medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. go on with your bad self. you may pay as little as zero dollars for botox®. ask your doctor about botox® for chronic migraine. you got this. the impeachment inquiry goes public. >> those open hearings will be an opportunity for the american people to learn firsthand about the facts of the president's misconduct. >> you know what it is, really? it's a crooked deal. plus the top aids refusing to testify, for now anyway. >> it seems that nobody has any firsthand knowledge. there is no firsthand knowledge. all that matters is one thing, the transcript. and the transcript is perfect. and the 2020 wild card, michael bloomberg plots a late entry, leaving -- believing the

democrats already running can't beat donald trump. >> i have no problem with him getting in the race. >> i don't think that big money ought to be able to buy our elections. "inside politics," the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. to our viewers in the united states and around the world, thank you for sharing your sunday. the trump impeachment inquiry goes public this week, a new critical and unpredictable chapter of enormous consequence. partisan tensions are highment just late saturday the democratic chairman leading the hearings rejected a republican request to force testimony from the whistle-blower, whose anonymous complaint started all of this. there is no doubt president trump directed his personal attorney to run a rogue policy that angered politics across the

government. and there's no doubt it was born of a conspiracy theory and vendettas. the challenge is to prove it was outside of normal lines and an abuse of power and contrary to national security interest that it warrants the house impeaching the president and then asking the senate to remove him from office. impeachment is a political test, not a legal trial and the president at the center of it all knows public opinion is a giant factor. >> i'm not concerned about anything. the testimony has all been fine. every one of those people testified absolutely fine for me. they've gone out and they've gone out of their way to find the people that hate donald trump, president trump, the most. they put them up there. everybody has been absolutely fine. >> more proof there in the president's words of his casual relationship with the truth. the three witnesses on tap to kick off the public hearings paint a picture that is anything but absolutely fine. veteran diplomats william

taylor, george kent and marie yovanovitch told congress their efforts to help the government in ukraine, fight corruption and fight russian military aggression were stymied, because they were told ukraine gets nothing until they agreed to demands. and they were to investigate joe biden and his son hunter, who served on the board of the ukrainian energy company. taylor still the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine told congress, quote, that was my understanding. security assistance money would not come until the president committed to pursue the investigation. kent, a top state department official put it this way, quote, i had concerns that there was an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both the ukraine and the u.s. and yovanovitch who was removed as the u.s. ambassador to ukraine after a giuliani smear pain told them, quote, this is not a policy goal, something

that is in the interest of all of us, but it was a partisan game. joining us is julie pace of the associated press, michael of the new york times and abby phillip and jackie kucinich of the daily beast. the challenge for the democrats is to take this public and to prove this is not just trump being trump or being different, this is not just trump being disruptive. this is corrupt and an abuse of power. the question is are they ready to do that? >> their strategy is basically to put people forward who don't come from a political background and hope that people watching these hearings on television throughout the next couple of weeks look at these people as credible and see them as beyond politics, they see them as career officials who have the best interests of the nation at heart, and not the interest of the democrats or republicans. i think that there are some challenges in doing that, because you're not just going to have these hearings happening in isolation. you're going to have them happening against the background

of president trump's tweets and his public comments, a really coordinated effort by his allies to try to discredit not just the information, but their backgrounds and their own motivations. so i do think that while democrats hope that this is a game-changer, the fact that this will be happening on television and people can judge for themselves, there's going to be a lot of effort under way to try to diminish the credibility of these witnesses. >> and in addition to the credibility of the witnesses, the republicans believe that the mountain of evidence that the democrats have assembled, which is, you know, extensive, we've all been reporting about it. but the republicans who i've talked to over the course of the last several days, believe it doesn't make the final leap very well. that it doesn't connect the dots directly to the president as well as the democrats would hope that it would. that it has a lot of information about rudy giuliani, a lot of information about some of these other kind of rogue players who were conducting a shadow foreign

