foxnation.com. pete: do join us in st. petersburg this week. [cheers and applause] ♪ maria: good sunday morning, everyone, i'm maria bart bartir. straight ahead right here on "sunday morning futures," kellyanne conway, counselor to president, on house democrats intensifying their impeachment push. plus the latest on a potential trade deal with china, and america's next steps in the middle east. also ahead, two influential republican congressmen on whether the democrats are being transparent enough about what's behind their impeachment inquiry into president trump. plus, involved in both bill and hillary clinton's presidential campaigns, his unique perspective on how the ukraine

controversy is affecting the 2020 election. -upper biden plans to resign -- hunter biden plans to resign from a chinese firm. all those stories right here, right now on "sunday morning futures." ♪ ♪ maria: and we begin this morning with president trump, he has fired back at house democrats as they accelerate their impeachment push with a flurry of new subpoenas seeking testimony from energy secretary rick perry expect two indicted associates of president trump's personal attorney, rudy giuliani. the president reacting at the values voter summit last night in our nation's capital. >> now it is the outrageous impeaching. look, impeachment. i never thought the i'd see or hear that word with regard to me, impeachment. it's a witch hunt. it's based on a single phone call of congratulations to the president of ukraine which they

fraudulently mischaracterized to sound absolutely horrible. maria: meanwhile, democratic front-runner joe biden is now voicing his full support for impeachment, saying president trump has left congress with no other choice. >> donald trump has violated his oath of office, betrayed this nation and committed impeachable acts. to preserve our constitution, our democracy, our impeached. maria: joining me right now is georgia congressman doug kohl lynx ranking republican on -- collins, ranking republican on the judiciary committee. thank you so much for being here. >> good morning, maria. journal" is reporting that hunter biden, joe biden's son, has pledged to resign from this private equity firm that he is on the board of on october 31st, and he says he will not work on any

foreign-owned companies or serve on their boards if his father is elected president. this just coming out now. we know there has been so much around this story, but now hunter biden says he will step down. your reaction. >> well, it's pretty amazing now after the line is being shined on, now you're going to come out and say, well, i'll ten away from all of this -- step away from all of this because it might seem as a conflict of interest. this just shows you how much this is a messed-up situation and how much there were other things going on, and all the democrats want to do is focus on president trump because they don't like president trump. i think this is another way to save a flailing campaign that's going down. he knows he's in trouble, and this is a way to try to attract attention. maria: we know there have been three testimonies behind closed doors as part of this friday. some of it leaked out and then others, other things from that

cannot be leaked or discussed. tell me what you've learned so far from these behind closed doors testimonies in this impeach. inquiry. >> i think the first thing is let's at least go back and remember a few points. november 2016 began the impeachment push for the democrats was -- because they cried in brooklyn, they haven't got over it yet. when they gained control of congress last year, instead of being truthful, all they said was we're going to impeach the president. number three, when the impeach. hit in january, all jerry nadler's focus, let's have investigations. mueller was going to show us that the president need to be impeached. it failed. now you go to speaker pelosi and adam schiff had to say we've got a failing plan here. we promised the democratic base that we would with impeach the president, and so far we've shown he's done nothing wrong except have a great economy and

a great standing around the world. viewers need to know this, they said we can't win this in the public eye, so we're going to take it behind closed doors. so in the past few days, they have. adam schiff, who has trouble telling the truth, is a very good lyric. let's be honest, he's a good leaker. they took it behind closed doors, heard testimony that i have heard that says these transcripts should be released completely because they defeat the entire narrative. but as long as he can keep it behind closed door, then they leak out only what they want to leak out. and this is why you have seen in the progression. the president has done nothing wrong. he has said -- and, by the i way, just is ask the ukrainian president who said i felt no pressure. this was simply a discussion of what's going on in our two countries. this is a sham, what's going on right now. maria: last week we had on congressman john ratcliffe, and he mentioned three reasons that this seems to be questionable. number one was that, typically in any impeachment, the

