Trump Lashes Out at Republicans Not Defending Him.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: This increases the chance that his rival, Benny Gantz, will become Israel's next prime minister. And if Gantz also fails to form a coalition, and no one else emerges to command a majority, Israel may be forced to hold a third election. "</s>THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" STARTS RIGHT NOW. JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to a special edition of</s>THE LEAD: "White House in Crisis." I'm Jake Tapper. President Trump today trying out a new strategy to fight off a growing impeachment crisis, attacking Republicans criticizing him, and demanding that the Republican Party rally around him and come to his defense. In a Cabinet meeting this afternoon, the president clearly irked by the growing number of Republicans who have publicly criticized his actions, whether for the admitted quid pro quo demand that Ukraine conduct political investigations for him in exchange for military aid, or the rash decision to pull U.S. service members from Northern Syria, abandoning U.S. allies, or the short-lived push to send taxpayer dollars to one of his resorts by hosting a global summit there. The president today lamenting that Democrats are doing a better job of sticking together to attack him on those issues than Republicans are sticking together to defend him over them. Let's go straight to CNN's Jeremy Diamond live at the White House for us. And, Jeremy, President Trump also called out the Republicans who have left the door open to a possible impeachment inquiry.</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake. As the prospect of impeachment grows closer by the day, the president seems to be growing concern that Republicans may not stick by him in the way that he needs them to. Republican lawmakers have largely stood by the president so far, but we are beginning to see some signs of criticism from certain Republicans, including the Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, for one. And the president seems to think that Republicans should take a page from Democrats' playbook.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think they're lousy politicians. But two things they have, they're vicious and they stick together. They don't have Mitt Romney in their midst. They don't have people like that. They stick together. You never see them break off.</s>DIAMOND: Now, Jake, while the president is talking about problems in the Republican Party more broadly, he didn't address any of the strife within his own administration. This Cabinet meeting came after the White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, struggled repeatedly to try and defend his sudden walk-back or attempts to walk back that admission of a quid pro quo with Ukraine. The president was asked about his chief of staff's standing, and he declined to answer any of those questions.</s>TAPPER: Hmm. Jeremy, President Trump also attempted to defend his initial push to hold the G7 global summit of world leaders at his Florida resort. He claimed it would have been the best G7 ever, it would have been free. There's no evidence that it would have been free, of course. What is the president's reasoning for reversing course and opting to hold it somewhere else?</s>DIAMOND: Well, Jake, you're exactly right. One of those claims that the president made, that this was free, was not something that was made as a selling point, when the chief of staff, Mulvaney, came out to the White House Briefing Room last week to make the case for this. But, somehow, the president is now claiming that. And he's continuing to lament the fact that he had to reverse course on this, a rare course reversal, of course, for the president. And he blamed Democrats for this. But, Jake, the president knew that Democrats were going to be criticizing him on this. This is something that he's been floating for several months now. And the criticism from Democrats was not a surprise. What was a surprise, Jake, was the extent of the criticism from Republicans. And that is why we saw the president this weekend make that sudden course reversal.</s>TAPPER: All right, Jeremy Diamond at the White House for us, thanks so much. President Trump today also wrongly claims that the whistle-blower who initially publicly raised concerns about his conversations with the president of Ukraine privately -- then it became publicly -- that the whistle-blower has been discredited. Of course, he or she has not been discredited. The president also said that the whistle-blower gave a false account. That is also not true. The president even nonsensically suggested today that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff might be an informant for the whistle-blower, which is, of course, not only false; it's bizarre. CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju is live for us on Capitol Hill. Manu, will there be a vote to censure Chairman Schiff today? President Trump was pushing Republicans to do so.