Is it an impeachable offense if there's no quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine?

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Is it an impeachable offense if there's no quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine?

Reaction from George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf.

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," September 25, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, ANCHOR: All right, the scene right now at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York City, where the president is due to address reporters any minute right now.

He thinks that he has put this entire issue to rest with the transcript of that infamous phone call with the leader of the Ukraine back in July. Democrats are not so sure.

We're going to be getting the read from John Roberts in a second, also Bret Baier, also Senator Rick Scott.

I do want to take a peek at the corner of Wall and Broad, because you're probably wondering, in the middle of this feared constitutional crisis, why were stocks up as smartly as they were? Well, they don't think anything will come with it, that the president will survive it.

Remember, Wall Street is not red or blue. It's just green. They love money and making lots of money, and they think that this president is the surest ticket to continue that. And they don't want that disrupted.

Now, that was their read.

What is John Roberts' read at the scene of the press conference with the latest?

Hey, John.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon to you, Neil.

The president has taken a lot of questions, most recently sitting together with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. But the president will come here and take more questions as well.

And one of the big questions, I think, on my mind at least, is, will the president declassify that whistle-blower's complaint, which we are told is now up on Capitol Hill and several members of Congress have already looked at it?

Ironic, though, when you think about that whistle-blower's complaint, as it was described as thirdhand knowledge, potentially also involving some open- source material like news articles, people who have actually read the transcript of the call that was released earlier today may know more than the whistle-blower did when that person actually filed the complaint with the intelligence community inspector general.

Now, in the bilateral meeting together with President Zelensky, President Trump and Zelensky both agreed that there was no pressure that was put on the Ukrainian president to investigate anything.

Listen to how Zelensky put it and then the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: I think you read everything. So you I think you read text. I -- I'm sorry, but I don't want to be involved to democratic open elections.

You already that nobody push it, push me, yes.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: In other words, no pressure?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Now, Neil, take a look at how far we are today away from where we were earlier this week and even yesterday, when we had been led to understand that the president pushed Zelensky about eight times to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Well, there's three citations contained in the transcript of the president mentioning, well, I will get Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Barr to call you about these investigations.

And then yesterday, the lead story all day was, was President Trump holding back some $391 million in lethal military and other aid to Ukraine if Zelensky didn't open an investigation into Joe Biden?

Well, now we're learning that the one piece of military hardware, the Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles, wasn't even part of the $250 million in lethal military aid that the president was holding back.

So, there appears to be, at least on the surface, no overt quid pro quo. But that didn't matter to the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Adam Schiff, who said this earlier today:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF.: There is no quid pro quo necessary to betray your country or your oath of office, even though many read this as a quid pro quo.

I'm not concerned whether it is a quid pro quo or not. Ukraine understood what this president wanted. He made it abundantly clear. He made it redundantly clear. He had his emissaries making it clear. And Ukraine needed -- knew what it needed to do if it wanted to get military assistance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Now, when you look at the transcript, it's clear that there are two investigations that President Trump is interested in.

One is an investigation of what happened with Ukraine and the 2016 election and allegations that then Ukrainian government was helping Hillary Clinton get elected, and what about the involvement of a company called CrowdStrike, which investigated the hack of the DNC server and pointed fingers at -- at Russia? What else do we know about that?

And then there was the investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden that the president mentioned to Zelensky. Now, you can understand, Neil, that the president wants to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, because he is still incensed about this idea that he didn't win fair and square.

But I think one of the questions to ask the president this afternoon, in addition to whether or not he will declassify that whistle-blower complaint, is, why did he ever asked Zelensky about Biden? So, we will try to ask that today -- Neil.

CAVUTO: All right, John, thank you very, very much.

By the way, that whistle-blower complaint really at the center of this all is to be released to the House Intelligence Committee later this hour.

So, what can we expect from that?

The host of "Special Report," Bret Baier, on that and much more.

Just accelerates and accelerates.

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: It's amazing.

And it won't -- it won't stop. I mean, this is the beginning, not the -- this is the beginning of the beginning, not the end of the beginning.

And I think that you heard Adam Schiff. I mean, he put words in the Ukrainian president's mouth, and then we heard from the Ukrainian president saying...

CAVUTO: And that you don't even need a quid pro quo.

What is the ruling on a high crime or misdemeanor without a quid pro quo, outside of trying to get them to give them some information the Bidens? Is that impeachable?

BAIER: Well, they can call it an abuse of power, that the president, they would allege, tried to talk to a foreign leader to get him to investigate a political opponent.

And they can use that and make the case for high crimes and misdemeanors. Currently, the House doesn't have the votes. And that's why there's not a vote moving forward formally.

But to John's point...

CAVUTO: But they're getting close, right?

BAIER: They're getting close. There are about at 200.

CAVUTO: You need -- yes, you need 218, right?

BAIER: Two-eighteen. And they're getting closer.

To John's point, a lot of what we knew coming into today, before we saw that transcript, the reporting was off, the eight times.

CAVUTO: Right.

BAIER: I mean, at most, you could -- you could maybe say four or five in that transcript.

The holding back specifically of the money. Today, you had The Washington Post move a story that the acting director of national intelligence threatened to resign if he wasn't allowed to testify freely.

