn reporting that he came close to resigning over the summer because he didn't feel like he ever had control over the department, over his subordinates. you notice there was that purge of dhs officials after kirstjen nielsen left that continued over the summer, and mcaleenan felt like he didn't have a lot of control over that. he felt like stephen miller had too much say over who it was that was doing what at the department of homeland security. the big picture for people at home is the department of homeland security has

essentially been at a point of turmoil for some time now. they've had a complete rotation in not only the dhs leadership but also cbp, other positions in dhs under that umbrella of dhs. depending on who the president picks next, that will be a big question because the people he's liked in the past, senate republicans have said are people who do not have a chance of getting confirmed. >> cate lan collins, thanks very much. nick miroff covers immigration for "the washington post," interviewed mcaleenan for that story ten days ago, joins us now. thanks for being with us. first of all, would you surprised to hear of mcaleenan's leaving, and do you know any more details about for sure was it his decision? >> yes. i think this was his decision. i mean i got signs of that when i spoke to him. i got the impression that this has been coming for a while, particularly as he's felt more frustrated and somewhat isolated in his role there as acting secretary. he's been acting secretary now

for six months. he's done everything that the administration and the president has asked of him and delivered on the one thing that has mattered most to trump, which is driving down the border numbers and kind of getting the crisis under control. but at the same time, you know, the messaging coming out of the administration, the rhetoric on enforcement was in many ways at odds with his more kind of moderate approach to this stuff and the kind of language that he's more comfortable with. >> it is remarkable when you kind of step back and look at all the people who, you know, whose job was to execute the policy that president trump has been pushing along with stephen miller and others. the people who are actually on the ground having to kind of execute it, they end up leaving. i don't know. i guess that says something about the policy itself at a certain point. >> i mean this is an incredibly difficult job, and i can tell you that he's been going nonstop, you know, ever since

he's got this -- i can't remember ever seeing somebody working quite that hard and facing, you know, so many different difficult challenges. i mean he was the commissioner of customs and border protection before this, and he was obviously dealing with things like, you know, the deaths of those children in custody, all the, you know, criticism that he's faced really from -- especially from democrats but also from the hard-liners around the president who, you know, doubted his kind of credentials and, you know, continued to whisper to the president that he was an obama guy and wasn't really tough enough. but, you know, over the past six months, we've seen him implement some pretty contentious policies that have, in fact, really tightened things up at the border. >> nick miroff, i appreciate your time. thank you very much from "the washington post." for the second day in a row, president trump claims he doesn't know someone who is now

a potential threat to him. on thursday, it was two of rudy giuliani's clients charged with campaign finance violations. today it's the former ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, a woman with 33 years of service to the united states under six presidents, who has now testified to the growing politicization of the state department. listen to what the president said about the ambassador whose career he destroyed. as you listen to this, just see if you can catch the incredibly obvious lie in the president's statement. >> well, she may be a wonderful woman. i don't know her, but she may be very much a wonderful woman. if you remember the phone call i had with the president, the new president, he didn't speak favorably, but i just don't know her. she may be a wonderful woman. >> don't know her. may be a wonderful woman. i destroyed her career, but a wonderful woman. what's incredible about that statement is that this president cannot even attempt a simple cleanup excuse without lying. he spoke five sentences there,

and there was, besides the "i don't know her", there was at least one big lie in there that's very obvious. president trump claimed the new ukrainian president didn't speak favorably about the ambassador in that phone call. the problem is it's in the actual transcript, and it wasn't's ukraine's president who didn't speak favorably of the ambassador. it was president trump. here he is from the transcript of the july 25th call. quote, the former ambassador from the united states, the woman was bad news, and the people she was dealing with in the ukraine were bad news. so i just want to let you know that. that's the president talking to the ukrainian president. he certainly seemed to remember her more than two months ago. today she certainly remembered him in her opening statement during today's closed door hearing, yovanovitch said she was recalled from ukraine after a, quote, concerted campaign against me. she said the deputy secretary of state told her she had done nothing wrong but the president had, quote, lost confidence in me and that the department had been under pressure from the president, unquote, to remove her. she also said this of rudy