policy, but there's less well-defined kind of evidence that the president himself did some of this. and the call with the president of ukraine notwithstanding, there are some pieces of that. but the republicans are pretty confident, if you talk to them they were somewhat kind of back on their heels a few weeks ago. they feel much more optimistic now that they can poke enough holes in this that at least in public opinion -- they still assume the democrats will go ahead and impeach the president, but at least in the court of public opinion that there will be enough doubt. >> it's an interesting argument that the president is not responsible for the things done by a whole bunch of people working for the president, including his personal attorney. to your point there, which makes curious, you heard the president at the open of the program, no firsthand knowledge, which makes it curious that his former security adviser and chief of staff are hinting they have important information but they won't testify unless a court tells them to. this is john bolton, his attorney sent a letter up to congress because they decided

not to subpoena him. ambassador bolton was personally involved in many of the events, meetings and conversations about which you have already received testimony, as well as many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed in the testimony so far. bolton's lawyer teasing that. mick mulvaney trying to join a lawsuit against the president. his attorney says both in his capacity as the acting white house chief of staff and as the director of office and budget, mulvaney meant directly on a frequent and regular basis and implemented president trump's plans. why are they teeasing us that they have this information? >> and you would think that if the information that they had was helpful to the president, they would be eager to go before congress to put that out there, to muddy the waters and make this case more difficult for democrats to make. but they're not. they're trying to use a case that is moving somewhat slowly through the courts, although it could move a little bit faster

depending on the strength of the evidence that it needs to move quickly. but i also think that a lot of these folks are looking for an out. particularly bolton. it's not clear to me what mulvaney's strategy is here, except to kind of be protected by the lawsuit for the time being. but bolton clearly is looking for a way to kind of not have to be the one -- not have it look like he's so eager to go before congress to hurt the president. but if he has to do it, making it clear that the information that he has is of value and relevant in this particular case. he also has a book coming out, so i think that there's a lot of personal interest on bolton's part to really hype up what he has to share here. and he left that white house not on great terms with the president. so he's not particularly interested in protecting the president. even if he might not want to go out of his way to seem like he's trying to damage him. >> but mulvaney, we saw through

the transcripts that were released last week, has become more and more central, particularly to the holding up of the aid. he is the one who delivered the message from the president that the aid was going to be -- was being held up. so i believe it was kent's deposition, as well as taylor's, put mulvaney right in the middle of everything in a way that we didn't have visibility in. >> several witnesses, kent and taylor will tee it off. the question is what is the second round of witnesses? because the president says they went out and found a whole bunch of people who hate trump. fiona hill, a long-time republican staff, she testified ambassador sondland in front of the ukrainians was talking about how he had an agreement with ukrainians if they were going to go forward with investigation. but hill says bolton says you go and tell john eisen berg i am not part of this drug deal, that sondland and mulvaney are cooking up.

to mulvaney critical to it. >> sondland who the president does not know very well at this point. >> quote unquote, says i don't know the gentleman. he was not with trump at the beginning of the campaign, donated to the inauguration. alexander vindman, a lieutenant colonel, purple heart recipient in iraq. ambassador sondland relatively quickly went into outlining the deliverable for the investigations. he just said that he had a conversation with mulvaney and this was required to get a meeting. it became crystal clear the hold came from the chief of staff's office, the hold being on the military assistance passed by congress. so the chief of staff, who in his briefing in the white house, public briefing that he tried to take back, said yes, we had a quid pro quo. so what? get over it. >> this is what makes -- and i know we'll talk more. but this is what makes this argument that the president basically had no idea what was going on, this was sort of an operation happening around him and he had no involvement in it.

really hard to believe, because why would mick mulvaney have, one, been authorizing all of these conversations privately, and then two, have gone into the white house briefing room and said the same thing publicly if this wasn't the line, if this wasn't the white house position on this? i do think that one of the things that the white house and republicans are going to have to grapple with, however much they don't want to, is this happened and it appears as though everyone was on board with this plan at high levels. they're going to have to argue that it's okay, essentially. >> right, that it's not impeachable. >> exactly. >> that's where we're going to gechlt they have not gotten there yet, but the republicans by the end of the week are probably going to say some bad things happened, but you're not going to impeach a president about this. again, back to the point that they went out and found a whole bunch of people who hate trump. sondland originally said -- he was asked you never thought there was a precondition for the aid, is that correct? >> no, i was dismayed when it