A few minutes later, he puts out a statement saying: "At no time have I ever considered resigning my position since assuming this role on August 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life. I'm not going to start now."

My point is, is that we are in the same boat as we were at the beginning of the Russia investigation, where stories and things that are said, instead of facts, are being looked at first. And we all should take a pause and look at what we're seeing in front of us.

CAVUTO: Do we know that this transcript of this conversation is the only transcript of the only conversation? Could there be other conversations where this -- this aid did come up? Do we know?

BAIER: We don't know. There is -- it seems like they're referencing another call in this transcript...

CAVUTO: Right. Right. Right.

BAIER: ... which may be one before this. And one would assume that there's going to be a request for that transcript as well.

There's all this talk about, is this really a legitimate transcript?

Two CIA officers in the Situation Room transcribed this. And the officials say that this is as accurate as they can be.

CAVUTO: You know, I'm not a lawyer, but I watch a lot of legal shows.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: So I think I qualify.

BAIER: You do.

CAVUTO: But one of the things that was interesting, in reading this back, is that the president referring to the Biden situation: "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution. And a lot of people want to find out whatsoever you can do with the attorney general. He is a friend of Bill Barr, would presumably call him. That would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution. So, if you can look into it. It sounds horrible to me."

Now, again, I don't know a high crime or misdemeanor, but this is a president engaging a foreign power to insert himself in an election.

Democrats aren't going to let go of that.

BAIER: Never, no.

They think that this transcript is worse than they had expected it to be. And you have statements that they can't believe that they put the transcript out.

Republicans, looking at the same transcript, say, where's the there there...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: The there there has to be, I'm taking something from you or dangling something over you that you might not get if you don't satisfy.

BAIER: And that's why Adam Schiff says you don't need the quid pro quo.

You have some Republicans, though, Neil, like Mitt Romney, who say he's deeply troubled.

CAVUTO: Right.

BAIER: Susan...

CAVUTO: He's the only one, right?

BAIER: Susan Collins says it raises serious questions.

There are a few others who have not piped up, but, largely, Republicans are holding the line and saying, they don't have it.

CAVUTO: All right.

So if you -- let's say those two senators want to say, all right, I think these are impeachable or whatever. You need two-thirds of the Senate, right?

BAIER: Right.

I mean, and that is the political process.

CAVUTO: Yes.

BAIER: You get over the hurdle in the House. In order to convict, you need the Senate, and you don't have the votes there.

CAVUTO: Yes.

BAIER: So, as you look, politically, what's the next moment? The next moment is the election.

And if Democrats -- it's a tightrope here. They have to convince America that this is the right move right now, based on what they're seeing in that transcript.

CAVUTO: Or they're not getting overzealous, right, which has happened in the past for both parties, right?

(CROSSTALK)

BAIER: And we have seen what's happened as a result.

CAVUTO: Bret, great seeing you again here.

All right, let's get the read from Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott on all of this.

Senator, what did you think about what sort of Bret was outlining there, that -- that there are a series of things that have to come into play before we get to seriously looking at impeachment?

Where do you think this is going?

SEN. RICK SCOTT, R-FLA.: Well, first off, we ought to get the facts, and we ought to do it in a methodical manner.

Chairman Richard Burr, who runs the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, he's reviewing exactly what happened. And he will come out with the information. He's a -- he's a responsible senator that wants to do the right thing.

We do need to understand what Joe Biden did. I mean, we -- we -- we need to understand exactly what he did. We know he bragged about getting the prosecutor fired.

So, let's -- let's get the facts out. And then we can make a decision.

But the Democrats, this is -- the Democrats -- if -- if Trump changes shoes, that must be an impeachable offense. I mean, every day, it's just impeach.

And, in the meantime, we're not passing a budget. I mean, we're -- the fiscal year ends in just a few days. We don't have a budget. And they don't care about that.

They just -- how do you relitigate who won in 2016? Trump won. There's an election in 2020. Go to work to try to win the next election.

CAVUTO: Senator, were you surprised, regardless of the legality of it or even the -- for lack of a better term, the constitutionality of it, where a president of the United States is talking to a leader of a foreign power about inserting himself into another U.S. presidential election?

Did that, on any level, bother you?

SCOTT: I mean, would I -- does everybody, including President Trump, do they ask questions that I don't ask? Do they -- do they focus on things that I don't focus on?

But that's not the issue here. The issue is, is this an impeachable offense? And should we go back and do the work that American citizens sent us to D.C. to do, pass a budget, deal with prescription drug prices?

I mean, this -- it just -- it makes no sense up here. This place is completely dysfunctional. Nobody wants to get anything done, it appears. Just they hate President Trump, so let's figure out how we can impeach the guy.

CAVUTO: Well, he didn't help his cause, right, by getting off on this tangent with the leader of another country, right?

SCOTT: Here -- I'm going to focus on results, right?

Look at our economy. I mean, he's engaging in deals that President Obama just sat there and did nothing. Look at North Korea. Look at how China took advantage of us. Look at the horrible Iran deal that the Democrats do.

Look at people now in the European countries investing in NATO. Let's look at -- let's look at what we should care about, and -- and quit -- you know, why are the Democrats -- it's -- they just hate the guy.