giuliani and the two men arrested yesterday. quote, i do not know mr. giuliani's motives for attacking me, but individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of mr. giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in ukraine. it turns out she actually was executing an anti-corruption policy, which is what the president claims he was really interested in when he asked the ukrainian president to go after the bidens. cnn's senior congressional correspondent manu raju joins us now from capitol hill. so talk to me about the ambassador's deposition today. what do we know about what she said? >> reporter: well, she just actually left, anderson, after being here for nearly ten hours, including most of that time behind closed doors getting grilled by lawmakers and delivering that rather eye-popping opening statement. talking to people, really the statement is really what drove a lot of the conversation internally, probably drove most of the news of what came out of there. and democrats are emerging

calling this a really stunning series of comments that this former ambassador made, calling it a gripping and personal account of a presidential abuse of power. as one democrat put it, the president sought to throw her to the wolves of sorts in an effort to clear her out of the way as rudy giuliani was trying to push this investigation into the bidens. and also in the views of democrats and how she characterized it, also helped giuliani's associates' bottom line. that was essentially the narrative or the takeaway from the democrats from this closed-door testimony. republicans also just came out, and they sharply criticized the process. they said the process was not fair. they said it should have been transparent. they said this should not have been behind closed doors, sharply criticizing adam schiff. when i asked them about some of the substance of the allegations laid out in this eye-popping testimony, most of the republicans would say, look, we

can't talk about this because it is classified. according to the rules, these are secret rules, and so we're not allowed to weigh in some of the allegations. the allegations that she was disloyal to this president is one reason why that push was there to get her out of the job. and i asked republicans whether or not she quelled any of those concerns that she said she was not disloyal to the president. did that satisfy the republicans? they still would not weigh in on that either. you're hearing the two narratives come out of this, republicans arguing on the process. democrats saying this is significant and could further their impeachment push, anderson. >> thanks very much. joining us now is congressman tom malinowski. he was in the room during the ambassador's testimony. congressman, thanks so much for being with us. the ambassador testified in her opening statement that there had been what she called a concerted campaign against her and that the president wanted her removed because of, quote, unfounded and false claims about her. i know there's only so much you can say. i'm wondering if your opinion, was she forth coming? is there anything you can say

about that? >> she was very forthcoming. look, the first thing i would say is that it's really significant that she was there. what her presence says is that it is not only necessary to obey legally binds subpoenas, but it is possible if you are a career foreign service officer or civil servant in this government. it is possible despite the efforts of this white house to stop career employees from speaking to the congress. so that's an important message. she's setting an example for everybody else. on the substance, i can't talk about what she said. but, look, we know -- we already know a great deal. so just from what we publicly know, what's clear to me is that this was an ambassador of great integrity who was advancing our official policy in ukraine of fighting corruption, and there were a bunch of ukrainians who wanted to get her out of the way because she was threatening them. and at the same time, we had

rudy giuliani advancing a shadow foreign policy on behalf of the president, and he also wanted to get her out of the way because she was standing in the way of that. and so all these people found each other. the crooked ukrainians, giuliani and his associates, they found common cause in getting rid of a patriotic american diplomat. >> what's so interesting is that official u.s. policy in ukraine was an anti-corruption effort, and it seems like from everybody i've talked to about this ambassador is that she actually was executing an anti-corruption policy, which is what earned her the ire of some of these ukrainian officials. so the idea that the president was really concerned about anti-corruption, it just doesn't hold water. >> it doesn't. no, she was advancing an anti-corruption policy, and there were at least a dozen parts of that, all kinds of reforms that she and the state department were urging the

ukrainians to take to their anti-corruption court, to strengthen all their institutions that were fighting corruption, to fire another crooked prosecutor who is still in place in ukraine. and meanwhile, yeah, the president says now that, oh, we held up this aid because we were concerned about corruption. the problem with that is they never actually then told the ukrainians, here are the three or five or ten steps that you need to take to clean up your corruption act to get the aid. all they said was, investigate joe biden and confirm some wacky conspiracy theory about what happened in 2016. so it totally doesn't hold water. >> is it clear to you, i mean -- again, i don't know if she spoke to this or if you know or don't know. but is it clear about rudy giuliani's motives in all of this? obviously he's working at the behest of the president as the president's attorney. he also in many places seems to have financial dealings with --

