CNN’s Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto seemed literally taken aback on Thursday when they offered initial reactions to President Donald Trump openly suggesting another country should investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

As the Ukraine firestorm continues to swirl around Trump, the president told the White House press pool that China “should start an investigation into the Bidens.” Trump is already facing an impeachment inquiry after it was just revealed that he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into doing the exact same thing.

“Well, there you have it,” Sciutto said at the end of Trump’s press scrum. “The president, who is being investigated by the House for pressuring a foreign leader to investigate his potential political opponent, has just in plain sight has asked two countries to investigate his political opponent. Not just Ukraine, saying absolutely he thinks they should investigate, but China as well.”

Sciutto continued by predicting that the Chinese will use this as a “bargaining chip” in their delegation’s upcoming meeting with Trump over the U.S.-China trade war. As Sciutto and opened up discussions to his fellow panelists, Dana Bash called Trump’s remarks “so stunning” and called it “the biggest piece of evidence we have to date that Donald Trump doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong.”

“He is playing by his own rules and frankly he’s playing a different game than everybody else is in Washington who adheres to the basics of the Constitution,” Bash said. “He does not. He just doesn’t think he did anything wrong.”

Sciutto remained involved in the conversation as he navigated the CNN panel, and he eventually expressed his astonishment that Trump would ask a country like China to investigate his political opponents.

“It’s an authoritarian state,” Sciutto exclaimed. “I lived there a couple years, covered it for decades. It kills and imprisons political opponents, it has no credible rule of law.”

Watch above, via CNN

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