was held up but i didn't know why. then he said in the absence for any credible, i assumed it was held up. the question is when do the democrats build the case and when is he in the witness chair? >> i think it's a really important question, because sondland's motivations are a little up in the air right now. it remind me of a part of his testimony where he's being questioned by a republican and the republican lawmaker is pushing him to claim that all of this was like perfecly normal and just the way that u.s. foreign policy runs and his response is this is basically keystone cops, this is not how this works. so there were definitely points where sondland himself was aware that something odd was going on. whether or not he's willing to connect the president, whether he has information actually that does that, is really an open question. are there more examples like

that where he testified to things that he needs to revise, because he wasn't being fully truthful is first time is another big question. up next, the president's impeachment defense and his defenders.

the president's impeachment defense is, to be polite, constantly evolving. complaints that it's all behind closed doors are moot. complaints republicans had no rights in those closed proceedings are now exposed by the transcripts to be lies. also a lie is the president's claim that democrats went looking for witnesses who hate him. all of the witnesses work or worked in the trump administration. those who are career officials were put or kept in their roles by trump loyalists. and fast fading is the argument that there's no there-there. the 2600 plus pages of transcript testimony released so far make clear that serious policy people in ukraine, at the state department and in the west

wing complained the rogue ukraine policy was wrong. counter to u.s. national security interests, and possibly illegal. so one big question for the public phase now is how will the president and his allies defend against the corruption case? one piece of the strategy is defiance. a dozen administration officials with knowledge of key he vents are refusing to testify, including mick mulvaney. >> i don't want to give credibility to a corrupt witch hunt. i would love to have mick go up, frankly. i think he would do great. i would love to have him go up. i like to have the people go up. except one thing, it validates a corrupt investigation. >> another piece of the strategy highlighted in the "washington post" this past week is to suggest that if anything improper did happen, someone other than the president is responsible. >> you all want to make a big deal out of mr. sondland's presumption. he says it was his presumption.

>> any private attorney you would assume would make conversations based on that, but i also know rudy giuliani well enough to know that there's a whole lot of things that he does that doesn't surprise anybody. >> we touched on this a bit. but is that where we're going? that if the testimony is come telling that they call it a quid pro quo, some democrats say we don't want to use that term, call it extortion. call it what you will. this all happened, but the president's hands are clean, they were people free-lancing. >> part of what the republicans are going to do is just throw up a lot of attempts to kind of muddy the waters. there's a wonderful moment in one of the transcripts of the bill taylor deposition where he testifies about something that the president said to zelensky, the president of ukraine, and lee stops him and says wait a minute, your testimony is that this person said to that person and that person said to that

person and isn't that right where your information comes from. and taylor says that's correct. and that's the kind of muddying the waters, making it clear that a lot of these conversations that these people are testifying to are second-hand or third-hand and they're going to hope that that clouds the information that we've all seen. >> that's why trump probably doesn't really want mulvaney to go up there or john bolton. >> or mulvaney's chief of staff or deputy at the office of management and budget. so the president likes to say read the transcript. he's trying to make this about one transcript. it's about months and months and months of work, it's about rudy giuliani working behind-the-scenes. but if you take the president's advice, rudy giuliani, well, he's that kind of a guy, he might have been free-lancing for his own personal interest. the president of the united states, his own words, quote, rudy very much knows what's happening and he's a very capable guy. i will have rudy give you a call and i'm also going to have attorney general barr call. we will get to the bottom of it. i'm sure you will figure it out.

that is the president of the united states on the transcript he says we should read, making it clear to the president of ukraine rudy is his guy. >> this reminds me of how trump dealt with his former personal attorney michael cohen and the hush money payments. for a long time the argument was michael cohen was just free-lancing, he just did this to try to protect the president. he's a loyal soldier, but the president didn't ask him to do any of this. that turned out to be completely untrue the more that we dug into the evidence and then michael cohen turned around and testified i did this at the direction of president trump. he pulled out a check transcript and all kinds of things. so it's a very similar strategy that republicans are leaning on that somehow everybody is doing things to just get ahead of the president's needs and desires. but the other person who is also going to approve this to be untrue is rudy giuliani himself, who is embroiled in a separate criminal case and is trying to tie himself to president trump. trying to say everything that i did, i did on behalf of my