well, we know these two people who are now under arrest. is it known if he had financial dealings in ukraine or financial connections, financial interests? >> he certainly seems to have had financial interests in ukraine, and i think there's probably much more that we can learn about that. i think he probably had multiple motivations, but the most important one from our point of view is that he was purporting to represent the president of the united states in a shadow foreign policy that completely contradicted the official foreign policy of the united states, which was fighting corruption and supporting ukraine in defending their territory against russia. >> the fact that the white house and state department, according to three democratic committee chairs, directed yovanovitch not to appear today, but she complied anyway with a last-minute subpoena, is that the way that the house committee work around the administration? is that how they're trying to

block witness is? >> do you think her testimony encourages other career officers, career employees that they too can come forward? >> anderson, i believe it does. i think she is setting an example of courage and integrity under great pressure and, you know, that example is if there is a legally binding subpoena, then you have a duty to show up. this is -- you know, we are a rule of law country, and i think one of the great things about ambassador yovanovitch, she spent 30 years representing us around the world, fighting for the rule of law, and she came back home, and she is abiding by the rule of law right here in the united states. and i think there are a lot of folks at the state department, the nsc, throughout the u.s. government who will see this as an example, a good example to follow. it can be done. >> just finally, i'm not sure.

you may have still been in the meeting. you may not have heard the president's latest comments. but the president said he doesn't know her, that maybe she's a great woman, but that the ukrainian president in his phone conversation said negative things about her, which is just a complete lie. we know from the transcript it was president trump, you know, saying bad things about her. i guess that shouldn't come as a surprise that he's lying in just five sentences, but it just strikes me as amazing that he lies about stuff that we can read in a transcript that's not even a complete transcript. >> you know, every day he makes it harder for his defenders to defend him. and i think, you know, this is getting harder for some of my republican colleagues, who see this chaos, who see an indefensible policy, and whatever they're telling you publicly, i know that a lot of them are privately thinking, do i want to defend this for another six years?

>> congressman tom malinowski, appreciate it. thank you very much. >> thank you. more to come tonight including white house reaction to a bad day in court. we're going to count up all the big cases that the administration, that the white house lost today, and there's a number of them. plus is rudy giuliani still president trump's attorney? it's a simple question with a not so simple answer this hour. more ahead. my husband never paid attention to his health, till he signed up for unitedhealthcare medicare advantage. (bold music) now, it's like he has his own health entourage. he gets medicare's largest healthcare network, a free gym membership, vision, dental and more. there's so much to take advantage of. can't wait till i'm 65. a few more chairs, please. unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans, including the only plans with the aarp name. free dental care and eye exams, and free designer eyewear. go ahead, take advantage. man: can i find an investment firm that has a truly long-term view? it begins by being privately owned.

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more breaking news tonight on rudy giuliani and questions about his status as the personal attorney and fixer for president trump. two of giuliani's associates with whom he worked ostensibly on issues involving ukraine have now been arrested, as you know, on campaign finance violations. sources tell cnn that giuliani's own financial dealings with the men are under scrutiny as well. so the question, is giuliani still the president's attorney, or is the president distancing himself just he's done with michael cohen and so many others. here's what the president said on that today.

>> is rudy giuliani still your personal attorney? >> well, i don't know. i haven't spoken to rudy. i spoke to him yesterday briefly. he's a very good attorney, and he has been my attorney, yeah, sure. >> pamela brown joins us now. pamela, what do you make of that answer? it just seems like the distancing is beginning? >> reporter: yeah, i think you're seeing both of what you mentioned. that he's still his personal attorney, but the president is clearly trying to distance himself. in fact, anderson, a source tells me tonight that while he is still his attorney, he will be sidelined on legal matters involving ukraine. and i was actually the one that talked to the president, asked him whether giuliani was still his personal attorney. and his first words out of the gate were, i don't know. i haven't spoken to rudy. then as we heard, he said, i spoke to him briefly yesterday. he's a very good attorney. he's been my attorney. we've seen this act in the past with the president's former personal attorney michael cohen. now, we did reach out to giuliani to get comment on this latest reporting. he says he's still the president's lawyer and that

