Thanks for joining us.

You and his learn tonight that the president of the United States pressed a foreign

head of state to work with his personal criminal defense attorney to investigate the

son of a political opponent.

When he strip away all the complexities surrounding it, including where it fits in the whistleblower

affair, there is one simple central point to this story which first broke in the Wall

Street Journal late today.

According to the journal, in a July 25 phone call, President Trump in his official capacity

asked the president of Ukraine to do something in his official capacity that would benefit

not this country, but President Trump himself, both politically and personally.

Siding sources familiar with the matter, the journal reports that he pushed the Ukrainian

president about eight times on that one phone call to work with Rudy Giuliani on a probe

of Joe Biden's son Hunter who'd worked for a time with the Ukrainian gas company.

Now according to the journal, and you'll hear shortly from one of the reporters who broke

that story for the journal, this did not involve an explicit offer of something in return.

Quoting from the story, Mr. Trump didn't mention a provision of USA to Ukraine on the call,

said this person who didn't believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid pro

quo for his cooperation on any investigation.

Now, similar reporting as well from the Washington Post on that and the hard sell on Hunter

Biden, but unlike the journal, the post goes one step beyond saying that the call is at

the center of the whistleblower complaint, the White House is trying to squelch.

The president meantime had this to say.

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