she joined nbc news back in 1978 and has been on the front lines of just about every major story that we've covered ever since. an honor well-deserved, my friend. congratulations. >> thank you so much, craig, the honor is to be with you and all my other colleagues here at msnbc and nbc for all these wonderful years. thank you, sir. and the news continues, as it always does. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," tipping point. the whistleblower controversy turns the side as nancy pelosi signals the caucus is ready to move, possibly with a hand-selected committee that she will pick. seven freshman democrats, some from districts that voted for the president, signing on to impeachment and saying the national security threat is bigger than their own reelection politics. >> this is uncharted waters,

where we are right now. >> we need to step up and talk about a president who has become more and more chaotic and reckless. this really crossed a line to us. >> the idea of getting foreign help to influence the american political approve, that is beyond the pale. solo act. president trump bringing his "america first" rhetoric to the united nations, insulting a world body that believes in globalism with a speech made for his reelection base. >> the future does not belong to globali globalists. the future belongs to pay preon the -- patriots. and a brand-new poll showing elizabeth warren making big moves against joe biden. coming up, a former cia officer, the former head of the cia, john

brennan, and chris murphy of connecticut who met with ukraine's leader recently, now is calling for impeachment inquiry himself. good day, everyone, i'm andrea mitchell in new york where the president's highly partisan speech to the u.n. was upstaged by impeachment moves by democrats from capitol hill, mostly nancy pelosi's top lieutenants in the democratic caucus, saying there needs to be an impeachment inquiry now to get to the bottom of the ukraine whistleblower controversy. house speaker nancy pelosi may be preparing for the inevitable. the entire democratic caucus meeting today. key holdouts on impeachment say they've changed their minds because of the administration's refusal to turn over that whistleblower report. >> i'm just going to be very frank tonight.

we are a divided country, and that scarce es me. but we cannot be divided on the removal law. we have no choice but to open an investigation that will give us the facts. that is our moral responsibility. so i guess i'm joining with many of my other colleagues. >> their case is reinforced by new reporting from "the washington post," overnight, that the president ordered muscmick mulvaney to freeze aid to ukraine just one week before the president's fateful call with the ukraine's new president. president trump has claimed incorrectly that he withheld the money because european allies were not doing their share. the law says once the whistleblower complaint was validated by the inspector general, which it was, it should have been turned over to the house, which it was not.

president trump claims it's all politics. >> i think it's ridiculous. it's a witch hunt. i'm leading in the polls. they have no idea how to stop me, the only way they try is through impeachment. >> joining me is nbc white house correspondent kristen walker and "new york times" correspondent michael crowley. president trump just had his own meeting with british prime minister boris johnson. they were just talking and we'll have that tape moments from now, i'm not sure whether we're about to go to it. kristen, when we get it all teed up, we'll bring that to you. first of all, overnight, there was big developments with the reporting, and i believe it's reporting that you have yourself matched, about the holdup, the freeze on that ukraine money coming just before the call to the ukrainian leader. >> nbc news, andrea, was just able to confirm the timeline of

when those funds were placed on hold. it did come a week before the president had the phone call in question. an administration official telling me, underscoring what we've been hearing from the president throughout the day, that the funds were put on hold because essentially the president had directed a review on how they would be spent by his defense secretary as well as former national security adviser john bolton to make sure there was not going to be any waste or corruption in the use of those funds. the timeline was confirmed by nbc news, president trump was asked about this, he did not dispute the timeline or the story either. this is what he had to say when asked about it, i know we'll play the audio, he said there was no quid pro quo when talking to the leader of ukraine. he went on to say there was no pressure. when asked about the holdup, he said he held the funds, quote, because i wanted other countries

to pay. i think you're going to hear that from president trump repeatedly, andrea half that is his reasoning in why those funds were placed on hold. >> as we were just saying, he's now talking about that, let's listen. >> why is the united states the only one paying for ukraine, i've been talking about this for long time, why isn't germany, why isn't france, why aren't these other countries paying, why are we paying all the time? nobody has given, i believe, more to ukraine. president obama used to send pillows and sheets. i sent antitank weapons and a lot of things to ukraine. and by the way, i don't know if you know it or not, that payment was made. other countries should pay, it affects them more. it's a wall, a barrier between russia and the uk.

why is it always the united states that's paying? i made that loud and clear, i told it to mick mulvaney, i told it to a lot of people, to mike, the two mikes, i told it to steve, i said it to wilbur ross. i keep asking the same question. why is it the united states is always paying these foreign countries and other foreign countries that frankly are much more affected? they're not. i said, hold it up, let's get other people to pay, and then everybody called me, oh, please, can we pay. and there was any any quid pro quo. the letter was beautiful. it was a perfect letter. it was unlike biden, who by the way what he said was a horror. ask how his son made millions of dollars from ukraine, made millions of dollars from china, even though he had no expertise whatsoever, okay? what he did was a real problem. with us, there was no pressure applied, no nothing. okay, folks.