jurisdiction for impeachment is the judiciary committee. it's not happening in the judiciary committee, which nadler runs, it's actually in the intel committee. number two, it is all happening behind closed doors. we don't know what anybody said on friday you had another testimony from the ukrainian ambassador. her opening statement leaks but then everything else as part of that is behind closed doors. and now they're calling him a fact witness, john ratcliffe called adam schiff a fact witness because, of course, he did meet with the so-called whiting blower before -- whistleblower before the complaint was public. >> john's exactly right. adam schiff is so deeply involved in this, this is a man who once said, you know, there's collusion in plain sight. we'll do whatever we want to do because the president needs to be impeached, and we've got the proof. he's beening -- been saying this for well over two years. he's a fact witness in that his staff and others met with the

whistleblower before this came out. the president released the transcript of the call, and everybody said, okay, where's the there there because there's not a there there. many reporters said if you look at the whistleblower complaint, it was laid out in a way in which adam hiv could then go -- schiff could then go to committee and keep it behind closed doors. it's not just the judiciary committee that's been left out, the foreign affairs committee has been left out as well. speaker pelosi knew that adam schiff would do whatever she wanted him to do, and the american people are the ones who suffer here. if they want to overturn the 2016 election, get in the field, have a candidate who knew where some of these states were to campaign and do that in 2020. you don't turn over an election based on the fact that you hate a president who got elected who beat the person you thought was going to get elected. and by the way, he's working on trade deals, we have an economy. they can't beat him on the facts, so they're going to beat him on the lies. maria: but what are you going to do about it?

if your colleagues on the left are in the majority. the american people are p wondering what's going on in terms of this impeachment inquiry. we don't see transcripts, we can't hear any of these hearings. by the way, no one's getting anything done. you're supposed to pass usmca, get trade deals done as well as, perhaps, gun legislation, infrastructure. so what are you going to do about it? >> well, if anybody's watched me over the last nine months in particular, i don't sit back and take it. that's why i'm here with you this morning, that's why we've been talking about the story. if adam schiff wants to have it behind closed doors, my job is to pick the lock. look at the lies that have been told, look at these hearings that have been had, and nothing has came from it. now because you don't like the results, you take it behind closed doors. we're going to work to get these triplets released, but also the senate is hopefully going to be able to begin looking at other things as well, especially the horowitz report which should be coming out in the next little bit. these are the kinds of things

that viewers have to understand. what they're getting from washington, d.c. is a one-sided approach to an impeachment because democrats know they can't win on the facts. so those of us like myself are going to keep going forward. i believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant. right now adam schiff don't want disinfectant anywhere close to what he's doing. maria: we want the talk to you about the russia probe straight ahead. also counselor to president clopway and congressman mark meadows coming up. follow me on twitter and on instagram,@maria bartiromo. stay with us this morning, we're looking ahead on "sunday morning futures." ♪ ♪ can you help with these? we're more of the plan, invest and protect kind of help... voya. helping you to and through retirement.

maria: welcome back. we are back with the ranking republican on the house judiciary committee, congressman from georgia doug collins. i want to get your take on the i.g. report. i had reported last week on fox business that i'm hearing the i.g. report will be out this

upcoming friday, october 18th, and my sources say it's as thick as a telephone book. more than just fisa abuse. can you give us any sense of what you're expecting out of this inspector general report which is forthcoming? >> we're expecting it to show exactly what we've been concerned about for a long time, that there wassish shaws -- was issues at the department of justice. i start the looking at the ones that should be the most concerned because one of the things i didn't mention is the democrats wanted nothing to do with any investigations into the real issues of collusion and corruption that was part of the 2016 campaign, which was the democratic national committee, fusion gps and all of these parties that came together to try and deny donald trump from becoming president. they never wanted any part of that, they don't want any part now. when you see brennan and mccabe really ramping up the i'm innocent phase of their life when they go on tv and talk about this is not really happening, but the best one is when mr. comey, the one who has trouble with the truth, who has