And everything is about, oh, they hate Donald Trump. Go win the next election, if you hate him so much.

CAVUTO: That's a good point.

But let me ask this, sir. Two of your Republican, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, are concerned about this. Are you concerned about it?

SCOTT: The way I look at is, before you start engaging in what somebody did, let's get the facts.

And then tell me what the law is that President Trump violated. I mean, no one -- no one to -- so far has ever said to me, this is a -- this -- I can read a statute or...

CAVUTO: Right.

SCOTT: ... I can read a history, and this is what the guy did wrong. No one.

CAVUTO: So, I was mentioning the markets a little earlier, Senator, and they were up on the belief it was a relief rally. That's what they call it, as you know, when something they fear happening doesn't look to them, at least today, to be happening.

Do you agree with that, that this will ultimately fade away, it's back to some of these issues that you care about, or that everyone hyperventilates on this right up through the election?

SCOTT: They -- if this one fades away, the Democrats are going to focus on something else. They're not stopping.

They just -- they believe, for whatever reason, that impeaching Donald Trump is good political fodder.

I mean, what -- I have been up here for nine months. People don't want to solve problems up here -- up here. They want to run the next race.

If you want to -- if the markets want to focus on something, they ought to focus on what happens if Iran is able to shut down oil production in Saudi Arabia. Then what happens?

That's what they ought to focus on, because that's the -- that's the big -- right now, that's the biggest international issue we should be dealing with, not -- not because President Trump had some conversation with a Ukrainian leader.

CAVUTO: Apparently, the Ukrainian president, Senator, is on the wires thinking that only the U.S. side of the Trump call would be published, so he was a little surprised that his comments and what he was saying would also be included there.

so, he was a little surprised at that.

Are you surprised that he got caught up in this to the degree now where people back in his country are saying, hey, you're caught up in a -- in a juicy little tidbit here?

SCOTT: Absolutely.

I mean, if you look at what the Democrats are doing, they're going to make it very difficult -- difficult for any president to interact on foreign policy, because I guess, in the future, we're -- every -- every conversation -- no one can have a candid conversation anymore and have a -- have a -- have a discussion, because somebody will -- somebody will say somebody did something wrong, and then we will have some investigation.

But, again, I just -- I'm fascinated up here. Neil, I have been here nine months. I am fascinated that they don't want to solve problems up here.

CAVUTO: Well, you are getting a baptism by fire, Senator.

Thank you very much. Good seeing you again.

SCOTT: Yes, thanks, Neil.

CAVUTO: Rick Scott of Florida.

CAVUTO: Meanwhile, Democrats are still pushing impeachment. And they think they have got more than enough smoking guns.

The president about to answer reporters' questions as to whether they do -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, Republicans have been saying for a while now, no smoking gun here, move on.

Democrats doubling down, saying impeachment inquiry is necessary, and this released transcript from the president's conversations with the Ukrainian president confirm it.

Catherine Herridge has the latest on all of the above.

Hey, Catherine.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE, CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Neil. And good afternoon.

In the last hour, we have received a statement from the acting director of national intelligence, Joe Maguire. He's the intelligence chief who's scheduled to testify publicly tomorrow. And he is denying published reports that he threatened to resign if he could not be forthcoming with lawmakers tomorrow.

And that statement reads: "At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on August 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life. And I'm not going to start now. I am committed to leading the intelligence community to address the diverse and complex threats facing our nation."

A number of key sections of that transcript, Neil, will be at the heart of Maguire's testimony tomorrow.

Having reviewed the transcript, about 10 minutes in, the president has two requests for the Ukrainian president. One has to do with a firm called CrowdStrike. This is a cybersecurity forensic firm that did the review of the hacked servers with the DNC and the DCCC, if my memory serves me correctly.

And if you just follow me for one second, remember, the FBI didn't physically review the evidence in that hack. They relied on the assessment of CrowdStrike.

And the president states: "I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine. They say CrowdStrike. I guess you have one of your wealthy people" -- dot, dot, dot -- "The server, they say Ukraine has it."

And then the second part of that series of requests, if you will, about Joe Biden and his son: "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution. And a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went about -- went about bragging that he stopped the prosecution. So, if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me."

So the big testimony tomorrow with -- I'm sorry -- you have to repeat that, control room. You're going to quick. You want me to wrap and throw back? OK.

I will send it back to you, Neil.

CAVUTO: All right. You're fast on your feet. I will give you that, Catherine Herridge.

HERRIDGE: All right.

CAVUTO: So, there are a lot of legal questions here, and so few answers right now.

Let's get a read from George Washington University Law Professor John Banzhaf.

John, good to have you.

Is it an impeachable offense if there's no clear quid pro quo? It seems a little unseemly for a president of the United States to talk to a leader of another country about getting some dirt on a possible opponent, but I'm told not impeachable, not a high crime or misdemeanor.

What do you -- what do you say?

JOHN BANZHAF, ATTORNEY: Technically, anything the House says is a high crime or misdemeanor would make it impeachable.

I could look at it from a legal point of view, and say that, if he requested something of value and/or received something of value, then that would be a crime, that would be a violation of the election laws.