client, donald trump. and if that is the case, giuliani is going to have to prove it. he's going to have to show that trump was in fact his client and that he was doing it in a legal capacity. so i think that's going to start to muck up the case that republicans are trying to make that the president somehow had absolutely no idea what was going on here. >> and i don't understand how that's even really good for the president, except it might save him some -- because he didn't like when the "wall street journal" editorialized that he wasn't smart enough to do any of this. so he doesn't like looking like he's completely out of the loop either. so how long he would allow that narrative to be pushed forward, that all of these things were going on and he just didn't know. >> he doesn't want republicans to defend him on the substance of this. he doesn't like this defense of it being a sort of rogue operation. he looks at that transcript and he looks at a lot of these activities that were happening with rudy and others in the administration and says, hey, guys, what's the problem here, why don't you defend me on this? all i wanted to do was get to

the root of what happened in 2016. >> the president said he believes that it is fine to take information like this from foreign governments, right after the mueller report came out he gave an interview and he said that on the record. i would look at the information first and then maybe i would report it to the fbi. this is that idea in action and that's why the president wants the substance to be defended. >> as the republicans try to defend hip, one of the things they did was submit a witness list. the democrats have to approve it. on the witness list, hunter biden, devin archer, the whistle-blower, and then a number of others. that is a rabbit hole or worse. those are past people who have nothing to do with this. which raises the question, chairman schiff has already said you're not getting the whistle-blower, we're not unmasking the whistle-blower in these hearings. are these legitimate witnesses or is this the republican pig pen strategy, throw up a lot of dust? >> this is where democrats have

to be a little carol. no democrat wants to have hunter biden go testify in public right now or even behind closed doors and the democrats, because of the way this process runs, can block that from happening. the senate trial is a different story. but i do think that democrats have to take into consideration how do they try to make this process not look partisan, not look political. and that actually is quite difficult when we're in a situation where the only votes to move this process forward were democratic votes. >> to your point, curt volker did testify he was not aware of a quid pro quo. that's how he put it. he also said some damning things about giuliani. so in some ways he helps the president's case and in other ways he hurts. yes, it's crowded but michael bloomberg looks at the 2020 democratic field and sees someone or something missing. president trump has a very different opinion. >> he's not going to do well but i think he's going to hurt biden actually. little michael will fail. he'll spend a lot of money. nobody i would rather run against than little michael.

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michael bloomberg says he is ready to run, but he plans to skip the first four 2020 democratic contests. that's a risky strategy and it's a big bet on a biden collapse. let's take a look at the state of the democratic race. this is a national poll, averaging out the last five or

six national polls. biden on top and elizabeth warren right on his heels. bernie sanders, you might call that the top tier, the top three. mayor beauttigieg and senator harris rounding out. bloomberg says the voters maybe don't want them. if you look at the states, there's some evidence that democrats haven't warmed completely to this new field. look at the battleground state polling. a lot of don't knows. 31% in arizona, 29% in florida, 23% in michigan, you see pennsylvania and wisconsin. biden, warren, sanders at the top of the pack. but bloomberg can say they've been running for months and roughly a third of democrats don't know, they're still looking for somebody else. that's one piece of the scenario. could he run in a democratic field? you think of the party drifting to the left. bloomberg actually fits if he runs. democrats were asked if you want someone who fights for a progressive agenda. a third say that.

six in ten day can find common ground with republicans. do you want someone to be more liberal, four in ten day that. blood berg is progressive on guns and climate, but he's more moderate in other issues. look, joe biden, very well liked by democrats, likely caucus goers. bloomberg, split opinion. almost 40% said they had an unfavorable view. he would have to get the party to warm to him. fox news in a poll last week asked do you want another democratic in the race and, if so, what do you think of? 50% say they would definitely vote for michelle obama. 27% said they would vote if hillary clinton made a run. only 6% of democrats said they would definitely vote for michael bloomberg and nearly a third said never. so there's a challenge for bloomberg as he plans to get into the race. he's beth on a biden collapse. joe biden says come on in, mike.