a superman syndrome is out there saying, oh, i wish that this was just go away. then he says all i want to do is get rid of this president. this report going to show what happened in that time frame, and i believe from what we're seeing from their reaction, it's not going to be very good. my only question is will the democrats have an integrity bone in their body to call mr. horowitz to our committee to have to answer about this report. maria: yeah. last weekend on this program we had george papadopoulos on the program, and we've been following this, obviously, for the last couple of years, and we put together this timeline of what looks like entrapment given the fact that he got all of this outreach from these internationalist, quote-unquote, ambassadors and people who invited him to conferences like steven hall per or alexander downer or from australia or joseph miss fud. now, on that situation, this was the individual who dropped the news on george papadopoulos that russia had hillary clinton's e-mails, and he said -- and

another of these internationalists said to him, well, this is great news for you and donald trump, that you've got these e-mails. and he said i would never do that, that's treason . that transcript, that conversation was transcribed because he was an informant, the guy who said that to him, and that was not given to the fisa court. is so many people is have come on this program, trey gowdy, john ratcliffe, to say that was exculpatory evidence that was not given to fisa court. is that something you're going to be looking for in this upcoming report on friday? >> that's the first of many things. you have a court that meets in secret that is integral if they have a position where they receive all the information. if they're being withheld exculpatory material, then it just goes to the position that the corrupt cabal of mccabe and comey and strzok and page, all these folks are really had a mind item set of they came off of an e-mail investigation of hillary clinton, went right into

let's see if we can investigate this president because we don't like who this president may be. and at that time he was still a candidate. and we're seeing this build up and build up and build up. and so i think this report is going to show -- even comey himself said e the dossier was salacious and unverified. why would he actually go out there and verify that before a fisa court? why do we find out mr. durham enlarging his investigation all the way into the spring of 2017 when we had the special counsel? also beginning to have doubts of mr. mueller's truthfulness in what he was actually looking for and how much rosenstein was a part of mccabe, this whole deal with the mccabe memo shows there were discussions of wearing a wire to the white house. maria, this is something everybody needs to be concerned about, i don't care what party affiliation you have. you need to make sure we actually find out did our department of justice turn on us x then these questions are going to be answered. and i believe that's what you're going to see starting -- maria: yeah. and as our timeline correctly

points out, miss feud telling george papadopoulos talking about the e-mails, that was way before the fbi started an investigation, march and april in 2016 was when he first got that information. also this $10,000 in cash that was dropped in his lap from another informant, they said, oh, we want to do business with you, here's $10,000 in cash. again, they were using -- i mean, if this is -- it comes to light in this i.g. report and in bill barr's investigation and john durham's investigation, they were actually using the tools that this country uses on terrorists that's, you know, informants, you know, wiretapping. these are the tools that this country uses on terrorists, and they were using it to try to entrap donald trump's campaign if this is true. this is what everything we've learned so far leads me to believe. >> well, unlike the democrats, i

actually believe let's let the facts come out. let's remember, maria, everything you just talked the about, that was under the obama/biden administration. that was under the previous administration. when the collusion and the work from russian, you know, operatives, when we had this dossier coming out which was paid for by the dnc, this was under the watch of president obama. i'm sort of tired of being lectured by the former president about how he was in charge, and they would never have done this on the world stage, yet it was under his watch that this was the election are interference from russia actually happened. let's just put this all in perspective. the i.g. report's going to show what it's going to show, and you're seeing the players who have been involved anytime squirming on stage. you have a john durham who's looking into this for possible chargings as we go forward. but all at the same point, the democrats realize that in the light of day they couldn't find anything to impeach president trump on, so now they're going behind closed doors, and they're just believing that the american public is not smart enough to realize what they're doing.

