>> brennan: welcome back to "face the nation". we turn now to a democratic member of the house intelligence committee, indiana congressman mike quigley, 52 good to have te you here. >> is it okay if i leave my jacket on? >> brennan: yes. this is fine. >> i am from the, i am not from chicago, but illinois. >> brennan: i am sorry. the point that i want to get to today with the testimony that happened behind closed doors with holmes, do you think he is going to sit and answer public questions in front of the cameras? >> it is always a decision i don't get to make. i think it makes sense, i think there is something very compelling about what he had to say. the first is, he accentuated the fact the president was saying he doesn't care about ukraine. he said it in a rather course

manner, but i think it is important, and all he was asking about was the investigations. i think that explains why this all happened, why the president was involved with this scheme. >> brennan: this is testimony holmes delivered behind closed doors. >> right. but. >> brennan: not released publicly and implicates gordon sondland someone we will hear from this week, the eu ambassador, is sondland the only witness the democrats have who can directly implicate the president here? >> other than mr. mulvaney and others who already have. >> brennan: none of them are testifying. >testifying. >> other than the president -- well, mulvaney in a press conference had a striking the admission, so i think it is easy to forget what we already have in the public's domain, the fact that the -- mr. mulvaney said in channeling his inner jack nicholson, almost you are damned right i did. >> brennan: he said that later -- >> i think under the heat you often a tell a more likely tell the truth. >> brennan: do you believe

that gordon sondland is a credible witness? >> i believe that every witness should be given every opportunity to tell the truth. >> brennan: he revised his statement which is why i asked that. >> it is never too late to tell the truth other than perhaps for roger stone. >> brennan: which we will get to later on in the show, but i want to stay on the house intelligence committee and issues you are handling. the president tweeted over the weekend 0 about three of the diplomats who testified. he suggested that they should be dismissed. he also tweeted during the hearing about am bass door yovanovitch, do you see this as adding up to witness intimidation? >> when the hearing began, ambassador yovanovitch began to testify, i thought there is no way the republicans will go after this, if anything they are they arego to try to diminish tn that there was a smear campaign against her, and as she was testifying that she felt threatened by the president's remarks, which i understand, the

president continues the smear think when the president says he has a right to pull back ambassadors at any time, they serve at his will, that's absolutely true. but he doesn't -- that can't be part of a corrupt scheme, i think that is what we saw here. the fact is that the president disagrees with you or you don't cheer on the president of the united states, he comes after you and the rule of law is left behind. >> brennan: but not necessarily witness with intimidation? you are not going there in terms of -- >> no, sir it is part of a pattern of witness intimidation. what did he say about mr. cohen, he was a rat, he was talking like a mobster, what did he say about mr. mann forth? he was a good guy because he wasn't cooperating. that's witness intimidation. >> brennan: we now know from another white house official timor son who testified that there was a meeting between former national security advisor john bolten and president trump specifically about releasing the aid. why not wait for john bolton to testify? the courts can't get to it until

december. >> i flip it, why not -- why is it mr., why isn't mr. bolton testifying? why wasn't he whistleblower? he thought rudy giuliani was a hand grenade, if he was so offended and he was so offended he called it a drug deal, these other folks with lesser power, you can argue, came forward and risked a lot to tell the american people -- >> brennan: wouldn't you make your argument that much stronger since he could deliver this to the president's door. >> with the amount of evidence we have right now, any single witness is going to be essential, that without them we wouldn't know what took place. i would love to hear from mr. bolton, i would love to hear from mr. mulvaney, for those republicans seeming to imply they want the americans to know everything, well then why are they blocking their testimony. >> brennan:. >> we have seen how damaging through the testimony and through the transcripts that these witnesses have been. they want no part of it. >> brennan: have you heard enough at this point to vote for articles of impeachment? >> i believe that the special

counsel, mr. -- detailed obstruction at least 10 or 11 counts that were so severe that he would have indicted the president of the united states if it wasn't for the doj rulings that you can't. the fact of the matter is, the preset,bructed justice and that's an article of impeachment. >> brennan: and you are ready to vote for it. all right. thank you very much, congressman, we will be right congressman, we will be right back with our cbs news battleground tracker poll. >> tom steyer: wall street banks took advantage

of millions of americans during the recession. so, my wife kat and i took action. we started a non-profit community bank with a simple theory - give people a fair deal and real economic power. invest in the community, in businesses owned by women and people of color, in affordable housing. the difference between words and actions matters. that's a lesson politicians in washington could use right now. i'm tom steyer, and i approve this message. (mom) oh, so cute! (fozzie) ma! (mom) oh honeybear! (fozzie) hey, i'm trying some new material. you think i can run one past you? (mom) oh of course, dear... (fozzie) good good good. [clears throat] so, why do bears wear fur coats? because we'd look silly in sweaters! ahhhh!