>> i think he should jump in the race. he's a good guy. he's done a lot of good andl, a let's see what happens. >> and the notion that the current field is not prepared to beat donald trump, which is what is motivating him? >> i've noticed that every single poll that's run i've beat him like a drum and states in the south and states in the midwest. so look, if he wants to run, he should just get in and run. personally? >> no, no, no. >> yes, he is. on the one hand it's ludicrous, you can skip the first four contests and say here i am to save the party. on the other hand, if you have a split verdict, the other candidates are going to be draining all their money and michael bloomberg can write himself a check as we get into the bigger states. is it ludicrous or is it real? >> it's ludicrous.

i mean, really. you just showed the numbers. 6% of democrats said they wanted michael bloomberg, they would vote for him, versus 32% who said never. i think that that's a clear sign that this is not -- the democratic primary politics, you have to actually win the primary. if we were running sort of like a popular vote election and you just could kind of campaign wherever you wanted and pick up votes wherever you wanted, all the way until you go up against trump in november, that would be fine. but you have to win the democratic primary and it's going to be very difficult to do that. if you don't know which pockets of the democratic party you appeal to. just because democrats want a moderate doesn't mean that they want a billionaire new yorker -- who doesn't have a good look with black voters. >> fewer than 5% of the delegates will be chosen in the first contest and then you get into the blur where you have super tuesday and second super

tuesday. if you can write yourself a check and be on television, you can make a difference. to the billionaire point, sanders and warren say, mike, please get in. this is great for us. >> i don't think that big money ought to be able to buy our elections. and that's true whether we're talking about billionaires or corporate executives that fund pacs or big lobbyists. >> tonight we say to michael bloomberg and other billionaires, sorry, you ain't gonna buy this election. >> but donald trump, who is nowhere near as rich as michael bloomberg is president of the united states. how big is that slice of the primary electorate? bloomberg says money doesn't grow on trees, but he's been ahead of the party on immigration and climate change. he just had success in the

virginia elections on gun control. >> there was a great column this morning about this. the candidate that bet everything on gun control, beto o'rourke is out of the race. the climate that bet everything on climate change is out of the race. there are moderate candidates, there are people who support what mike bloomberg has spent all this money on across the field. so it's unclear what void he is filling in this contest, and even the billionaire lane is kind of full, right? >> he's making an assumption right now, which is that joe biden is going to collapse. joe biden has not collapsed. we've been talking about this through the summer and into the fall that joe biden is going to have this big stumble. his poll numbers are gone down, but he's still at the top of the pack. bloomberg is basically looking at this and hearing from a lot of people who say if this really does happen, warren and sanders are going to fill the void and

they don't think they're electable. it works under a couple of big assumptions that haven't happened yet, but he again is hearing from a lot of people who say elizabeth warren candidacy would be a loser against donald trump. >> so you raise a great point. how much of this is what america wants and what the democratic party wants, and how much of it is new york and washington conversations. just reading the newspaper here, "washington post," names being floated as potential candidates include former massachusetts governor and former u.s. attorney general, and former secretary of state, has also been mentioned. although people close to him insist he will not enter the race. hillary clinton was fielding calls in recent days about whether to get into the race, some close to her said. huh? >> i'm going to go out on a limb. hillary clinton will not be running for president this year at any point. >> there's a difference between those people fielding calls, which is certainly happening, and those people actually taking steps. >> and the truth is, as much as

i think the idea of skipping these states is, as you said, ludicrous, i do think that if all of the things come to pass and what you end up with after those four states is really just bernie sanders and elizabeth warren and the rest of the pack has completely fallen apart, there is a clammering and an opening for some other ideological filling. whether it's michael bloomberg who is that person, hard to say. but that is not a scenario that is impossible, that that's where we will be. >> because if he spends the money while the first four contests are playing out, if he's on tv in all the other states, even the other candidates, maybe they could raise money. but if you're not up and running that takes time. and the super tuesday and the second super tuesday come like that. >> billionaires are always very stingy with their money. does he want to spend it on

this? it's hundreds of millions of dollars. >> voters do matter here because i'm old enough to remember when never trumpers were going to find someone to run against donald trump if he was the eventual nominee and here we are. >> there's no substitute for genuine enthusiasm. >> that's an excellent point. our sunday trail mix is next, including the squad splitting when it comes to picking a 2020 nominee. plus trump takes in the alabama football game. about making choices. well i didn't choose metastatic breast cancer. not the exact type. not this specific mutation. but i did pick hope... ...and also clarity... ...by knowing i have a treatment that goes right at it.