they can just leak out what they want to and influence this next election cycle. never forget this is not about a ukrainian phone call, this is about the 2016 elections that was a failure and the 2020 election that is almost a year away. maria: wow. is so can you do anything being in the minority? can lindsey graham, as the chairman of the senate judiciary with subpoena power, can he do anything? what can you do to push back on this? >> well, number one, like i said, it's amazing to me that my chairman would like to have just, you know, very partisan hearings that go nowhere and are simply for show. but lindsey graham is the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, and he's already said he will have mr. horowitz there. i can't wait to see this report come out. remember, this is not going to be a report like the mueller report. there's a lot of probably classified information, but there's a lot of public information because we're dealing with an intelligence community and very secretive issues for our national security. is so i think everybody just needs to be aware, sit back, let

the facts come. unlike the democrats who want to change the facts, let the facts come to us. maria: and, by the way, you're not getting anything else done in the meantime. we've talked about a prescription drug plan, gun legislation, we've talked about, obviously, usmca. is that ever going to come to the floor, do you think? >> no. and here's the interesting part, the president himself as reached out on transportation, on prescription drugs, the president himself has reached out on trade. the president himself did criminal justice reform last year, a bill that i helped write. these are the kinds of things this president has reached out, and every time he reaches a hand out, the democrats in the majority bite him. it's amazing he keeps wanting to work with these folks because they have no desire to work with these people. they're not wanting to be part of the success. maria: all right, congressman, we'll be watching. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you, maria. maria: president trump is now threatening to sue house party leaders. reaction from counselor to

president kellyanne conway. and mark penn with his unique perspective on how the joe biden, ukraine controversy is affecting the 2020 field. we're back in two minutes. no rush. year. cologuard is the noninvasive option that finds 92% of colon cancers. you just get the kit in the mail, go to the bathroom, collect your sample, then ship it to the lab. there's no excuse for waiting. get screened. ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. covered by medicare and most major insurers.

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maria: welcome back. the president taking aim at the democrats' impeachment push this morning for a thursday straight evening last night at the values voters summit in washington. the democrats are consumed by their, quote, hate to see him removed from office, that the he's looking into i suing speaker nancy pelosi and adam schiff, pelosi's point man in the house's impeachment inquiry. watch. >> the radical left tolerates no dissent, it permits no opposition. it accepts no compromise. and, look, we have all seen it. we see what's going on. there is no compromise. frankly, these people are crazy.

[laughter] [applause] maria: joining me right now is the counselor to president, kellyanne conway. it's good to have you. >> good morning, maria. maria: i want to get your reaction to the news of the morning, and that is the wall street journal's reporting that hunter biden plans to now step down from the board of a chinese private equity firm. >> yes. well, he should have done this quite a while ago. in fact, he probably shouldn't have been on the board to begin with. he hitched a ride on air force two with the vice president of the united states, also his father at that time, came back with sweetheart deals, and i am really disappointed in so many members of the mainstream media stretching their necks to defend hunter biden saying -- and we must say that there's no wrongdoing here, nothing illegal. folks, this is what people hate about the swamp. this is a part of how donald trump won in the first place, saying that we're going to get rid of these sweetheart deals, make sure that we clean up the axis of power in a place like washington, d.c. where someone

like hunter biden gets a $50,000 a month retainer for ukraine january energy company when everybody knows that he doesn't have that skill set. and, maria, i want to say a couple things. joe biden'ss in big trouble. he's plummeting in the polls, he's calling for the president's impeachment because he doesn't have a path to beat the president at the ballot box. if the democrats thought that they could defeat donald trump a year from now, they'd put all their energies behind that candidate, but they can't do it because they don't have it. they have to run against the trump economy, deregulation, the fact that we are net exporters of oil and natural gas, that he's promising peace and prosperity around the globe. and i think joe biden's now seen as hunter biden's father, not as barack obama's vice president. and people are saying where is hunter? fine. where is president obama? why isn't he out there supporting the man who served as his vice president for eight years? why isn't biden on top of the polls just by saying i'm going to bring us back to the obama

years, give you eight more of the obama years. he's in trouble, that's why he's calling for impeachment. and in the president's defense went he said in the call, hey, people are talking about biden and his son, they darn well were. the hill had an article on april 1st, fox news, cnn, june 12th. abc, june 20th. and may i tell everybody, three months ago the new yorker had a scathing cover story about hunter biden and said could his business dealings in the ukraine and, quote, tumultuous personal life -- maria: right. >> -- damage his father's chance at the presidency. we're talking about three months ago people in hiding now. maria: why is he still the front-runner? obviously, it doesn't look right if he's the vice president and his son getting money from the chinese while the vice president is doing official business with the chinese, but joe biden if you look at the polls is still the front-runner in the 2020 election. >> well, barely. and i'm one of the people around the president who says, you know, prop him up.