(mom) wocka wocka. (fozzie) wocka wocka, ma. (fozzie vo) portal. from facebook. >> brennan: this week the democratic candidates vying to take on president trump on another debate, and our latest cbs news battleground tracker gives us a look at where they stand in the early contests. there are 18 states in our aggregate survey starting with the iowa caucus up through super tuesday. former vice president joe biden is back on top, now at 29 percent support. followed by massachusetts senator elizabeth warren at

26 percent. warren had led last month. behind them, vermont senator bernie sanders is at 18 percent. southbend indiana mayor pete gut gig rosed to nine percent and kamala harris is at seven percent. the remainder of the field colonels in two percent of the vote or less .. joining us to talk about what is happening here is cbs news election and surveys director anthony salvanto. anthony always good to have you here. >> thank you a. >> brennan: so explain what you think happening a here with elizabeth warren. there have been some crit sissments that perhaps she is too progressive, too liberal. is that impacting her? >> well her opponents certainly have leveled those criticisms. it may be having some impact in this sense. we see 36 percent of democrats and in particular those not yet considering her say that her plans would be too liberal to defeat donald trump, only six percent, for example, say that about what they think of joe biden's plans, it is a reminder that throughout this campaign the key criteria for democrats has been trying to

game out who they think can defeat donald trump, there is ht democrats d liz beth warren as a way they don't describe joe biden but more of them also describe her as risky iinin in a way they do not desce joe biden, so to the extent some of these supporters of the candidates have been moving back and forth, this month the ones she lost have gone to either joe biden or also to pete buttigieg and he the mayor of south bend has been getting a lot of attention for moving ahead in two key states. >> right. big move in iowa, we saw that start to happen in the -- at the end of the summer but now he really evolved into what is essentially a tie for the lead there in iowa, also made a big move in new hampshire, now warren is the lead in new hampshire but he is up nine points there and is now into double digits, one of the things that struck me is that he is doing particularly well with people who say they are paying attention to the campaign but

not following it as closely on social media and on twitter. now that could mean that all of th a nnne of tk he isod things that you also found is there is generally satisfaction with the field, so if that is the case, then why are you hearing from potential candidates that they may see an opening? >> yes, it is almost 10 democrats that say they are satisfied with their current crop of candidates and that's higher than that number has been in some recent past elections, but you also see that number one, they are not necessarily set in their choice themselves and i think it is also a function partly of the rules by which i mean this. we asked about mike bloomberg and whether or not voters would consider voting for him and 20 percent said they would. now that is not out of the picture, but it is not the same level that we see for consideration of some of these top tier candidates, having said that, remember, there is a delegate fight and these early a

states don't have that many delegates, they are attention plays and media plays, especially for candidates who arent well-known nationally. but after those early states, the iowa, new hampshire, nevada, south carolina, there are 10 times as many delegates available on super tuesday, so conceivably a candidate could go out there and pick up delegates in those states and pockets of those states normally a candidate needs a lot of money to do that. >> brennan: you are describing mike bloomberg and his strategy is to skip some of these early states we have talked about, the new hampshire and the iowas saying, i don't need it right and get the money -- >> right so if a candidate doesn't need for all of us to go cover their victory speech in iowa or new hampshire, they can go right to super tuesday, that would seem to be a strategy. whether or not it works would be a historic test but a candidate would need a lot of money to do it. >> so in other words, to the question of is it too late, the answer is -- the answer is the rules make it

possible for a candidate with enough money to pick up enough attention after the early states. >> brennan: all right, anthony salvanto, thank you very are onr website as facethenation.com and we will be back in a moment with our political panel. >>

rachael. >> brennan: it is time now for some political analysis on my right we are joined by rachael bade who covers congress for the "washington post", cbs news political correspondent ed o'keefe is also here, molly ball is the national political correspondent at "time" magazine and ramesh ponnuru is a senior editor at the "national review" and a columnist at bloomberg opinion. let's start off on 2020. as you just heard anthony salvanto lay out in the walt ground tracker there is some concern among democrats bernie sanders and elizabeth warren may be too liberal, president obama got something along these lines this week. >> that's right, friday night here in washington at a gathering of liberal donors, didn't call out any specific candidate or idea, but they warned that the country isn't necessarily in the mood to rip up the entire seasonal when it comes to healthcare and immigration so that is kind of availed message to voters in the