And the thing of value is very, very -- is a very broad term. I have seen cases where somebody got a date, somebody got publicity, somebody offered to introduce you to Madonna, for example. That might not be a thing of value to me, because I don't want to meet her, but to hundreds of people, that might be a thing of value.

So, in this case, dirt on a political opponent might be a thing of value.

I think the problem, Neil, is whether or not it really was a quid pro quo. And one way to look at it, take a common example. Somebody calls up a restaurant, he says, you know, we have been supplying you with liquor for years. I have now stopped the shipments. Oh, could you do me a favor and fire Joe Blow, the waiter?

I think, if that were in a civil case, they would find, yes. If it was a criminal case, probably not, because there's not proof being reasonable doubt. That's probably the standard the Senate should be looking at.

But, again, it's all political.

CAVUTO: All right, what's political is that the president wants some information on someone who is going to be as likely opponent. Or at least maybe that's how he felt about the Biden situation. That is getting political dirt.

Is there ever anything wrong with just that?

BANZHAF: Yes, if it's something of value, and he gets it from a foreign source, that could be a violation of the federal election laws.

CAVUTO: So, that's your quid pro quo.

BANZHAF: The quid pro quo is, I will give you the...

CAVUTO: Right.

BANZHAF: I will give you the weapons.

Again, a simple example. My dean tells me, John, we're not going to give you that great big travel grant that you have been hoping for.

CAVUTO: All right.

BANZHAF: Oh, by the way, can you do me this favor? What would you think?

CAVUTO: Got it. Got it. That's it. I understand that.

More after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: When they saw the nonsense, all of a sudden, stock market went down very substantially yesterday, when they saw a charge.

After they read the charge, the stock market went up very substantially. We have created the greatest economy in the history of our country, the greatest economy in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: All right, so the president is saying in no small terms here, you get rid of me, you get rid of all of that.

Art Hogan here to help me out and get a sense of it all, the market watcher extraordinaire.

Art, I have a crackpot theory -- and you have indulged them over the years -- that it helps a president if times are good when he's -- when there's a movement to impeach him, AKA, Bill Clinton.

The markets and the environment not so good, as with stagflation and Richard Nixon, not so good for him. Not -- I'm not saying it closes the deal one way or the other, but, in this president's case, the environment helps him. What do you think?

ART HOGAN, MARKET STRATEGIST: Yes, I think that's absolutely correct.

I think you bring up the two examples we have in recent history. Richard Nixon, the economy was in shambles. We had stagflation, oil price shock. And so the market reaction is hard to separate from what was going on in the rest of the world.

The exact opposite of that happened with Bill Clinton. We -- 1998, 1999, the economy was booming. We're in a dot-com boom, and everything was going great.

So, at that point in time, the market didn't have time to have a reaction in either situation, because it really reacts on the economy. I think the same thing is happening right now.

I think the consensus is that, if this gets through the House and goes on to the Senate, the math is just too hard to get it out of the Senate and have a conviction.

CAVUTO: You have reminded me that Wall Street, it seems to be a conservative bastion, but really what Wall Street guys and gals like is making money. And they have made a lot under this president, as they did with Bill Clinton, and that that gets them nervous when that -- there is the possibility that could get disrupted.

Is there any chance, if this gains steam, that they start reassessing what they did today and buy or go -- or sell?

HOGAN: Yes, well, I will tell you this, Neil. Yes, that's such a great question.

I think you can look at that three ways. The first is, obviously, this can cause some legislative paralysis, and not that we have had a lot of bipartisan legislation that's gone through this year, but think about some of the things we'd like to see perhaps happen. Infrastructure is probably dead for a while.

The USMCA is probably dead for a while. Drug price controls is certainly going to be dead for a while. So we're going to have a logjam in Congress. And that's certainly understandable.

But that's not as bothersome as perhaps this puts off our ability to get the U.S.-China trade deal done. So there's math on both sides of this, but you would think that perhaps this empowers China to maybe wait out this negotiation process.

CAVUTO: All right.

HOGAN: And that's something the market focuses on a lot.

I think that's -- that's probably the one concern the market has...

CAVUTO: Got it.

HOGAN: ... is, what happens now in the negotiating process?

CAVUTO: All right, Art Hogan, thank you very much, my friend.

And now the president of the United States:

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

TRUMP: We've had a tremendous three days in New York, at the United Nations. I want to thank the secretary-general. It's been really incredible what's been taking place. And he's been a fantastic host to a lot of countries.

The meetings I had on a bilat, or close, were pretty staggering. I think we set a new record, but you'll have to check that out.

The -- we met very, very -- for pretty extended periods of time, either two and two, one on one, or just about at that level with Pakistan, Poland, New Zealand, Singapore, Egypt, South Korea, United Kingdom, India, Iraq, Argentina, Germany, Brazil, France, Japan, Ukraine, Honduras, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Other than that, we weren't too busy over the last three days.

And, unfortunately, the press doesn't even cover it. We have -- we have made some fantastic deals, like with Japan. For farmers, we have a tremendous trade deal with Japan.

And that doesn't get covered, because you waste your time on nonsense.

The PMI manufacturers index is -- has gone substantially up, which was an incredible -- Larry Kudlow, wherever you may be -- Larry, please stand up. He just gave me these numbers.