meaning let's keep biden in there, because biden made a huge mistake. he could have had this running away had he announced the presidency by going to five states that obama-biden won and then donald trump and mike pence won. is wisconsin, pennsylvania, ohio, iowa, michigan. he didn't do. that he sent out a videotape about things that have already been disproven. he doesn't know what he's doing, he's 0-2 running for himself for president. but he's not my problem. the reason he's the front-runner is because the rest of the field are unabashed socialists. you actually have bernie sanders insulting elizabeth warren. you know what he said? socialist bernie sanders insulted socialist elizabeth warren by saying she's actually a capitalist. he thinks that's an insummit biden was leading by 20, 30 points a couple months ago, now a lot of national polls show warren surging. maria: do you think warren will be the front-runner? do you think it'll be

trump-warren in 2020? >> have no idea. i'm sure a couple of the strap hangers who are in third, fourth and fifth are going to hang in there. i do think it's funny that in a party that says we're woke and we're going to be transformational, they're not backing the african-american woman, they're not backing african-american man. maria: yeah. >> they're not backing the gay man, the mayor. we're going to have people who are different. they could do that. those are democratic primary voters, and they've got the three white people at the top of the polls. what i think is going on with impeachment is a disgrace. adam schiff loves to be in front of the cameras, and yet the one place he's not in front of the cameras is while he's leading an impeachment inquiry. maria: yeah. >> that's so curious to me. why doesn't he come out in the open, and i want adam schiff under oath every time he talks, because he does what liars and cheaters do, they lie and they cheat. he lies to the american people. he has no credibility.

100 republicans have called for his censure. maria: we'll see. he said it was the in plain sight, the collusion between donald trump -- >> yeah, and he lied. maria: -- if two years. i want do you about china. the markets rallied big on friday because there was a sense that a deal was getting done, and the president tweeted on saturday that an initial trade agreement with china was the great and biggest deal ever, citing wins for u.s. farmers and billions in boeing plane sales. can this deal stand with the chinese just buying more stuff from america? what about the intellectual property theft that the president has spoken so much about and the forced transfer of technology? do you feel that this initial deal gets a handle on those things? >> i do, more ya. it's -- maria. it's a huge first step, and the president made clear we're talking about such massive deals here with china that it has to come in different phases. so phase one does tackle the fact that $40-50 billion more for our farmers, the president says he hopes that the farmer

has enough tractors to sustain that. it also, it also tackles structural agriculture issues which are just as important. it may be something that's not necessarily in the public every day. also they started with the technology transfer discussion and intellectual property. those will come more in phase two, and the president looks forward to seeing president xi in chief hay soon, and -- chile soon. they pulled out last minute from the deal in april, last spring, we've been negotiating, and i think ambassador lighthizer and secretary mnuchin have expressed great optimism about what happened, and the markets liked it as well. this is also why they want to impeach the president, because they can't argue with the fact that we finally have a president who brought china to table in the first place. why do we have a half a trillion trade deficit with the world's second largest economy? maria: also the human rights abuses. we're going to the take a short break, i want to ask you about

how important that is for any deal. coloradan yea on america's next steps in the middle east as well. then congressman mark meadows and mark penn are here. back in a minute with kellyanne conway. i've been plotting to destroy you. sizing you up... calculating your every move. you think this is love? this is a billion years of tiger dna just ready to pounce. and if you have the wrong home insurance coverage, you could be coughing up the cash for this. so get allstate and be better protected from mayhem, like me-ow.