democratic activists maybe bernie sanders, elizabeth warren are going going a little too far, not reflect five of what the president said but in te result oe s t last feys, look what happened in louisiana, moderate anti-abowho has distanced himself from national democrats won in a squeaker, just a few days after beshear won as a moderate if the party hopes to win parts of the country that are trickier to prevail this they will have to find a more moderate candidate to do it and the polling is starting to reflect that. >> brennan: it is interesting because speaker pelosi told me something similar on friday when i specifically asked about the signature healthcare issue. listen in. >> and i don't think you can decide in one day that in a matter of days, nobody will hve their private health insurance, i just don't see that as a path, and i do think that people have their exuberance and, what

excites them about running for office and that has to be taken into consideration when they, when there are judgments about their policies because everybody knows once you are elected then you have to work together. >> brennan: so there you hear a master legislator basically saying what you are proposing on the campaign trail is going to be really hard to put through into law. >> yes. i mean pelosi and obama both sending up a red flare right now to these liberals in the 2020 race and this is a woman who 0 comes from san francisco, she is as blue as you can be but also -- she is, you know, taken back the house, she has seen her moderate members take republican districts that trump won in in 2016 and a she knows messages like medicare for all and going to take your health insurance, that scares a lot of with independent voters and a lot of republican voters who are sick of trump and want someone else to vote for but can't see themselves voting for someone like elizabeth warren or bernie sanders who are promote ago lot of free things that people are worried about their own taxes

and what a someone on the otherhat e any y be entering the field that could attract some republican votes? >> i think the more conservative or moderate the democrats choose a nominee the more likelihood they are getting crossover voters, not just republicans but maybe people who voted republican in the past some of the time, voted dependent some of the time but some stances like taking away private health insurance or moving away from enforcement of the immigration laws altogether, those things i think are going to make people not want to cross the aisle and write off so only those democrats candidates what you are seeing in the polling it is a fluid situation because there are these doubts about the top candidates, just a couple of weeks ago people were talking about oh this is really a warren biden race or even warren is the front runner and i think democratic voters are taking a

look and saying not so fast we have some time to make up our finds and have some concerns about who is the right person to doing rump in the first place. >> brennan: and they may have more choice asses we learned this week, deval patrick former governor of massachusetts, and i want to play this sou here, hillary clinton says something kind of mysterious. >> i as i say, never, never, never say never, and i will certainly tell you i am under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it, but as of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you that is absolutely not in my plans. >> brennan: molly, who is pressuring hillary clinton to enter this race? >> apparently some people are, either that or what she learned from running against trump in 2016 is the art of trolling and trolling us all which i think quite possible, because she knows how she makes people's heads explode sort of on both sides, i take her at this word

this is a remote possible possibility if it even exist bus as you mentioned with the other late entrants into the race there is a sense in the democratic establishment, not necessarily the democratic electorate, but the democratic establishment, they are nervous about finding someone to coalesce behind that they see ad think you find this in the electorate, in polls, the vast majority of democratic primary voters are happy with their voice choices. they have an embarrassment of riches. they have 20 odd candidates and what i hear when i am out on the campaign trail talking to voters in places like iowa is, gosh, there are so many great possibilities, it is hard to choose. it is hard, it has been hard for them to narrow down. they don't hate any of these people. they just like somebody better, but that has left the race very fluid and unsettled at a time when i would have expected it to be gelling and coming into focus it seems to be doing the opposite. >> when will mike bloomberg make a decision? >> we are told this morning, margaret he is days away from

making a formal announcement of his decision. >> brennan: announcement of a decision? >> right. >> brennan: but we don't know what the decision is. >> we don't know what the decision is. we. but anybody who puts their name on the ballot now in arkansas and alabama, the earliest filing deadlines and vote on super tuesday and has requested the paperwork from ten th the tennee is certainly signaling he would like to at least load test the theory and has the money to do it, that you can bypass the first four states and focus on the nearly, what sit 13 to 1,500 delegates that are up for grabs on super tuesday and potentially run the table in those states by running big ad keeps and showing up, and you saw when he went to arkansas they were thrilled to see him because they hadn't seen any other candidate so by virtue of showing up he can do that and spend money, perhaps he is able to wait out whoever prevails will the first four states but to molly's point i think it is important to reiterate this, i see it in our reporting, our colleagues who are on the ground in these states see it as well, in polling 78 percent of

democrats in the first 18 states tell us in the battleground tracker they are satisfied with their choices, only 22 percent say they want more choices and only one in five of these democratic primary voters say they would even consider bloomberg as a possible candidate. >> brennan: molly, what are you hearing in terms of how impeachment resonates on the campaign trail? >> well, it is very interesting that there hasn't been a lot of talk about it in the democratic primary because the candidates pretty much all agree that most -- i think practically all of the top democratic candidates are in favor of impeachment before this inquiry was begun and then biden came on board i think last. but the other thing, i have been watching actually more closely is how this works in general elections, right? because as ed mention wed had a couple of gubernatorial races in red states but a lot of plus ster are the president and his people about how impeachment was going to put the republican over the top because it was so going to galvanized republican based voters even if they didn't feel like going out and voting that

