my thanks to three of the best of the best. and to all of you for watching. that does it for our hour. "mtp daily" starts now with steve kornacki. if it is tuesday, speaker pelosi speaks about the i word. good evening. i am steve kornacki in for chuck todd. welcome to "mtp daily." we're just now getting the first public comments from house speaker nancy pelosi, laying out her party's strategy in response to release of the mueller

report. speaking at the time 100 for i am, struck a dual tone of urgency and caution about going too far. >> this is about being totally free from passion, from prejudice, from politics. it's about the presentation of the facts, and when we have the facts, we'll have a better idea of how we go forward. as an existential threat, this administration to our democracy, in terms of our constitution, article one of the legs lalegis branch spelled out the right to know. i believe impeachment is one of the most divisive paths that we could go down to in our country. but if the facts, the path of fact-finding takes us there, we have no choice. but we're not there yet. zblp the new strategy as outlined by pelosi has democrats

ramping up investigations into the president's conduct in much the way they would if there was an impeachment proceeding, but this is not right now an impeachment proceeding, no votes in the house, nothing being set up now for that. it is a strategy that carries a different set of potential political risks, not to mention moral and ethical questions, especially in light of the emerging viewpoint from nearly every democrat, including those in the 2020 field that president trump crossed a line. >> i believe there is a basis for obstruction of justice and to proceed to impeachment proceedings based on what we know. >> this president and his administration engaged in obstruction of justice. i believe congress should take steps towards impeachment. >> i will say if there are very disturbing things that lead you to believe there's obstruction of justice. >> i think he made it clear he deserves impeachment. i'll leave it.

>> if there's going to be any accountability, that accountability has to come from the congress. and the tool that we are given for that accountability is the impeachment process. >> as pelosi told her caucus, we don't have to go to articles of impeachment to obtain the facts. the white house is making it clear they'll fight these efforts every step of the way. elijah cummings threatening a vote to hold a former adviser in contempt of congress after the white house told him not to comply with the probe. today, white house adviser jared kushner claimed the investigations into russia's 2016 campaign activities and speculation they spawned for the past two years have been more damaging to our democracy than the attacks themselves. >> frankly, the whole thing is a big distraction for the country. you look at what russia did, buying some facebook ads to sew dissent, and it is a terrible thing, but i think the

investigations and all of the speculation happened the last two years had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of facebook ads. i think they spent about 160,000, i spent $160,000 on facebook every three hours. you look at what they accomplished, the ensuing investigations have been way more harmful. >> bring in peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "new york times" and political analyst. and philip bump, "the washington post" political reporter, mara gay, as well. peter, let me start with you in terms of the path forward. looks like nancy pelosi is articulating for democrats. is it fair to say impeachment proceeding that will not be called an impeachment proceeding, will not have an impeachment vote but will have all of the investigative effects of one?

>> yeah, some ways seems like impeachment by any other name, right? there is an important difference though. for one thing calling it impeachment has a different effect in terms of the legal stature that the house would hold if they have to go to court, for instance, to get a hold of documents. if they need to sue bill barr for the unredacted report, they would have a stronger argument if they say we're exercising impeachment authority under the constitution than if they say we're exercising routine oversight authority. that's one difference. largely as a matter of politics, no, feels like an impeachment hearing, looks like impeachment hearing, the question is whether it leads to impeachment. at the moment, odds would seem long for that. nancy pelosi understands you can only win in the senate if you have 20 republican senators change sides. vote against the president. doesn't seem to be a single republican senator open to doing that at the moment. she doesn't want to have acquittal in the senate. >> just trying to interpret what

we heard from nancy pelosi earlier, she talks about in her view impeachment is a divisive step to take. let's let the investigations play out, leave open the possibility. is she essentially saying as democrats go forward with the investigations, unless there is significant change in public opinion, and we could say new poll out today, 34% support for impeachment, more opposition to it, unless numbers change, not going down that road. >> i think that frankly her position and the democrats' position is evolving as new information comes in, but also as polls come out, as the race for 2020 evolves, i think the most important point is, you know, not necessarily whether they officially move forward with impeachment, although that's certainly an important conversation to have, and god knows the president shouldn't get away with us at least having that conversation. but i think the real key is that democrats and republicans, the congress should not allow the