And existing new home sales are through the roof. Just came out. Oil prices have gone down ever since the Saudi Arabia incident. And they have gone down very substantially. So we have plenty of oil.

But those numbers were surprising to Larry and the extent of the increase.

Is that a correct statement?

So, thank you, Larry Kudlow.

We think we will make this little announcement to you, because important. The so-called whistle-blower, that one that didn't have any first-class or first-rate or second-tier information, from what I understand -- you will have to figure that out for yourself.

But I have spoken with Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans, many of them. And we were going to do this anyway, but I have informed them, all of the House members, that I fully support transparency on the so-called whistle-blower information, even though it was supposedly secondhand information, which is sort of interesting.

And other things have come out about the whistle-blower that are also maybe even more interesting.

But also insist on transparent see from Joe Biden and his son Hunter on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily taken out of Ukraine and China, millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars taken out very rapidly, while he was vice president.

And I think they should have transparency for that. I have informed the leader about that.

And, additionally, I demand transparency from Democrats who went to Ukraine and attempted to force the new president, who I met and is an outstanding person I just met a little while ago -- some of you were there.

I think he's going to be outstanding. He got elected on the basis of corruption. He wants to end corruption in Ukraine. And I think that's great.

But they went there, and they wanted to force the new president to do things that they wanted, under the form of political threat. They threatened him if he didn't do things.

Now, that's what they're accusing me of, but I didn't do it. I didn't threaten anybody.

In fact, the press was asking questions of the president of Ukraine. And he said no pressure. I used the word pressure. I think he used the word push, but he meant pressure, but it's the same thing.

No push, no pressure, no nothing.

It's all a hoax, folks. It's all a big hoax. And the sad thing about this hoax is that we work so hard with all of these countries. And I mean really hard. This has been -- I have been up from early in the morning to late in the evening, and meeting with different countries, all for the good of our country.

And the press doesn't even cover all of this. And it's -- it's really disappointing also to those countries that are with us and spend so much time with us.

So, we want transparency. We have informed Kevin McCarthy about transparency. And we said, vote for it.

So I think you have will close to 100 percent of the Republican votes, I hope. And it got almost no attention, but, in May, CNN reported that Senators Robert Menendez, Richard Durbin, and Patrick Leahy wrote a letter to Ukraine's prosecutor general expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical.

In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake, and that if they didn't do the right thing, they wouldn't get any assistance. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that sound familiar?

And Chris Murphy, who I have been dealing with on guns, so nice, he's always, oh, no, we want to work it out, we want to work at it.

But they're too busy wasting their time on the witch-hunt. So, Senator Chris Murphy literally threatened the president of Ukraine that, if he doesn't do things right, they won't have Democrat support in Congress.

So you're going to look at all of this up.

One other thing. I'm just going off certain notes and elements of what we have been doing over the last three days. But this just came up a few minutes ago.

The Amazon "Washington Post" just put out a fake article that Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who I have gotten to know -- and he's a tough cookie -- and I was surprised, I was shocked to hear this -- was going to quit, blaming the White House for something that they wouldn't let him talk openly, freely.

And I was shocked, because I know Joe, and he's tough, tough guy. And I was really surprised to hear he was going to quit. Before I could even either talk to him or talk to anybody else, he put out a statement. I didn't speak to Joe yet.

But he said, "At no time have I considered resigning my position." In other words, the story in "The Washington Post" was a fake. "At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on August 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life. And I'm not going to start now. I'm committed to leading the intelligence community to address the diverse and complex threats facing our nation."

That's from the acting director of national intelligence, a very good man, Joseph Maguire.

So, we're having a great period of time. Our country is the strongest it's ever been. Economically, our numbers are phenomenal.

Wilbur, thank you, and Larry, everybody.

The numbers are phenomenal. Our economy is the strongest in the world. We're the largest economy in the world. Had my opponent won, we would be second right now, because China was catching us so rapidly, we would have been second by this time.

And unless somebody does a very poor job as president, we're going to be first for a long way, because we have picked up trillions and trillions of dollars in value and worth of our country, and China has lost trillions and trillions of dollars and millions of jobs and their supply chain. And they want to make a deal.

This year, America came to the United Nations stronger than we have ever been before. Since my election, the United States has not only brought our economy to a level that we have never seen, the most jobs that we have ever had.

You know you have heard me said it many times, African-American, Asian American, Hispanic American, the best unemployment numbers we have ever had, and the most and best employment numbers, 160 million, very close to that number, in jobs. We have never been anywhere close.

Wages are up and inequality is down, something that people don't like writing about, but wages are up. I used to speak during the campaign, and I would talk about wages, where people were making less money three years ago than they were making 21 years ago, 22 years ago. And they'd have two jobs and three jobs.

And when I say three years ago, I'm talking into the area sometime prior to the election. And they were doing very badly. And now, for the first time in many years, wages are up, and employment is up, and unemployment is down. And it's a beautiful thing to watch.

In a week of active and ambitious diplomacy here at the United Nations, America renewed our friendships. We advanced our values greatly and made clear to everyone that the United States will always defend our citizens.

To promote prosperity, I met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson at length of the United Kingdom, continuing our discussions on a magnificent new bilateral trade deal.