would make them get off the couch, that doesn't seem to be the case or it h ough f these republicansouon thh fing up theoters the democratw have more confidence about this not being politically dangerous for them because they haven't seen it affecir candidates in these deep red states. >> brennan: but ramesh, you said with the sentencing and the -- well, seven guilty charges i think against roger stone, the former trump associate this week, you just put that as an exclamation point on wha what wa bad week 0 for 0 the president but for republicans they are able to kind of brush it off. >> well, the strategy is clearly to hold on to base republican voters, not really to influence people who are in the middle maybe and trying to decide what they think of the president, and they are moving from one argument to another trying to come up with some stable frowned from which to defend the president and it is very tricky because the president keeps undermining the defenses. so for example, jim juror dab,

we had on earlier has said earlier this week 0, well, obviously what happened was the president wanted to give the new enhe white houseelease it time,i is first conversation between trump and s se zelensky says you can come visit the white house, he is not giving him time, it is what the really story is here, he is perfectly willing to have him over and then later he decides, oh wait i can use leverage here to get an investigation of the bide dense. >> brennan: and the word corruption was not used in that phone call or the subsequent one in july. >> so that's why they are flailing, they have to keep coming up with new defenses. >> brennan: molly you are writing a book on speaker pelosi. >> i am, out on ail political. >> brennan: what did, ape a political. >> brennan: what did you think of this huge political decision. >> say what you will about speaker pelosi, she is extremely consistent and has been consistent since the beginning of this process, first in

expressing reluctance, she wants the people to know they are not doing this to get the president they don't want to do it but have been forced and that continues to be her line and to keep the focus off partisanship. the fact is this is a partisan impeachment. when they had the vote it was almost purely party line vote, only democrats are for it. they can't do anything about that if the republicans don't want to come along, but she is trying as hard as a she possibly can to cast there in thereon partisan terms, to say, it is about the country, it is about the constitution, and trying to elevate this, and also make it seem like a big deal, i mean this also has been part of the president's defense is just maybe not him but people around him saying this isn't that big of a deal, it might have been bad but not impeachable, there are 30 trump scandals every week why is this different? she is trying to elevate the seriousness, talking about bribery and national security and that's what she is trying to fill in people's minds. >> brennan: rachael is that why i asked the speaker she

didn't want to respond to what the republicans are staying about impeachment? >> yes, no. it was interesting because she did something similar in a press conference this week, particularly regarding the argument that democrats have yet to have a witness who has quote firsthand knowledge, a witness who can say i talked to trump, trump was the one who directed the entire scheme, and, you know, that is a potential vulnerability for democrats, you can't deny that these witnesses, nobody is able to sort of speak to that. however, it is sort of risky for republicans to take this line of attack because this week we are going to see gordon sondland is going to come in to testify, we don't know what he is going to say but this is a guy who has told at least four other witnesses that trump told him that -- was directing the whole scheme the entire time. one even verified it with the white house to make sure he was talking to the white house and not making it up conversation between the president than ambassador so i think it is risky -- respond to it now, next week we could see the tables turn. >> brennan: it is going to be

a very big and busy week for 0 a very big and busy week for 0 all of us. we will be right back. >> i had a sewing machine that was still in the box. i pulled up youtube. i kept watching videos over and over, i finally got to the point where i could make a stitch. and that's how knotzland was born. we make handmade bowties out of repurposed fabrics. because of youtube i'm an entrepreneur. it's been a crazy journey.

>> brennan: recently we talked about the importance of listening to the quiet voices of the public servants being pulled into the spotlight of this impeachment inquiry. we heard three of those voices speak clearly and candidly this week not about politics or partisanship but about their concerns for the trump administration's handling of

foreign policy. they warned that the security of our own democracy is at risk. one moment that stood out to us was the applause and standing ovation for ambassador yovanovitch following her testimony, a sign of respect for public servant at the end of a politically contentious hearing. perhaps people are listening. that's it for us today. a big thank you to the jones day law firm for the facilities here on capitol hill. until next week, for "face the nation", i am margaret brennan. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

from the broadcast center in new york city, i'm omar villafranca. battle lines hardened at the impeachment inquiry witnesses take the hot seat, including a trump donor turned ambassador. >> there was never this quid pro quo. >> this is about our democracy that is at risk with this president. also tonight, the road to 2020. who's up? who's down? a stunning reversal for a controversial police tactic. >> i'm sorry that we didn't. but i can't change history. there is no body, no dna. a sensational murder trial is wrapping up in colorado. new warnings about lasik eye