president and this white house to spin the mueller report and the entire ordeal as if it is no big deal. this is allowing republicans in the white house to control the narrative. that time needs to be over. they have no credibility. sarah sanders is a known liar at this point, and there are other known liars in the white house, including the president himself. i think that the democrats need to be extremely aggressive and try to bring republicans on board with just holding them accountable, trying to present the narrative as the mueller report presented it. otherwise, the white house is just going to be allowed to continue to lie. >> in terms of the politics of this, you wrote something interesting today. i want to set you up to talk about that by drawing a parallel that you presented today between benghazi, barack obama was president, hillary clinton was lining up to run in 2016. folks will remember this. this is kevin mccarthy, he was

poised when john boehner was stepping down as speaker to become the next speaker, said this and caused a stir four years ago about benghazi and hillary clinton. >> let me give you one example. everybody thought hillary clinton was unbeatable, right? but we put together a benghazi special committee, a select committee. what are her numbers today? her numbers are dropping. why? because she's untrustable. but no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought. >> that's one of those moments you talk about, reading stage directions out loud. you're basically making the argument today and case today that if you look at benghazi, the political lesson you could draw from that is republicans used their investigative powers through controlling the house to keep that issue alive, to keep the base fired up, to damage hillary clinton politically in advance of 2016. now democrats have the investigative powers, and donald trump in a year and a half has

to face voters. >> but i think there's another lesson from benghazi, which is that they actually uncovered an issue which doomed hillary clinton, which was the private email server. that came out as a function of that investigation into benghazi. that's where the public learned about it, that kicked off the fbi investigation in 2015, that's what led to james comey's last minute announcement that they found other emails. that stemmed from the benghazi investigation. so if you're nancy pelosi and not running for president in 2020, you don't need to appeal to the fervent part of the democratic base now in the way the 2020 candidates do. you can say let's move forward with investigations, let's see what emerges from them. there's almost certainly the case negative things will come out over the course of the investigation, the nature of the investigations. see what stems from that. if necessary, you can get to impeachment down the road but spend the next year digging into various things that could unearth something that weighs in on 2020 anyway. >> you have been arguing the democrats would be politically foolish to go down the impeachment road.

if pelosi is successful here and you've got investigations launched, no impeachment panel or probe, it never comes to that, but the investigation is the way philip is describing proceed the next year, year and a half, does that put them in the same political danger that comes with impeachment or is she finding a middle ground that gets around the risk. >> she's threading the needle well, the problem is she has to navigate her own base and 2020 candidates that are calling on the house to initiate impeachment proceedings. what happens when they decline for sound and smart reasons, they're talking about now not litigating impeachment over co-conspiracy with a hostile foreign power or alleged obstruction of justice but alleged attempt of obstruction of justice, a narrow, technical thing to argue, putting the spotlight on an unpopular constitution, the house. and elizabeth warren dmanlemand you can say i am impotent or attack the quizlings.

it seems like a smart thing for a candidate that needs a boutique issue to capture attention, to corner that issue, say i am demanding to see spying on house democrats. >> i would say to that that i don't think impeachment is a boutique issue. i think that there are real grounds to consider impeachment here and that this is the most unpopular president in many years. and the majority of the american public has never supported him and has legitimate concerns about his place in the white house. he's not fit for office. now, whether or not we should impeach him is a separate question, but this is not a boutique issue. >> when i listen to pelosi, here's one thought that crosses my mind. she had a quote when asked about impeachment, said he's just not

worth it. after that, she said that, other democratic leaders came out and echoed it. you see support in the polls among democrats for impeachment started to drop. it felt like that message seemed to resonate with a section of the democratic base, and i'm looking at the mueller report and saying so the most sort of dramatic claims or possibilities you could say that were out there the last couple years, he is a russian agent, that's not in this report. a lot of the alleged potential obstruction that's in there is stuff that was reported by the press for the last two years. we talked about it here. these are not shocking revelations, they were out there. from that standpoint wouldn't he's not worth it still apply? >> i think that's sort of what pelosi is saying at this point. she's saying he's not worth moving forward with impeachment, he hasn't done enough stuff to make this an open and shut case. i don't think you get there if you don't have that at this