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sending their support to warren. senator bernie sanders touting a score of his own with alexandria ocascio-cortez. she was headed to iowa and promoting sanders as the most progressive choice. across the ail, a one-time member of president trump's squad. the former jeff sessions making it official, announcing a run for his old senate seat. his message, i'm still team trump. but at least for now, the president not so sure. >> have i said a crossword about our president? not one time. the president is doing a great job for america and alabama, and he has my strong support. >> i haven't gotten involved. i saw he said very nice things about me last night. we'll have to see. i haven't made a determination. up next, the president's impeachment anger and what to expect as the hearings go

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trump crisis play book. >> i'm not concerned about anything. the testimony has all been fine. i mean, for the most part i've never even heard of these people. i have no idea who they are. it seems that nobody has any firsthand knowledge. they shouldn't be having public hearings. this is a hoax. let me just say i hardly know the gentleman, but this is the man who said there was no quid pro quo. i'd like to have the people go up, except one thing, it validates a corrupt investigation. >> a tack and distract are trump trademarks and his words and tweets in recent days show a president who is angry at the

impeachment proceedings and determined to undermine them. when the gavel opens the first public hearing on wednesday, they will be 42 days from christmas, 49 from the dawn of 2020, and 356 days from the next presidential election. and just a week removed from 2019 election headlines, reminding the president his path to reelection is narrow. and his presidency is exacting a herve oh tol on fellow republicans, especially in america's growing suburbs. the question is if you look at the tweets and his words, he watches everything. as these hearings play out, what are we going to see from the president when people who work for him say on national television this was wrong? >> i think we are going to see an aggressive, largely twitter-based strategy from this president. he believes in the people closest to him do believe actually that he's his best defender. that runs counter to the advice that we've seen other presidents in similar situations and in other moments of crisis get from people. but they believe that this

president has a special ability to communicate with his core supporters to try to persuade them that everything that is being said about him is politically motivated and just aimed at trying to take him down. i do think that the bigger question is, is that strategy is right one for him to win reelection, to convince people who are possibly swing voters, who are republicans who have just been put off by all of the controversy over the last couple of years that they should stick with him and do four more years of this. >> to that point, the president's base, impeachment is not a legal trial. the president's number one strategy is keep your voice. so in alabama yesterday we checked in with some trump voters and they're on board. >> he told the president to take a look at biden, his misdeeds, while he was in office. if he was corrupt, he was corrupt. put him in jail. >> did you vote for trump in 2016? >> absolutely and i'll vote for him again, even if i've got to go in a wheelchair. >> it's just crazy.

there's no basis for it. >> do you think he's being treated fairly? >> i don't, no. >> what is your understanding of what the impeachment inquiry is about? >> made-up stuff. we have the transcripts. read the transcripts. >> it is remarkable to be a conversation in washington, we'll be watching whether republicans are going to split, whether any republican senators say we need to be thinking about it. out in the country his base is loyal. the question is, is it enough? >> yeah, and also i mean, i think that there are times when the president is not his own best defender, when he goes too far and when he's following maybe the fox news chatter, like with alexander vindman, the colonel who came in uniform to testify, starts questioning his patriotism. there are lines still that exist in politics and some of these republican lawmakers who represent -- who might still represent red states, but whose constituents are not on board with going too far in a certain way in politics, will speak up.