there are no ukraine issues, which he says he finished in march. but of course, anderson, ukraine is at the heart of the democrats' impeachment probe after it was revealed the president asked ukraine's president to investigate his political rival, and it was giuliani who has been intricately involved with this effort to dig up dirt on biden and two of his associates, as we know, anderson, helped with that effort. they were just indicted on campaign finance charges just yesterday. my colleague kaitlan collins is also reporting tonight that in the wake of that, trump has been privately expressing concerns about giuliani's involvement with those two men and doubts as well. and if you heard what he said today that you just played, that certainly wasn't a ringing endorsement of his personal attorney. >> for a moment, i thought he was going to say, i don't know -- i don't know how to answer that. but it was just i don't know. so we'll see. pamela brown, thanks very much. joining us to discuss, jeffrey toobin, maggie haberman, and

david gergen. jeff, rudy giuliani saying still, despite president trump saying earlier he didn't know, giuliani said he's the president's lawyer and that there's no ukraine issues, that he's not going to be dealing with anything ukraine-related. how do you interpret all this? >> i think just to talk about the legal framework of all this, which is that lawyers are not allowed to also be witnesses in the same case. if you're a witness in a case or in an investigation, you can't represent anyone in that case. just it's common sense. here it's quite clear that at many different levels, rudy giuliani is a witness in the impeachment matter and very likely a witness in this case that was brought against two of his associates yesterday. so just as a simple matter of legal ethics, putting aside the question of whether he did anything improper, i just don't see there's any way he can stay in the case.

now, the argument that was just made that, well, he's still the lawyer but he has nothing to do with ukraine -- i mean ukraine is the whole case at this point. >> right, yeah. >> so i don't know what it means to be his lawyer if he can't deal with ukraine. >> maggie, i mean there's obviously a longstanding relationship between president trump and rudy giuliani just going back to new york days. are you surprised at all that the president -- i don't know -- i shouldn't say are you surprised the president has begun to distance himself because that's what he does. but do you see this as distancing or just confusion on the president's part of he's not sure what the status is? >> i think it's a little of both. i think he is distancing himself. he seems to be frankly doing it somewhat reluctantly. i've seen him do it with more ease with other people. he has a 30-year relationship with rudy giuliani. he knows giuliani's children. you know, they've been friends for a long time. i think that he is uncomfortable throwing him under the bus the same way he has done with other

people, and i think he's not sure where this goes. i think he doesn't want to toss him aside if there is no reason to. however, what we learned today is that giuliani is being looked at by the u.s. attorney's office for a possible violation, federal registered lobbying agent. it's hard to see how he would be the president's lawyer if he himself is under active investigation. i think the other point i would just make very quickly, rudy giuliani is the main television face for this president for a very long time. there's only been a couple of people who go on tv. kellyanne conway is one from the white house. hogan quid hogan gidley is one from the white house. but rudy giuliani has been all over the place for the president. if he is not out there fighting for the president on tv, that's something the president values as much as anything. >> david, when you consider two of giuliani's clients were just arrested, charged for violating campaign finance laws, you know, how much would president trump

have known about any of this? i mean i guess there's no way at this point to know. but it certainly seems to be a tangled web. >> it sure does. i think with regard to giuliani's future, the operative words today were "he has been my attorn attorney," as in the past tense. i think he's heading toward the exit. i think the white house feels that, yes, he's been out a lot on television as maggie said, but increasingly he's not effective, and if anything he rouses people on the other side. when you get into this ukrainian thing, he is the central player in the whole episode with ukraine. he's the guy who is really trying to move things around. he is the president's guy to get this done, and i don't see how he can possibly go forward without appearing before the committees on the hill. they're going to want him, and the white house is not going to want to have this guy out being their spokesperson at the very time he's being grilled, and they find more things on him. i mean who would have expected