point in time. more broadly what they're going to be focused on is resuscitating the stories. remember the first four months, every 24 hours was some jaw dropping story that came out about him. came on us all at once. democrats can spend time resuscitating a lot of those things which i think from a political standpoint is independent of impeachment. that's sort of the general thinking. you can make so much valid attacks if you're a democrat based on what's already known to your point, that there isn't necessarily a need to move forward with impeachment as this constitutional process. whether or not the base agrees with that remains to be seen. >> i wonder, we talked about this yesterday. this is a topic you're familiar with, you look at nancy pelosi, you look at chuck schumer on the senate side. chuck schumer's political career was made in 1998 when he won that senate seat in new york, he had been behind the white water

investigation that led to bill clinton's impeachment. to the extent democrats were leading congress today, making these decisions about how to handle impeachment, how much of their strategy is informed by their experiences being there, and i say in schumer's case, having his career made by the political realities of 1998. >> sure. and you've written about this. chuck schumer may have been the only people on both the house and senate side during the clinton impeachment. he was on house judiciary committee and voted on impeachment after the election, and then voted on the house floor, then took a senate seat, participated in the trial that followed. that's pretty unique experience. nancy pelosi of course was in the house and went through that as well. the lesson they took away from that is partisan impeachment doesn't work. if the president's own party doesn't see fit to remove him from office or substantial part of the president's own party doesn't see fit to remove him from office, impeachment effort

won't succeed in the ultimate goal if the goal is to remove a president. you talk about political angles, who is up, down, who might benefit, who might not. this is a big thing. impeachment is the biggest political act that congress can take. it is overturning dually constituted election saying the people, the voters chosen through the electoral college is not going to continue through his term. the flip side is the argument is if you don't proceed with impeachment, given the types of evidence and allegations made here, does that mean you set a bar at a different level for future presidents, does it mean other presidents can say they didn't impeach him for that, so i can do this. there are questions beyond who benefits and doesn't benefit in next year's election. >> another angle here from joe lockhart in the clinton white house 20 years ago, arguing today in an op-ed, saying this is why in his view not wise to

impeach. leaving trump is not only good politics, best chance for fundamental realignment of federal politics in more than a generation. he is destroying what we know as the republican party. another two years may finish it off. trumpism is republicanism, that spells electoral doom for the party. the note is leave him in office, he is low-hanging fruit for 2020. reading that, i remember the democrats that cheered him winning the nomination in 2016 saying we're going to win 40 states. >> he is right, impeachment would energize republicans as much as it would energize democrats. this report was horrible for the trump administration. welcomed hostile foreign influence in the election, would have obstructed justice but for the fact that subordinates ignored him or disobeyed his orders. made him look horrible. the fact he wrapped his arms around it speaks to terrible

expectations. they failed to manage expectation of the base. a lot of actors inside and out of office thought they would mock him out of office. 2020, this will be litigated. impeachment is the stages of grief as we work through the ultimate conclusions of the report. >> thank you for joining us. the i word, to investigator impeach. i talk to one of the lams thwma that spoke up for impeachment when democrats got together to plot strategy. joe biden is days away from announcing his 2020 run. can an old school politician succeed in today's democratic party. politician succeed in today's democratic party. with retirement planning and advice for what you need today and tomorrow. because when you're with fidelity, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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to give our patients the information that they need. the number one rule is do no harm, and this is harm. we must act now. learn more. text titlex to 22422 i can customize each line for each family member? yup. and since it comes with your internet, you can switch wireless carriers, and save hundreds of dollars a year. are you pullin' my leg? nope. you sure you're not pullin' my leg? i think it's your dog. oh it's him. good call. get the data options you need and still save hundreds of dollars... do you guys sell other dogs? now that's simple, easy, awesome. customize each line by paying for data by the gig or get unlimited. and now get $100 back when you buy a new lg. click, call, or visit a store today. should the house pursue impeachment? >> not right now. i think what we need to do is have bob mueller testify, have the committees do their work.