maria: and we are back with counselor or to president kellyanne conway. you were telling us about phase one of a deal with china. when would we expect phase two the? >> well, in due course. i mean, they still continue to negotiate, and secretary mnuchin and ambassador lighthizer and, indeed, the president himself have said that this is a a long

process. this president takes the long view. at least is the first president, obviously in modern times, to get china to the table in a serious way. and you see what's happened in the chinese economy, you see the effect of the tariffs. this president is there for the farmers, and that's also another reason why the usmca has to get passed in congress. they're so busy trying to impeach a president who's been successful economically and so many other ways that they can't even put to a vote usmca, the trade deal with mexico, canada and the u.s. when you have that along with what we've done with japan, korea -- maria: yeah. >> -- what we're doing with china, really shows a president who has elevated the issue of trade from where it was for years, mired in -- one of the most prominentish hues of his presidency -- issues of his presidency. obviously, we'll continue to press on intellectual property theft. friday was a big step forward, and he looks forward to also president xi making good on his

promise to get fentanyl the heck out of our country. that's important too. maria: what about the middle east policy in there is a continued upit over the president's policies in syria and the way that we've left our partners, the kurds. there is a shifting position even within republicans that the president's policy by pulling our troops out is worsening an already chaotic situation. >> secretary's per made clear that our first priority e is the safety of our soldier ands that we felt like the situation was worsening. we've tried to remove them out of harm's way. we have two competing interests here. turkey a nato ally that we put on notice if they continue with this incursion, it could lead to a humanitarian crisis, the release of isis prisoners and most importantly for turkey, a destruction of their economy. on friday treasury secretary mnuchin announced new possible

sanctions. he had to get the authorities in place, but at the moment the president commands the treasury secretary the, he can go ahead and do maximum sanctions which, of course, would wreak great damage to the turkish economy. turkey's a nato ally, the kurds have been incredibly helpful in helping us to defeat isis. the isis caliphate, the physical caliphate is destroyed. that continues. and at the same time, this president has made a commitment to not be in endless wars. the last two administrations kept us in the middle east, great expense of money, but most importantly, of lives. and he doesn't want to continue. he's been very clear about that. maria: what is the president going to do in the face of all of this? he's trying to conduct business and yet the resistance is trying to stop him at every turn. are you expecting him to try to sue nancy pelosi and adam schiff as he suggested last night? >> i maybe he can, but americans are smart and fair-minded, and

they see what's happening here. you have democrats and some of their friends in the mainstream media trying to unto an election result from three years ago and trying to, yes, i'll use the word, interfere in the next election. they're so worried about foreign governments interfering in our election, why do we have people, democrats and some of the media in our own country interfering in the 2020 election by just trying to get in the president's way? but he doesn't let the resistance stop him. look what he just did this week. he got a first phase of the deal with china. maria: right. >> he did an amazing executive order on transparency. he's continuing to deregulate. he's trying to continue to bolster our economy. we had great economic numbers last week even though the critics said otherwise. two months ago they were predicting recession, maria, so he will continue. he's ready to sign usmca, he's ready to do infrastructure, he's got 160 federal judges and counting on his watch. no one stops him. the last couple days he got home at 1:30 in the morning two of

the days and yesterday went back out and gave a speech to a different group. he's working all the time, people see where he is. he gives a lot of availability to the public and to the press, and yet you've got the democrat, what have they done? they voted on impeachment, they had a resolution to condemn a tweet. america, they work for you. they're wasting their time and your money. they were on recess for six weeks, came back for a few days to try to impeach the president and were gone for two more weeks. what are they doing? maria: what a moment in time -- >> he'll continue to work. thank you, maria, take care. martha: kellyanne conway there. democrats are issuing speak thats for energy secretary rick perry and two indicted associates of rudy giuliani as they have no plans yet to vote op on a formal impeachment inquiry. my next guest says hardened criminals have better protections than president trump. republican congressman mark meadows sits on the house oversight committee. thanks very much for joining us. >> great to be back with you, maria. maria: first, your reaction to