So we will see what happens with respect to Brexit, but I suspect we will have a fantastic deal with the U.K. It should be much bigger than it has been over the last number of years, over the last 20 years, frankly. It should be a much bigger deal.

That's true with many countries. We're going to have much bigger trade deals with a lot of countries that have an opportunity to come. And they all want to do business with the United States, especially now.

Earlier today, I stood alongside Prime Minister Abe of Japan, friend of mine, a great gentleman, had a great reelection. And we signed a terrific new trade deal, which tremendously helps our farmers and ranchers and technology. The technology companies are really big beneficiaries.

We also held very productive conversations with leaders of Pakistan, India, and many other nations on achieving stronger ties of fair and reciprocal trade.

And with respect to Pakistan and India, we talked about Kashmir. And whatever help I can be, I said -- I offered. Whether it's arbitration or mediation or whatever it has to be, I will do whatever I can, because they're at very serious odds right now. And, hopefully, that will get better.

You look at the two gentlemen heading those two countries, two good friends of mine. I said, fellows, work it out. Just work it out.

Those are two nuclear countries. They have got to work it out.

This week, we also made incredible strides on national security with President Duda of Poland. We signed a joint declaration advancing defense cooperation. And, crucially, Poland has agreed to put up 100 percent of the money, something I don't think you have ever heard said before.

But they're going to put up 100 percent of the money of hosting additional U.S. military personnel that we will be taking from various other countries. We won't have more over. We will have -- we will be moving them around.

Poland is building us phenomenal new facilities. They are spending everything. And they're -- they're going to really do a job. But we will be moving a few thousand soldiers. And Poland will be paying for it.

Together with Prime Minister Lee of Singapore, I signed an important agreement extending our defense cooperation. This hasn't been changed in many years.

And, yesterday, I met with prospective members of the Middle East Strategic Alliance, which is a group that I know very well. I know all of them. And through this effort, the nations of the Middle East are taking more responsibility for securing their own future and their own neighborhood.

And they're also reimbursing us and paying us for a lot of the military work that we incredibly do. But because we're now independent energy wise, we're energy-independent, we have very few boats going over the Middle East.

We used to have them going through the straits all the time. And you probably noticed that, every once in a while, they go after somebody else's. They haven't gone after ours yet. If they do, they have got big problems.

But we have very few boats going over there. They were saying the other day, they have never attacked an American boat.

I'm not asking for trouble, but, if they do, they know they have far bigger trouble. But then they said, but, you know, we don't see very many American boats over here anymore.

This week also brought extraordinary progress to nations of our own hemisphere. In recent days, we have achieved historic asylum cooperation agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

We were with El Salvador today. A great young gentleman became the president. He's strong and tough. And he's taking care of crime. He was really something today. I was very impressed with him.

And likewise with Honduras, who we met, we signed a cooperation agreement with both and also with Guatemala. We're working with our partners in Central America to ensure that asylum seekers can pursue relief as close to their home countries as possible. That will make a tremendous difference at our southern border.

And Mexico, I have to say, President Lopez Obrador has been outstanding and an outstanding partner. And he's doing a great job in Mexico. The cartels are way down. And the numbers -- our secretary is here now. The numbers are way down, way, way down.

And we're doing that without the help of Congress, meaning the Democrats in Congress, who won't give us a single vote to take care of loopholes. We have loopholes that are so horrible. And it would be so easy to fix. And they know they should be fixed, but they don't want to do it, because they don't want to give Trump any credit, because it's all about the election.

That's all they care about. They don't care about our country. They care about the election.

And the sad part is, with all of the tremendous work that we have done this weekend, whether it's Secretary Mnuchin or Secretary Pompeo, who had some outstanding, outstanding meetings, with all of this tremendous work that we have done, the press doesn't even cover it.

And the Democrats did this hoax during the United Nations week. It was perfect, because, this way, it takes away from these tremendous achievements that we're taking care of doing, that we're involved in, in New York City at the United Nations.

So that was all planned, like everything else. It was all planned. And the witch-hunt continues, but they're getting hit hard in this witch-hunt, because when they look at the information, it's a joke.

Impeachment for that? When you have a wonderful meeting, or you have a wonderful phone conversation?

I think you should ask. We actually -- you know, that was the second conversation. I think you should ask for the first conversation also. I can't believe they haven't, although I heard there's a -- there's a rumor out they want the first conversation. It was beautiful. It was just a perfect conversation.

But I think you should do that. I think you should do, and I think you should ask for V.P. Pence's conversation, because he had a couple conversations also.

I can save you a lot of time. They're all perfect. Nothing was mentioned of any import, other than congratulations. But the word is that they're going to ask for the first phone conversation. You can have it any time you need it, and also Mike Pence's conversations, which were, I think, one or two of them. They were perfect. They were all perfect.

It's very sad what the Democrats are doing to this country. They're dividing. They're belittling. They're demeaning our country.

So many leaders came up to me today and they said, sir, what you go through, no president has ever gone through. And it's so bad for your country. People laugh at the stupidity of what they've asked for.

And, here, we could do asylum. We could do all of these different things so easily. We could do asylum quickly. We could do loopholes, get rid of them.