>> there are differences of opinion on the ultimate question of impeachment. i have to say there's a consensus of opinion on exactly what we should do next in terms of concrete investigative steps. >> there's ample evidence, has been for a long time now, that we should have this debate in congress. >> welcome back. house democrats seem just as divided on impeachment tonight as they did yesterday, that was before house speaker nancy pelosi's conference call with her caucus which was supposed to unite democrats on the path forward after the mueller report release. there was some notable did i sent on the call. jerod huffman was on the call, told his colleagues it is good for the country to impeach. that i think for taking a few minutes. we heard from nancy pelosi today, she says impeachment in her view is very divisive, something maybe to consider down the road, but she wants to go through some investigations now,

not open the door to impeachment. you're saying do it right now. >> well look, i think there's more unity in the democratic caucus than this media cycle is perhaps suggesting. the next steps are what matter, right? a thorough investigation, a throated investigation. that's what leader pelosi is proposing, that's what everybody in the caucus believes needs to happen. i think impeachment is the essential context that it is happening in, i would call it an impeachment process. call it whatever you want, if the functional impeachment process is moving forward, which i think it is, i am fine with that. >> you're satisfied, the approach nancy pelosi outlienne you're satisfied with that. i think val demming said on the same call, proceed with impeachment. do you think they're satisfied as well? >> i think many of us believe it is inevitably leading to

impeachment based on what we know, on obstruction of justice, on the guy who we know is individual one, unindicted co-conspirator in southern district of new york and other things we expect to be forthcoming as the investigation moves forward. it is not essential that that be designated as an impeachment process process or inquiry now to continue the investigation. at some point it will lead to that. leader pelosi and others are clear saying it may well lead to that, that is not being taken off the table. i think we are all moving forward together. >> is there a point realistically, we talked about the idea that impeachment is ultimately a political process, this was put in hands of congress, not put in the hands of a court. if you go through a series of investigations, i imagine it takes time, i imagine, tell me if i'm wrong, talking months here. you get to a point where it is late in the year, 2019, early in 2020. you have a presidential campaign

in full force. at some point does the presidential campaign supersede any potential impeachment? you make the judgment that hey, let's put it out there in the court of public opinion, let the voters decide? >> steve, you're right. impeachment is at its core a political question for the house of representatives to answer. that doesn't mean you put your finger in the wind and do polling and try to calculate how it is going to cut in terms of political self interest. i think it refers to body politic, what's good for the country. has a president violated the oath of office, done things that are destructive to the country. >> what i am asking is this, is there a point the election is approaching, not saying put your finger in the wind and taking a poll, this shouldn't be my decision, congress' decision, this should be the voters' decision. put it before them and decide in the election and not have

congress take an impeachment vote. >> this is where i made the point on the conference call, will continue to make it. we better think carefully about the down side of punting on our constitutional responsibility because when you do that, you now have a president for the next year and a half knows he can't be indicted by department of justice because of their internal policy, we also know congress doesn't have the stomach to do its job under the constitution. who knows what that invites from donald trump, who knows what it invites of abuse of future presidents. you're saying the impeachment authority in the constitution is now just a bunch of dead letters because congress no longer has the stomach to do it. >> i will ask you about polling here. i will ask you in this context. nancy pelosi talked about impeachment as a divisive exercise for the country. jerry nadler who would share impeachment proceeding on the judiciary committee, when bill clinton was being i am peeved,

he said one of the standards is broad support not limited to one political party. he said if it is one political party supporting it and one political party opposing it, there's considerable damage to the democratic institution. that was one of the arguments 20 years ago. is there a point there. you look at the polling on this, strong support from democrats, strong opposition from republicans. sounds like a recipe nadler was saying you can't have. >> well, it should be bipartisan, ideally it would be. let me be clear, my position on holding this president accountable through impeachment inquiry is shared by a lot of republicans, including george conway, bill crystal, evan mcmullen. a bunch of people that aren't democrats. this is about whether you care about our democratic institutions and the rule of law, not necessarily party label. the real hard questions that ought to be asked are of the republicans in congress who appear to have joined the fifth avenue club. i'm not sure there's anything they could be shown that would

get them to hold this president accountable to the rule of law. so i think they have a tougher burden of explanation on impeachment than i do. >> thank you for taking a few minutes with us. >> thanks for having me. coming up. joe biden, we've said it before seven times in his career walked close to the starting line of a presidential race, twice he has run. it appears in a couple days he will launch his third white house campaign. we're going to breakdown where he stands, if he gets in the race. going to the big board after this. stay with us. to the big board ar this stay with us at fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan

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even if i knew for certain that i was running for president back at thanksgiving, my intention to run would be the last to announce. >> he might not be the last person to get in the race, looks like joe biden is on the verge of entering the presidential contest after months of suspense. sources telling nbc news the former vice president will announce his 2020 campaign with an online video thursday morning. so all of the speculation we had, joe biden looks like is going to go for it. we've had all these polls that include him. he is not running. now he will be a candidate with all of the other announced candidates. there's bill de blasio, he has not announced either.

biden, how does he stack up as he enters the race. what are some of the emerging dynamics to look for in the democratic field? this is a poll out today. it is similar to what we've seen. biden enters as a fraunont runn. he is getting high 20s most polls. sanders is second, and recently, buttigieg is tying for third place that's the overall laying of the land on the democratic side. some interesting divides that we see in this poll and that we have been seeing in other polls of the democratic race. let me take you through those. let's start with ideological divide. you hear the stories, democratic parties are becoming more liberal. how is that going to effect. folks in the monmouth poll that call themselves liberal, this is how they breakdown. sanders in first place, biden behind at 17, buttigieg at 12.

that's liberals. how about the other half of the party, other side, moderates and conservatives. take a look at this. biden from 17% among liberals, doubles, more than doubles support. he is the strong choice here of moderate and conservative voters. sanders doing 17%. that's interesting. you have all that talk about can joe biden win in today's democratic party. one of the things i think he will be relying on if he runs, there are a fair number of democrats that identify as moderate and conservative, and he is going to jump on the field there. can he hang onto that. can that be a big part of the base. buttigieg, his rise, 12% on liberals, moderates, 5%. how about the divide for age. folks under 50 years oemd, sanders out in front, biden second. buttigieg, 10%. now the older demographic, 50 plus. again, joe biden in first place.

look at the drop for bernie sanders, from 30% among democrats under 50 years old, cut down to 10% older voters, 50 plus. an interesting age dynamic emerging there. and race, white voters, biden, 27%, sanders, buttigieg, nonwhite voters, sanders doing fairly well, talked in 2016 his struggle with african-american voters, one of the big reasons hillary clinton put him away, is he going to improve, kamala harris, 11%. pete buttigieg, getting 13% with white voters, nonwhite, 2%. you see that buttigieg coalition, that looks like paul tsongas, gary hart. we have seen it in the past. can you ex-plannpand it in a wa vice president in the past.

plenty of front runners failed to win the party's nomination. biden comes in as a weak frontrunner. will he be any different? that's next. ner. will he be any different that's next. with accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates won't go up just because of an accident. smart kid. indeed. are you in good hands? with retirement planning and advice for what you need today and tomorrow. because when you're with fidelity, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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come on in, the water is warm, joe. oh, i adore joe biden. i think he has to make whatever decision is best for him. >> welcome back. as we said joe biden is expected to jump into the race for president thirst. he will become the 17th major candidate on the democratic side if and when he finally takes the plunge. joining me, a couple of people that know a lot about joe biden. charlie cook and mike memley. mike, let me start with you. what are would you expecting thursday and is there a chance

that after all this, nothing happens? >> don't do that to me, steve! here's the thing, yeah. we have been seeing a lot of different reports speculating different venues, cities, forms of announcement. but sources directly involved in the planning told me today that in fact we will at long last see joe biden announce his candidacy for president thursday in an announcement video that will go online in the early morning hours, he will follow it up. his first planned public campaign event will be monday in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. a union event where he will likely focus remarks on the economy. from there, he will hit the ground running in early states, iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, nevada in the coming weeks after that. this is coming together in the last few days, the vice president himself signing off on final details this morning. >> in terms of where he stands heading into this, we showed the poll, he is in first place on the democratic side, high 20s,

low 30s on a good day. there's this from the monmouth poll, favorability with democratic voters, favorable, unfavorable. net was plus 71, it dropped 15 points in the first few months, a bit more scrutiny. still, plus 56 would be the strongest on the democratic side. charlie cook, i don't know that there is a precedent for a candidate like biden and what exactly, 78 years old on inauguration day, former vice president. when you look at numbers and the field, do you consider him a strong frontrunner, weak frontrunner? >> steve, what precedent do you see for anything. that's a cheap shot. but when you see a huge field, you said 17, what that means is the nomination is seen as having great value and there's no dominant player. and the fact that jeb bush was not able to keep that field down in 2016 where it got to 17, and