what's taking place in terms of the impeachment push. you heard what doug collins said, what are you going to do about it, that it's all in secret? >> we need to bring it out and let the american people judge for themselves. i've now spent over 20 hours behind closed doors listening to testimony, and if that testimony were to come out, you would realize that it would be exhibit a and exhibit b on the exoneration of this president, but yet you know adam schiff wants to make sure he keeps it all in private. so what we have to do is continue to appeal to the american people. i think an open and transparent process is really what we need. but this president has been faced with unrelenting, you know, just attacks each and every day. if they spent one-tenth of the energy trying to lower prescription drug prices, we'd see 30% reduction in prescription drug prices. but instead, they're constantly are -- each and every day -- putting out a false narrative that are not supported by the

facts. martha: do you think nancy pelosi will bring the usmca to the floor for a vote? >> well, if it's all about the 2020 election, she will not do that. she will say that, ultimately, they can't give the president a win. i've talked to some of my democrat colleague, and in the privacy of their caucus where they're getting together, each and every time it's brought up that we need to do something good for the hard working mesh taxpayer, they say we can't give this president a win. now, when you have that kind of an attitude -- and that's coming from the democratic caucus -- certainly they're not going to vote on it because it would make the economy boom, and it would reelect this president which, by the way, he's going to be reelected anyway. maria: and what about this impeachment inquiry? the threat here is that the public really doesn't understand what's true and what isn't true. you've got a lot of noise around this impeachment inquiry. is it the right process? maybe not, but it's continuing to be sort of taking all the oxygen out of the room.

>> well, if it's coming from adam schiff's mouth, it's not true. maria, you've followed this for a long time. you knew the whole russian collusion hoax, you know, that evidence that was going to come out that was there, available for everybody to see? well, you know, we've spent $30 million and had a potential prosecutor and yet they -- a special prosecutor and yet they found no evidence. they're going to find the same thing. here's the problem, impeachment a much lower bar. it's a political process, so you don't even have to have the facts as long as you have 218 democrats willing to vote for it. maria: wow. >> so we've got to clear it up, make sure it's transparent and make sure the american people are the final judge and jury. maria: i think this has a lot to do with what we're about to learn from john durham and bill barr. i want the ask you what you're expecting from the i.g. report out this upcoming weekend as well as what you're expecting from those investigations that are act. back in a moment with mark meadows andrv then mark penn.

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maria: we are back with republican congressman mark meadows. we are looking forward to getting the inspector e general report out. my sources tell me it will be out on friday, the 18th. what is your expectation of what we'll learn? >> well, based on the documents that we've provided many of those documents to inspector general horowitz is and his team who, by the way, have spent an unbelievable amount of time doing just a very thorough research, we believe it'll be a scathing rebuke on the fbi's fisa process. not just the fourth and third fisa, but the whole fisa process. what they knew, when they knew it, and based on documents that i've seen -- and and i have not seen the i.g.'s report, but based on documents that i've seen that we've provided to the i.g., there's a real question in terms of did they turn a blind eye to, you know, flashing yellows and flashing red lights and go on through? and in the interest of trying to dig up dirt on this president.

i believe they did. i think what you'll see is a strong recommendation and a minimum of changing the protocols as it relates to a fisa application process, because with we know that they used unverified information. we knew that they used information that they had a high probability that it was actually made up. and yet they continued to use it. maria: yeah. well, you would think that anybody from both sides of the aisle would be outraged that our intelligence agencies were using the tools that we used on terrorists to stop donald trump and then even after he was elected, duly elected president, to use those tools to try to take him down. i just wonder if we're going to see accountability. do you believe we'll see prosecutions, indictments for the people who actually inserted donald trump into the story of russia meddling in the u.s.? >> well, i can tell you the american people that have been following this want accountability. they don't believe the fbi should have a different standard. now, what normally comes out of an i.g.'s report is that they

will make some recommendations to the attorney general, sometimes criminal referrells. i do -- referrals. i do believe there are a few areas that should be criminally referred. and at the same time, whether there's indictments, that's going to be a question for the attorney general. but a lot of people out there are saying we can't continue to allow wrongdoing to happen and no accountability. i know you hear it, i hear it and -- maria: yeah. >> -- hopefully, at the end of the day justice will prevail. maria: we already saw it for andrew mccabe, what does that mean in. >> when you look at a criminal referral and possible indictments, obviously they're looking at all the evidence. sometimes they say, well, we're going to wait for the rest of the story or the bigger part of the picture. maria: okay. >> i think what americans say is if there's wrongdoing, you know, whether it's a small infraction or a large one, they need to be held accountable. maria: congressman, you've done