Instead, we actually made deals with Mexico and with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. And we're doing it with them, instead of with our Congress, but we're doing it. We get it done.

The wall is being built, by the way. It got little coverage. I went to the border. It's going up in New Mexico. It's going up in Arizona. It's going up in California, believe it or not. They really wanted that wall in California, in San Diego.

As soon as it was completed, they said, we don't want a wall. They were begging me for a wall. I should take it out and move it to another location.

We were with the governor, spoke to him a lot, but the governor of Texas, lieutenant governor of Texas, attorney general of Texas, the senators of Texas, Cornyn, Ted Cruz. And we're building an incredible wall. That's going to -- number one, it's going to look great.

It's going to be virtually impossible to cross unless you're one hell of a mountain climber. It's very tough. It's going to be very tough to get people and drugs over those walls, because they're the real deal.

I went to the secretary of homeland security, and he got all his people together. I said, give me four walls, your optimum, every single thing included. And they give me 20 percent less, 20 percent less, and 20 percent less, meaning less cost.

They came back, they said, this is the wall, sir. This would be the best. We have the panels on top, which are anti-climb panels. I don't know if you noticed the steel on top. We have a different design for a different area, but this anti-climb is very tough.

They've -- we had people going out and -- real climbers telling us which is the toughest to climb. But these are anti-climb panels. Very tough to get across.

And the wall is going up, many miles a week. And we hope to have over 400, but maybe as much as 500 miles, which will pretty much do it, because you have a lot of natural barriers. You have mountains. You have really rough rivers. You have some really rough land that you can't cross very easily.

So they serve as their natural walls. But we -- we'll have, we think, over 400, but we could even have 500 miles.

To combat the malice, corruption of both the Venezuelan and Iranian dictatorships, today, I issued proclamations suspending the entry into the United States of senior regime officials and their families.

And, further, to promote American values, on Monday, I was proud to be the first president in history to host a meeting at the United Nations.

I'm so surprised, first president for this. I can't believe that I'm first. I spoke to Franklin Graham about that. I can't believe it.

At the United Nations on protecting religious freedom and liberty for people around the world.

While some partisans and unelected bureaucrats in Washington may choose to fight every day against the interests and beliefs of the American people, my administration is standing up for the American people like no administration has in many, many years.

You forgot the American people. You totally forgot the American people.

This week, every -- every week, I really can say -- of my presidency, we're standing up for American prosperity, American security, and the American way of life. And together with our friends and partners, we're building a more peaceful, prosperous, and promising future.

We have a tremendous relationship now with a lot of nations that are very happy with what's going on.

And that includes in South America, where they've been so helpful, where nobody thought this would be possible. The relationship with Mexico is an example, or El Salvador, or Honduras, or Guatemala. Nobody even knew about it, yet we sent them hundreds of millions of dollars, and all we got back was caravans of people pouring in.

We had tremendous -- we had tremendous -- it was terrible. And we've got that stopped. And the countries are now helping us. And we stopped those payments, by the way. We don't pay those countries that money anymore.

But I will tell you, if they're as good as they seem to be, they're really doing a job on crime and stopping the wrong people from leaving and coming to the United States. We'll be helping them a lot with economic development projects and other things.

So, with that, we had a tremendous three days. It was beautiful to see. Made a lot of new friends. I read you a list of all the countries I saw pretty much one on one.

And it's been very busy, but it's been very, very fruitful.

So, we could take a couple of questions. I'd love some questions on some of the things that we accomplished at UNGA, instead of the witch-hunt, the phony witch-hunt questions, which I know that's what you want to ask, because it's probably better for you, but it's not better for the country.

So, maybe we'll take a few -- a few questions. Please.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

You suggested that you didn't do anything wrong in the course of your conversations with the Ukrainian president. But can you explain to the American people why it is appropriate for an American president to ask a foreign leader for information about a political rival, and what you would have said if you discovered that Barack Obama perhaps had asked a foreign leader for information about you before your campaign for the presidency?

TRUMP: Yes. Well, that's what he did, isn't it, really, when you think about it.

Look, that whole witch-hunt was started, and hopefully that'll all come out. But there's been some fantastic books written that just came out, whether you will look at Gregg Jarrett or McCarthy's book that just -- just came out recently, and so many other books.

And a lot of books are coming out. When you start reading those books, you see what they did to us. What they've done to this country is a disgrace. They've hurt this country very badly. And no other president should have to go through what I've gone through.

The president, the new president of Ukraine, is looking to stop corruption. There's a lot of corruption going on, and there was corruption. I just told you about senators that threatened him with votes and no money coming into Ukraine if they do things.

That's really what people are trying to say that I did, but the only difference is, I didn't do it. You take a look at that call, it was perfect. I didn't do it. There was no quid pro quo.

But there was with Biden and there was with these senators. And they threatened. They said, you do this, you do that, we're not going to give you votes. That's -- that's the real deal.

So we have an honest group of people that have been maligned. And, you know, it's -- a lot of people say, I will do even better. I'm very happy.

Yesterday, I guess we had a 53 poll, and a lot of people say add 10 points to anything. Anybody voting for Trump, you can add -- any time you get a poll, you can add 10 points or seven points or six points. Take it any way you want.