just like you saw liz cheney do. so these people that we just heard from, they're important, but there are quite a few people on the margins in middle states that we need to pay attention to. >> how does he react when people on his payroll say it was him. hill was talking about an argument she was having with amd sondland, he told me he was in charge of ukraine. i said who put you in charge of ukraine, gordon. he said the president. that shut me up, because you can't really argue with that. >> again, as we talked about earlier, that takes away the argument that the president had nothing to do with this. but as abby said, this doesn't have as much to do with the president's base as republicans who might not be happy with what the president did to the kurd in syria. this could be another straw for someone who doesn't like how the president addresses people from day to day. those are the folks we should be focusing on. >> our reporters share from their net works, including that lawmakers need to strike a deal

to keep the government funded, even as they fight over impeachment. do you have concerns about mild memory loss related to aging? prevagen is the number one pharmacist-recommended memory support brand. you can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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inside politics table. to share something from the notebooks to get you ahead of the politically news. >> there is one little thing they need to do is keep the government open. >> oh, that. >> just that small thing. government spending runs out on november 21st and president trump kept open the possibility of having a shutdown but realistically there is very little appetite on capitol hill from republicans or democrats to have a government shutdown and the big question is how do they

get out of it. they will kick the can down the road. an pick your poison. do we do it in the end of the year when we are still dealing with impeachment and push them deeper into next year in the middle of the presidential election. >> fun. >> good option. >> your government at work. michael. >> on tuesda the supreme court will have oral arguments in one of the biggest cases this term. the president's decision to end the daca program. that obama-era program and the president ended it saying it was unconstitution unconstitutional and the question is whether the president didn't give a policy reason to end the program. lower courts have said just that and legal experts say it is the big huge weakness at the center of the government's case if the supreme court just is -- justices agree it could be one of the biggest legal defeats in his term and th answer will

come in june just at the start of the general election but we may get a hint at where the justices are going on tuesday. >> something else to watch this week. a busy week. >> in the democratic field, some of the private frustrations that the campaigns have been feeling have been spilling out into public view on whether or not you can be the nominee without getting support from minority voters. that has been directed at pete buttigieg's campaign and polling in the low single-digits among african-american voters and i'm told from campaign aides they're planning to roll out surrogates from his home town of south bend to ged ahead of the line of attack from the other campaigns that have been directed at him. but as we approach the next debate i expect this to be a big issue going forward. many campaigns, harris and booker and castro are trying to get the attention of the media saying you can't treat certain people like front-runners if they're not doing well among minority voters. >> watch that play out. all politics is local.

i read that somewhere. >> so after reading various transcripts and seeing the effort by republican lawmakers and council to out the whistle-blower i call the government accountability project to see if this individual has any recourse by the fact this is happening and the answer was not by the federal whistle-blower law. but d.c. is one of the few jurisdictions where they could seek relief from the effort to out them. and what they would do is they file a first amendment suit in district court seeking injunctive relief including a temporary restraining order against revealing their identity. there is no indication this happened but not surprising how high the stakes are. >> interesting to watch. the republicans want to out, the president from time to time. we'll keep an eye on that. i'll close with two nonimpeachment warning signs to the president and his reelection campaign. the suburban revolt against trumpism is growing and if you look at tuesday in the philadelphia suburbs it is a reminder that pennsylvania and the 20 electoral votes will be

tough especially if he faces stress in rural areas. 15% said tariffs are helping and 48% in wisconsin said they hurt and only 14% said help. and in michigan 14% help and 41% hurt. and yesterday president said china needs a trade deal more than he does but china doesn't have real elections or an electoral college. catch us week days at noon eastern. a busy week ahead. stay with us. "state of the union" with jake tapper is up next and his guests include senator amy klobuchar and ron johnson. thanks for sharing your sunday. have a great day. er five hundred frames. why are you so weird? for a limited time, get two complete pairs for $49. really. visionworks. see the difference. unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans come with a lot to take advantage of.

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♪ we needed somebody to lean on ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ all we need is someone to lean on ♪ wall to wall. the impeachment inquiry enters a new public phase. americans will hear for themselves the allegations against president trump. >> i'm not concerned about anything. >> will televised hearings change that? and the buck stops where? top officials suggest that the quid pro quo went all the way up to the white house acting chief of staff. >> we do that all of the time. get over it. >> and a former adviser signals he could reveal new information. so who was directing the u.s. stance toward ukraine? i'll speak to ron johnson next. plus room to grow. a surprise announcement shakes up t