where biden is not scaring people out. there's a respect for him, affection for him, but man, hae hasn't kept the size of the field down. i think it will be fun to watch. it is like noah's ark, a couple of everything. people will be kicking the tires, looking around a lot, haven't gone for test drives yet. >> seems to me the theory for a lot of candidates, a lot of them are thinking ahead to debates. three hours i think they're going to be, back to back nights, prime time. we're doing it here. nbc is doing it. simulcast. they see the chance if i can have that moment, 45 seconds, 60 seconds that goes viral. it makes you the next buttigieg overnight. >> it is a combination of if so and so can do it, so can i. >> right. >> then there's i've got something to say, i'm as good as these guys, i think it kind of comes together. some of these folks were

actually looking at running against hillary in 2016 where there w there was pent up ambition, she didn't intimidate republicans out of running, president trump hasn't intimidated democrats out. >> in terms of biden, what he is walking into here, another aspect is money. we talked so much about money that's come into other campaigns. what is biden positioned to do. does he have a plan in place. is he going to be able to raise the money he needs to compete effectively? >> there are two categories democrats are confronting in terms of fund-raising. you used to want to demonstrate you had bundlers, attract big checks early on and get big money to fund a campaign. biden can do that, he has relationships that he built during time in the obama administration that he is going to be leaning on. one of the first events not in

public, he is doing a fund-raiser thursday in philadelphia, the day he announces. the other aspect we got a glimpse of today, joe biden for the first time sending an email out to his email list, small as it may be, one they hope to build in a hurry, asking people to sign up, to give them their email addresses, forward it on to be the first to know about his plans. that's indicative of the new litmus test in the democratic party. you need to demonstrate a wide array of online small dollar donations. they concede that's an area they have a lot of work to do. they on boarded a number of staff in the past few weeks, most focused on digital infrastructure, building that online giving database that they hope to leverage going forward. >> charlie, you mention again that we don't have a lot of precedents for things happening in politics. another thing that's possible here it seems is bernie sanders, self described socialist, would win the democratic presidential nomination.

wouldn't have said that was possible before. when you look at this field and you look at his poll numbers in second place, do you see a realistic path for him? what would it look like? >> i think it is hard. the question is how elastic is bernie sanders. it is solid, passionate but how elastic. amy howard likes to say this year democrats have preferences but don't have attachments. they want to win. that's why bernie's campaign released apology in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania yesterday to try to show yes, he can win a general election. he can compete in these states. i think it is still a lot of persuasion there, but you know, that's probably the biggest obstacle bernie sanders has now. democrats want to win and they're not convinced he can win the general election. >> feels to me there's the implicit message with biden, maybe they'll articulate it more, look at the electoral math from 2016.

pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin. do you think the guy from scranton can't win them back? >> one thing you talked about a second ago, staying out made sense for biden not to get in until after april 1, so he won't have to report. but he has to come up with a hell of a report in july for second quarter. i mean, there will be more pressure on him than on anybody else to produce big numbers because he held out so late. >> set your calendars. two and a half months from now, another round of reporting on money and biden will be a big part of it. thank you for being with us. coming up. brand new comments from former senate majority leader about impeachment. stay with us. leader about impeachment. stay with us the futu re. ♪ so, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. ♪ the united states postal service makes

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your mammoth masterpiece. and...whatever this was. because we make our meat with the good of the deli and no artificial preservatives. make every sandwich count with oscar mayer deli fresh. welcome back. some democrats are pushing for impeachment to begin, former senate majority leader harry reid reiterating his warning against that. >> impeachment is a difficult decision. some say mueller's report was an invitation for impeachment. but we have just a short time until the next election. and if impeachment proceedings go forward and they might go forward, i think this country would be spending inordinate amount of time on impeachment and nothing else and i don't think we can afford that. >> what you were seeing was reid and boehner appearing on a panel

moderated by chuck todd. both men co-chairs of mgm policy resort. he asked him to compare pressure on benghazi to the pressure that speaker pelosi is getting from the left on impeachment. take a listen. >> what happened with benghazi is up until the committees and jurisdiction were doing their job until they weren't, and frankly when the committees just wouldn't do what they were supposed to do, really got forced in the benghazi committee, tried to set it up in a way with responsible members to get to the bottom of what the facts were. and so i think speaker pelosi is going to have the same issues. >> chuck sat down off stage with senator reid and speaker boehner for a special edition of the chalk todd cast. hear that tomorrow on the latest edition. subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. we'll be right back with "the