But I don't know if I consider that to be a compliment, but in one way it is a compliment.

And I guess that's what happened in the last election: Far more people came to vote than anybody thought possible.

QUESTION: So why should the American people then be comfortable with an American president asking a foreign leader for information about an American citizen?

TRUMP: Well, I think you can look at your senators and you can look at Biden, and you can look at all these other people.

But what we're looking for is corruption. An investigation started called the Russian witch-hunt, affectionately. And it was a total phony scam. It was set up by people within the government to try and stop somebody from getting elected.

And after that -- after that person, namely, me, won, and convincingly won at 306-223 in the Electoral College, which, by the way, when you run a race, if you're running Electoral -- you know, if you go by the College, Electoral College, that's a much different race than running popular vote.

And it's like the 100-yard dash or the mile. You train differently.

And I can't help it that my opponent didn't go to Wisconsin and should have gone much more to Michigan and Pennsylvania and other places. But that's the way it is. We won election convincingly, convincingly.

And then you had the text message on, well, if she doesn't win, we've got an insurance policy. How bad was that? You know, with the insurance policy, that's sort of what has been taking place over the last number of years, the insurance policy.

No, there are a lot of very dishonest people. We're the ones that played it straight. And you know what? The millions of people out there that are looking at what's going on, those people understand it. They see it. And they think it's disgusting.

And our people are being hurt, and our country is being hurt.

When Nancy Pelosi allows her position to be taken over by radical far-left socialists, or worse, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad, especially when the senators and all of these other people have actually done what they're accusing me of doing, which I didn't do.

I'm going to have Mike Pompeo say a couple of words. I'm going to have Steve Mnuchin say a couple of words. And then we'll do a couple of more questions.

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: Mr. President, I thought I'd start by talking about Iran.

We had a productive week. We saw the Europeans take a position with respect to the attacks that took place in Saudi Arabia, making clear this was Iran, just as President Trump and I had been saying, and have now joined us in saying that the existing JCPOA framework is not going to work.

It's not going to solve the world's problems. It's not going to create Middle East stability.

Then we had a good set of meetings with our Middle East allies as well. The president joined for a meeting of the GCC, where we talked again about how we can help deter. We want peace. We want a peaceful resolution with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We're hoping we can get that way.

In the end, it'll be up to the Iranians to make that decision whether they'll choose violence and hate and as the president said in his speech yesterday to the General Assembly, if their bloodthirst will continue.

We hope that's the -- we hope we can get the opportunity to negotiate with them and get an outcome that's good for both of them, for the United States, to make sure that they never have a nuclear weapon and that they can't foment their terror with ballistic missiles and in the way they have all around the world.

And I think we made real progress uniting the world on that here over these past few days.

Thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you.

STEVEN MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: As Secretary Pompeo said on Iran, we had very good discussions with all of our allies about the sanctions program, which is the maximum pressure, and unity on the sanctions program.

The Europeans made it very clear they would not do anything without our consent.

And then, on the economic front, we had the entire economic team here for all the meetings, Secretary Ross, Larry Kudlow. Ambassador Lighthizer just left to go back to D.C. He's working hard on trying to get USMCA passed.

But we had a lot of productive discussions, the Japanese trade deal, and a lot of discussions on investing in the U.S., more jobs in the U.S., and more trade.

Thank you.

TRUMP: OK.

Go ahead, please.

KRISTINA PARTSINEVELOS, BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.

Kristina Partsinevelos, Fox Business.

TRUMP: I know.

PARTSINEVELOS: I want to focus on markets, because I will leave it to everybody else to talk about impeachment.

Markets reacted positively after you spoke about China, and that it would happen sooner than -- rather than unexpectedly. Yet you have the foreign minister of China saying that they have no intention of, you know, unseating the United States.

And yet they're investing heavily in infrastructure and military.

TRUMP: Not anymore maybe.

PARTSINEVELOS: But what -- what is different this time, though?

TRUMP: And maybe they just say that, Kristina.

PARTSINEVELOS: What is different this time, though, the fact that you're saying it's progressing?

TRUMP: Oh, I just think it's progressing. I think they want to make a deal. They're losing their supply chain. You know, it's getting killed.

PARTSINEVELOS: Do you have something specific?

TRUMP: Well, I don't want to say that.

But I can tell you that these two men -- and, in this case, more specifically, Steve -- we're having some very good conversations.

And I guess it's next week that a group is coming in and the week after. So we have a lot of -- we have a lot of talks going on, and also by telephone.

They want to make a deal. And you know why they want to make a deal? Because they're losing their jobs, and because their supply chain is going to hell, and companies are moving out of China, and they're moving to lots of other places, including the United States.

And that's not good. That's far worse than they thought.

And, by the way, in the meantime, we're taking in billions and billions of dollars in tariffs. We're taking in tremendous numbers in tariffs.

And we're helping our farmers who got targeted. Now, by the way, China is starting to buy our agricultural product again. They're starting to go with the beef and all of the different things, pork. Very big on pork.

But if you look, and if you see -- and they actually put out, I think, a statement, but they're starting very heavy to buy our ag again.

No, they want to make a deal. And they should want to make a deal.

The question is, do we want to make a deal?

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