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And Republicans are pushing to do so. We do expect a vote this evening in the House. Actually, the vote would be a Democratic effort to stop this Republican resolution. So, expect Democrats to vote in lockstep against this Republican effort. And what the resolution essentially would do would be to censure Adam Schiff and condemn him for a number of things that the president has been alleging, including how Adam Schiff at an open hearing with the acting director of national intelligence characterized the president's remarks. The president has attacked Schiff for lying about for what he said. Also, Adam Schiff initially said he had no contact with the whistle- blower. It turns out that the whistle-blower initially reached out to one of his aides. And it turns out that was for guidance and the process of filing a whistle-blower complaint, something that Schiff's office says is done all the time with whistle-blowers. But, nevertheless, Republicans are echoing what the president has been saying. And that's what we're going to see in this resolution tonight, as Democrats says this is all an effect to distract from the allegations in the impeachment inquiry -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: And, Manu, you have some new reporting about how the impeachment inquiry might take longer than some Democrats were expecting. Why is that?</s>RAJU: Because they're running into this issue. More leads are coming up in their investigations, in their closed-door depositions. Initially, some Democrats had hoped they could wrap up everything by Thanksgiving, potentially even vote to impeach by Thanksgiving. But with more witnesses come more leads. They are trying to bring in additional people. Some witnesses have been tough, difficult to schedule. Just today, they announced that three witnesses who were supposed to come this week have now been delayed, in part because of memorial services for the late Congressman Elijah Cummings. So Democrats had hoped this would all be done, but this could potentially slip into past Thanksgiving, maybe even up until around Christmastime, for the House to consider this. And remember, also, Jake, the committees are expected to write a report detailing their recommendations. All of this could take some time. So we're only in the first phase of this investigation. Then we have the votes in the House to impeach the president, assuming they go that route, and, of course, then the Senate trial, which could take several weeks, Wolf -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: Manu Raju, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Also today, we have some breaking news, brand-new reporting about perhaps the key witness in the impeachment inquiry who is set to testify, testify tomorrow. That key witness is Bill Taylor. He is the top American diplomat in Ukraine. Taylor, you might remember, sent text messages suggesting that he was opposed to the -- what he saw as a direct quid pro quo, military aid from the U.S., in exchange for Ukraine conducting political investigations to help President Trump. Sources tell CNN that Taylor was concerned about taking this job to begin with. Let's bring in CNN national security reporter Kylie Atwood, who's breaking this news for us. Kylie, why was Taylor so concerned and worried about taking this job with the Trump administration?</s>KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, he was pulling out of retirement to take this job, right? And he came in at a very tenuous moment. That's because the former ambassador had been ousted early. She was kicked out of her job, we now know, for political reasons, because Trump wanted her ousted. So when he was asked to take the job, he -- the folks who came to him included Secretary Pompeo, Kurt Volker. They had a meeting with him at the State Department in which they tried to convince him to take the job. They pressed him that there was solid U.S.-Ukraine policy in place, that it wasn't politically motivated. And even after that meeting, however, he still wasn't ready. He still needed to be convinced. He texted with Kurt Volker, who was the special envoy to Ukraine at the time, saying, hey, why don't you take this job if it's so great? And Kurt Volker said to him, listen, I have got it covered. I have the Washington element of this covered. I have the international element. We need someone like you on the ground there. Now, he was, Bill Taylor, the former ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009. He's widely trusted in the State Department, in foreign policy circles. So when he did finally take the job, there was a sigh of relief from folks who know U.S.-Ukraine policy well. But, of course, now it's going to be a pivotal, pivotal moment to hear from him, because he, as you said, is the one who suggested that there was a quid pro quo. And he texted the U.S. ambassador to the E.U., saying it would be crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. He got a response saying that he had misunderstood something. The question is, what did he misunderstand? And how is he going to explain that to lawmakers tomorrow?</s>TAPPER: Yes, those text messages read like somebody trying to secure and provide a paper trail for his objections because he doesn't like what's going on.</s>ATWOOD: Exactly.</s>TAPPER: Kylie Atwood, thank you so much. Coming up: President Trump just did something that we have rarely seen him do -- why it could be a big lesson for Republicans. Then, a tweet put an end to his wild ride in the Trump administration, and now the former head of the VA is telling all about what it was really like to work for President Trump. You're watching a special edition of</s>THE LEAD: "White House in Crisis." Stay with us.