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time now for "the lid." some news this hour, too, that ties in with what we've been talking about. the headline from the "washington post" just a few minutes ago. the white house plans to fight the house subpoena of former counsel don mcgahn for testimony on the mueller report. the post reporting that the trump administration also plans to oppose other requests from other committees for the current and former aides about actions describe in the mueller report. that's according to two people familiar with internal thinking. we were talking about earlier. democrats with the strategy of launching these investigations, seeing what they can find out. the key is talking to mcgahn and other folks in the white house. this sets up a potentially long

battle. >> including mcgahn, outside the administration, the white house only has to run out the clock until election day. really until the new congress starts. any citations for attempt of congress. those go out the window. that's the time they need to get to. so they provide them a benefit. provide them a political benefit. it keeps them from having to divulge the information. this is exactly why they're doing it. the clock is on their side. we listened to nancy pelosi. what does this do to them? >> i think there's an expectation. this is requesting to end up in the courts. i think how that will play politically is what nancy pelosi

and the rest of the democrats are waiting to see. they can proceed with impeachment hearings which will make it a little easier to get access to these officials. i think this is probably a smart strategy to get to. it is significant that the white house is seeking to block this subpoena. he told special counsel robert mueller that ultimately, the president who pressured him to fire bob mueller, when you think about it, the ultimate attempt to obstruct justice. this is high stakes. and that i think the democrats can proceed with, i think, a brilliant idea that your analysis is exactly spot on. just keep up the heat in the investigation. that's part of how you own the narrative. if the democrats don't say anything, they're going to allow the republicans to own that

space and tell their story. and that would be a mistake. >> how does that play in? >> you see the political risks for crademocrats pushing forwar for impeachment. if they're not, and they have questions and the white house is fighting subpoenas, how does that look? so to proceed as they are proceeding to make this case for voters and to point to the case they're making rather than saying they're going to pursue this to remove him from office. the base, i don't know if they'll let them get away with it. one of the best things trump had going for him, he didn't invoke executive privilege in the mueller report. they let all the information out this. they're now invoking it in a way that is tangentially related to the mueller report and then coupled with all this information about how the white house is very angry. the president is very angry with don mcgahn for what he divulged.

it makes them look a little less teflon. it would set the stake for democrats to come out. we have to proceed with impeachment proceedings. the rule of law is in gem. i guarantee you, there will be one or more democrats who will take that avenue. >> this is interesting, too. a source here, a person close to mcgahn. he's not eager to testify. he's know reluctant. he got a subpoena which compels him to testify. he does not want to be in contempt of congress. the former white house official so he's watching like the rest of us. >> this is an intricacy to this. he does not have any sort of privilege with president trump because he was not president trump's attorney.

he was the white house's attorney. he does fall under the sway of executive privilege which donald trump could potentially exact. because he's outside of the white house, there is no leverage that the white house has to make him respect that executive privilege. it is his own professional and ethical code which would make him do that. so that's an interesting overlap. it sounds like he's wrestling with it as well. >> thank you for being with us. we'll be right back. ht back. at fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do.

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good evening. it's been a busy day. do you think we're heading toward impeachment or not? >> as one of our guests said, there is no press denial for anything. the democratic leaders don't seem to want to go there so i would bet no. >> you would bet no. okay. a clear answer in washington. thank you as always. there are these growing calls for some democrats to move toward impeachment hearings for president trump. all of it based on the voluminous evidence in the mueller report. lawrence who wrote a book on impeachment is here exclusively tonight and i'll tell you, what he has to say is pretty interesting. that's later in the show. also, democrats are considering holding a former trump staff member in contempt of congress, a big