these two sleazy guys to be hanging around? and then who would have expected to see don junior in some bar with them somewhere? i mean that lone tealone tells president's family sure knew these guys. >> it surprises you that rudy giuliani is hanging around with two potentially sleazy guys? >> well, it doesn't surprise me at all that he hangs around with them. what surprises me is he does it so publicly. >> well, yes. and they're apparently going to be in vienna together at the same time. everyone stay with me. another big week coming up. we'll have more from our panel in a second. a lot more ukraine testimony expected. what will it mean for the president and rudy giuliani? predictions and more with our panel in a moment. it's either the assurance of a 165-point certification process. or it isn't. it's either testing an array of advanced safety systems. or it isn't. it's either the peace of mind of a standard unlimited mileage warranty.

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cholesterol naturally, and it's odor-free, and pharmacist recommended. garlique in case you're just tuning in, a source close to president trump's legal team tells cnn that rudy giuliani is still the president's attorney but will no longer be dealing with matters involving ukraine. this after the president seemed to distance himself from giuliani this afternoon. this was also on the same day that the president's former ambassador to ukraine said he was hollowing out the state department, turning it into a vehicle for his own political ends. back with jeffrey toobin, maggie haberman and david gergen. maggie, just in terms of the -- i mean we only really have seen some of the opening statement of this ambassador. but certainly for a career foreign service officer to come forward, though under a subpoena and testify, that's certainly a break in the wall that the white house hoped to set up to stop

people from taking part in this. >> i'm sorry, anderson. was that to me? there was an issue with my -- >> yeah, that was to you. >> i'm sorry. the ambassador who testified today was a break in the wall was your question? >> yeah, the fact that she came forward even though pompeo had said that they wouldn't be cooperating. >> yeah. it's noticeable, i think, that you are seeing the beginning of a number of people who are willing not just to speak out publicly or at least to speak out privately through news accounts and have their views be known, but also as you note, go meet with members on the hill. we have seen some people in the administration in previous investigations like hope hicks go and give some very limited testimony with lawyers from the administration with her. this feels different, and the statements you saw today on the hill and what we anticipate we might hear from ambassador sondland next week i think gets us into dangerous territory potentially for the white house. >> yeah, david she was

testifying for some ten hours behind closed doors. >> yeah, it was amazing. first of all, i want to step back just a bit. it's worth remembering that the president of the united states can change ambassadors and put his own person in place if he's not happy with the one who's there. but there is a code of conduct in effect that goes with that. secreta that secretaries of state try to honor. that is you want to cultivate your public servant as the state department, you want to build them, grow them, let them have embassies. that's how you get talented people to come in. and to turn on them for his own personal gain to put a knife in her back and end her career for his own personal political game is a deep violation of that code of conduct. i think what we're increasingly seeing to build on what maggie is saying, is across the government, we've been asking when are the republicans going to start to come over and see thing in a different light. what's really interesting now is

the civil service and people whether it's an environment or homeland security at the state department, they're all coming out and beginning to speak out against this administration and to vent their frustration and their disagreement with the fundamental policies. i think over time, that's going to have a major impact on this whole impeachment proceeding. >> if i could just add one point, you know, we had this discussion about when the president fired james comey. you know, the president had the right to fire james comey. he was a presidential employee. but the question is could he do it for a corrupt purpose? >> yes. >> to try to influence the investigation? it's a very similar situation here. as david said, the president does have the right to recall an ambassador, but why? what was the reason? and the only reason that appears to be in play here is that she wouldn't participate in gathering dirt on joe biden, which is illegitimate and corrupt. >> well, also, jeff, you know, for the president's whole excuse

on all of this is that, you know, in that phone conversation, is that he was really interested in fighting corruption in ukraine and making sure that the president of ukraine was doing that as well. and joe biden somehow and hunter biden were the, you know, the exemplars of that according to the president. but from this ambassador, it was very clear she had an entire program in place of anti-corruption. i mean that seemed to be a major focus of legitimate u.s. foreign policy, and the president removed the person who was doing that. >> exactly. and the president has been using this word "corruption," but the only corruption that he's ever shown any interest in is joe biden's family. you know, of course it remains to be seen -- but the president says, i wanted corruption investigated. he didn't want corruption investigated. he wanted biden investigated, and that was the source, it