great work on this, thanks for joining us this morning. >> thank you, maria. maria: mark meadows. hunter biden issuing his first public response to president trump's attacks on his work in ukraine. "the wall street journal" is reporting this morning young biden planning to step down from the board of a chinese private equity firm. i'll get new reaction from bill clinton's former chief campaign strategist mark penn on the evolving controversy that could have big repercussions in 2020. back in a minute with that.

maria: welcome back. the ukraine controversy still looming large over both the trump and biden campaigns. the president, of course, facing an impeachment inquiry. hunter biden today issuing his first public response to the controversy. this morning saying that his work in ukraine focused on corporate transparency and governance.

he also said he would not work for any foreign-owned companies if his father wins the white house, and he is announcing he will step down from the board of the private equity firm backed by the chinese government. joining us now, mark penn, chief strategist on bill clinton's 1996 presidential campaign as well as hillary clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. mark, it's great to see you this morning. thanks so much for being here. >> thank you. maria: your reaction in terms of hunter biden stepping down and its impact on 2020. >> well, a bit late to really clear everything up. i think i'm glad he's done that. i think at a certain point he's going to have to kind of go through exactly what did and did not happen here. i do think the american public wants to know about everything that everybody did here. maria: so assess the field for us, mark, in terms of 2020. where are we now? do you think elizabeth warren is going to be the front-runner? >> well, i wouldn't count joe biden out yet. maria: okay. >> i think he continues to, i think, be the front-runner in national polls. i think he's got more problems

in iowa and new hampshire. i think elizabeth warren has shown more momentum than any other candidate, but really people are in the 20s and 30s. no one is a clear front-runner in this race today, and no one should be counted out either. maria: when you were doing the strategy for bill clinton, you said -- you were the architect of that strategy, and you said, look, do the job of president, let the lawyers and pr folks fight impeachment. that's not what president trump is doing. assess that. >> well, yes. i was one of the architects of the strategy that when the president was asked, he would say, look, i'm here today to talk about education. the american people want the president doing his or her job. that's the most important thing. rather than be your own attorney and rather than prosecute the case against the democrats and increase partisanship, our strategy then was for the president to stick to his job. and i think that's a much better strategy. that's what the american public wants to see in response to all these investigations and charges and countercharges. maria: how's it impacting the president's chances for re-election? >> well, i think the president's

job rating has held up in all of the polls, so i think most people are seeing this as a partisan political fight -- maria: right. >> at this point regard he is of the fact they'd like to see things investigated. look, right now the majority of the american public don't like the president, a majority don't like the democrats and a majority don't like republicans. [laughter] so you've got to understand the more that washington looks this way, in the time of record prosperity -- maria: yeah. >> -- you have such a sour mood. and that makes for an electorate that's going to be highly volatile. maria: any thoughts ahead of tuesday's big debate? the democratic debate is tuesday night. real quick, mark. >> i think it's going to be fascinating. will democrats really surround joe biden against these charges? will tulsi gabbard attack "the new york times", and will people turn on warren because she's the front-runner? maria: it's great to talk with you always, mark. thanks for joining me. mark penn. and thank you so much for watching this morning. i'll see you tomorrow morning on

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great! here you go... well, it does need to be a vehicle. but - i need this out of my house. (vo) with fair, transparent value for every trade-in... enterprise makes it easy. howie: on buzzfeed sunday media and war of words over impeachment as president trump refuses to cooperate with the investigation and are press digs into a growing pile of allegations. >> they are basically saying that congress has no right to investigate the president. this is not a winning legal argument but they want to make political argument. >> we the people over misconduct that does not exist yet again. >> the president of the united states claiming he has no choice but to stonewall into obstruct on unlawful inquiry from congress. >> if he cooperates he's guilty, if he doesn't