appears, of a conflict with the ambassador. and that's why she got fired. >> yeah. jeff toobin, david gergen, maggie haberman, thank you very much. you need your whole hand to count how many court cases the president and his administration lost today. the latest rulings and what they mean for president trump next. ae your business forward. but when your team is always dealing with device setups, app updates, and support calls... you can never seem to get anywhere. that's why dell technologies created unified workspace, powered by vmware. ♪ a revolutionary solution that lets you deploy, manage, support and secure all your devices from the cloud. so you can stop going in circles, and start moving forward. pain happens. saturdays happen. aleve it. aleve is proven better on pain than tylenol.

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against the background of tonight's breaking news, the news just moments ago, the resignation of the acting homeland security secretary and president trump's distancing himself from rudy giuliani, next year's elections of course loom large. one of the states president trump needs to win next year is wisconsin where he barely defeated hillary clinton in 2016 by a little more than 22,000 votes. we asked randi kaye to gather a group of nine independent voters and ask them at this stage, at this point in the campaign, about the president and the burgeoning impeachment investigation. they range in age from 18 to 82. of the nine, one voted for

president trump in 2016, four for clinton. two didn't vote, and two rwrote in other candidates. here's randi's report. >> do you think an impeachment inquiry is appropriate? >> yes. >> so all of you agree that an impeachment inquiry is appropriate? >> yes. >> i'm witnessing this president go out there and do things that are clearly, you know, following what's in the constitution about impeachment, high crimes and misdemeanors and bribery. >> and, lena, you're an independent, but you lean right. >> correct. >> but you're okay with the impeachment inquiry? >> well, absolutely because i also feel like we need to follow the rule of law. and if something smells bad, we need to investigate it. >> why are some of you convinced that this call sounded like a quid pro quo? >> they just put the material, the $392 million of aid on hold just days before. what kind of a signal is that? this wasn't on hold for two months. this was days before. >> we're looking to buy some more javelins.

i want you to do me a favor, though. it's right there. it's in the primary source released by the white house, and you read it word for word, to me -- i mean i'm not a lawyer. i'm not a mobster. but to me, it looks like a quid pro quo. >> why is our president ever asking a foreign president for a political favor like this? i mean it just seems so highly inappropriate. >> i'm not convinced that the withholding of aid a few days before we have enough evidence to say that that was related. i think that the transcript of the call is suspicious, but i'm not yet ready to make a decision. >> how many of you see this phone call and this ask by the president of the united states to look into his political rival as an abuse of power? raise your hands. >> reporter: and what about the white house putting that phone call on a classified server? >> the white house staff, even his own staff saw this as uh-oh, he might have just done something impeachable. >> reporter: another concern for these voters, text messages in which an ambassador tries to bury any talk of quid pro quo or

conditions. >> as someone who has worked in government in years past, when you get that message that says "call me," it's because somebody does not want a written record of something. >> reporter: and about the state department blocking some key witnesses from testifying -- >> that, to me, is huge warning signs, and i think that's going to be problematic. >> if there's nothing to worry about, then why hide anything? be transparent. >> fair to say, though, that this inquiry has affected all of your thinking when it comes to who you might vote for? is that fair to say? >> yes. >> oh, absolutely. >> i think for me, it's one more level of distrust. and if i can't trust someone, i have a hard time voting for them. >> if the president is impeached but not removed from office by the senate, how many of you would still vote for him? none of you. rich, you lean right as well even though you're an independent. >> correct. >> are you considering voting for trump still? >> no, because it looks kind of bad. >> so knowing what you know now about ukraine and the

impeachment inquiry, do you think he should be removed from office? raise your hand. three. >> randi joins me now. it's interesting that they all want the inquiry to move forward, yet just three say that the president should be removed from office. >> reporter: they're turned off. they're waiting for the facts. they're turned off by the president. they want to see how this is going to play out. they want the full investigation. they do think there's something fishy happening here but again they want to see how it goes. they certainly don't buy the president's explanation or the white house's explanation that he was trying to just root out corruption in ukraine. but if you look ahead, anderson, to the election for 2020 as far as our voters go, one is considering voting for joe biden. just one in the group. the others like pete buttigieg, elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, and andrew yang. and one is considering voting for bill weld if he is the republican nominee and donald trump is not. if donald trump is the republican nominee, anderson, not a single person in our group say that they will vote for him. >> randi, thanks very much. just ahead, president

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the president always likes to say he's winning and would have a hard time convincing americans of that today. he along with his administration lost a total of five federal court cases today alone. for those keeping count three were in new york, washington state and california where federal judges issued rulings blocking regulations that would have made it easier for the administration to reject green card applications and also a judge in texas shot down his diversion of emergency funds to build his border wall and perhaps the most unnerving for the president the d.c. circuit court of appeals ruled against his attempt to stop the house by obtaining his tax returns by subpoena. joining us now is the author of "dark towers, deutsche bank, donald trump and an epic trail

of destruction." and still with us is jeffrey toobin. jeff, on the legal front, the administration has two options when it comes to appealing the tax return ruling, appealed to the full d.c. circuit court, what do you think they would do? >> i think they're going to try everything they can. and so i assume that means going to the d.c. circuit first and then the supreme court but they're really running out of options here. a three-judge panel of the d.c. circuit, it was two judges in favor of congress and one judge who said that the president could withhold the tax returns. but this is unlikely to be overturned at this point. not out of the question. but this is two really bad rulings in a row. just on this issue for the president. >> does the supreme court -- does chief justice roberts want a case like this? >> i don't think the chief justice wants to be anywhere near this. the issue of congressional power

versus congressional oversight, there are so many of these cases percolating through the courts now, it's hard for me to believe the supreme court will be able to duck all of them. but the one about the president's tax returns is so personal that perhaps that's not the one they want to pick. but i don't know. certainly i think in the next year they are going to have to take up at least some of these cases. >> david, if and when congress does get ahold of the taxes, what exactly would they be able to glean from them? >> it's hard to know where to even begin with that question. there's so much information that potentially could be revealed in these tax returns that -- these are secrets that donald trump has spent the past four years fighting tooth and nail to keep secret. we would know a lot more about where he has been getting his money over the years, from whom he's been getting his money,

which foreign entities or individuals he's partnered with over the years, to whom he owes money and there's all sorts of information that could come out with different entanglements he has with different companies all over the world. >> there's no way -- i mean, if they have to do that, according to the supreme court, the president can't order them to not do that, correct? >> no, he can't. although his lawyers have intervened in the case. his lawyers are now part of the case involving his accountants. again, the president appears to be losing in that case as well. there are lots of different cases percolating through the courts about his tax returns but none of them have reached the point of final resolution where either the president himself, the irs or the accountants actually have to physically

transfer the tax returns over to the people looking for them. >> as we said, congress isn't limiting their scope to the president's tax records. they're looking at deutsche bank records, which lent a significant amount of money to the president. >> i think those deutsche bank records, i'm a little biased because i'm obsessed with this bank but i think the deutsche bank records have the potential to be even more interesting. the bank said it does not currently possess its tax returns but it has an enormous quantity of information about his personal finances, those of his kids and the structure of his companies and the bank did its due diligence when deciding to make hundreds of millions of dollars of donald trump and that information could end up in the hand of congress. >> the stuff about deutsche bank -- i understand why you're obsessed with it. it sort of defies why a bank loans money to people and even

if that person doesn't pay them back, why that bank would still loan institution to that person. and what about the cracks that are starting to appear in the relationship with rudy giuliani? we'll be right back. with fidelity wealth management you get straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management.

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may cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. vo: common side effects include headache and tiredness. vo: ask your doctor today, if epclusa is your kind of cure. and good evening. thanks for joining us. i'm anderson cooper in for chris cuomo. the latest the former ambassador to ukraine who testified today at the state department being, quote, attacked and hollowed out, unquote, by politics masked as diplomacy. the president said he did not know this three-time ambassador who spent 33 years in the foreign service. >> well, she may be a wonderful woman, i don't know her. she may be very much a wonderful woman. if you remember the phone call i had with the president, the new president, he didn't speak favorably. but i just don't know her. she