thank you very much. >> so you heard it there, kristen welker. let me also bring in michael crowley who is here with me. the president going after joe biden, going after hunter biden, despite the fact that that had all been investigated and cleared by anyone who has raised those issues. but bringing biden into it as he has for two days now at the u.n., making this a political playing field for him rather than what one would expect from the leader of the free world. >> it's extraordinary. and president trump is going to have a news conference, he'll carve out time when he's not with world leaders, but he can't restrain himself. it's not him doing it one time, to pop the blister of the day and get the comments out in the news cycle, but as we saw

yesterday, he's willing to do it over and over. he can't stop talking to the press, all the time, it doesn't matter who he's in the room with. he's doubling down on attacks on joe biden. this is a president who thrives in attack mode. he's not interested in whether or not these allegations against the bidens have any evidence to support them. he'll just repeat them and repeat them and the members of his base will assume there's truth to them. that's been his survival strategy and it looks like he'll stick with it. >> kristen, the biden folks are concerned this is what they might call hillary 2.0, the fact that in 2016 the president was able to paint a picture of hillary clinton that was not accurate, despite the email controversy, that became his sole message, but by repeating it over and over again he's learned it works for him

politically. >> evaluatehe has. that's why, andrea, you're seeing such a fiery response from vice president joe biden, who was pressed on this topic over the weekend. he said repeatedly the focus needs to be on president trump. yesterday he tweeted out, release the transcript of that phone call with the president of ukraine. of course we expect to hear from him a little bit alert on today. what will he say? i anticipate he'll reiterate calls for all this information to be released. notably, biden has stopped short for calling for the impeachment of president trump. but as we've been reporting throughout the evening, overnight, and into this morning, andrea, there are more and more democrats who are jumping onto the impeachment bandwagon. and now speaker nancy pelosi herself is said to be reconsidering her opposition to impeachment. a meeting is taking place on capitol hill about that today. >> we're going to john lewis,

who is speaking on the house floor. >> we tried every other path and used any other tool. we will any find the truth unless we use the power given to the house of representatives. and the house alone, to begin an official investigation as dictated by the constitution. the future of our democracy is at stake. there comes a time when you have to be moved by the spirit of history to take action to protect the integrity of our nation. i believe, i truly believe, the time to begin impeachment proceedings against this president has come. to delay or to do otherwise would betray the foundation of our democracy. thank you, mr. speaker. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from montana --

>> john lewis, the iconic congressman, the civil rights leader, if there was ever someone who is up inoculated against being accused of being a standard politician. we want to bring in michigan freshman congresswoman elissa slotkin, one of the seven democrats with national security experience who wrote that really startling op-ed in "the washington post" today, because you are seven democrats, some of you from swing districts, districts that did not vote democratic in the presidential campaign. so you were putting your political lives on the line for reasons of national security. tell me what motivated you. >> sure. all seven of us are national security officials by training,

former military or former intelligence officials. our entire careers, we swore on oath to protect the constitution. we did the same thing when we were sworn in to be members of congress. the allegations that a sitting president of the united states would go to a foreign leader and try to pressure him into producing dirt against a political opponent, it's just beyond the pale. if you throw in that he used the holding back of u.s. taxpayer dollar security assistance as leverage against the president of ukraine was beyond the pale. we made a decision that regardless of what it did to us politically, it was important to lead with integrity and come out. >> congresswoman, nancy pelosi is now with some of your colleagues at the afl-cio at a separate event in support of uaw

workers, a labor union focused event, you can see some of your colleagues there, i know that's important to you and your district as well, so thank you for being with us. she said with our colleague geoff bennett that she will have an announcement later. will we hear an announcement to begin an impeachment investigation? >> so i don't know exactly what she's going to announce. i would never want to get ahead of speaker pelosi. what's important is that a lot of us have said, if we're going to take this huge step of moving towards an impeachment appropro of some kind, we need to bring the american people along with us. there have been people calling for impeachment and also people saying, please don't drag us through this. we haven't always communicated clearly, so my hope, and what we've been pressing our

leadership, is we're at a different moment, a moment of inflection, let's be clear and effective and put communicating with the american public at the top of the agenda. >> my experience was the iran-contra committees, which had very good leadership, bipartisan. before my time, the watergate committee clearly got a lot of serious work done. the question now is, how do you do that? because what you and many of your more moderate or centrist colleagues may want is not what we saw out of the judiciary committee when corey lewandowski mocked them and got away with it. and you heard so much back and forth over five and a half hours, that was not a coherent message to the american people.

>> yeah, so listen, i have no special knowledge on select committees. >> what would you like to see? >> i would like to see a tightly coordinated conversation among all our committee chairs, because there's things happening across six committees. frankly, i would like to focus on this particular instance related to ukraine as a national security issue. i think people understand it, people understand that if we have a president who uses the power of the office to collect dirt for political gain, that's just not acceptable. we don't want any president of any political party to do that. we need to focus on that. we need our committee chairs to speak with one voice. we need it to be tight. frankly, i think, those of us in front line districts, to really be leading on the messaging. there's whole range of people who feel strongly about impeachment. but we have to bring people who may be undecided, who may be

starting to think about what this might mean to have a president do this, let us lead that way. >> would you like to see a time limit -- first of all, you're saying wall it off, make it this national security issue, ukraine and related issues, and that could possibly include the july 31st phone call to vladimir putin. there could be more than just the one transcript, the one issue, the whistleblower. >> sure. >> from your experience in the cia and pentagon, you know it's not just one phone call that can be ambiguous, that could be a blind alley. >> of course. we're seeing tidbits come out in the press, again, i have no special knowledge of them, but the point is we knew to go with something that's clear to the american public. >> so don't bring the mueller

report into it? >> i don't think a kitchen sink approach benefits us. given that it's prospective, it's looking forward to 2020 as opposed to looking backward, that means, if true, that we have a different situation on our hands. those things in my mind make it different and preferably more narrow. >> congresswoman elisa slotkin, you just made a lot of news. thank you for talking to us and we'll be following the democratic caucus after their meeting today at 4:00. will the white house release the whistleblower report? this was monday at the u.n. >> if you see the call, i hope you see it, frankly, you will find out that i did not do that at all. >> reporter: on the whistleblower, you say you want

the transcript of the call released. >> i didn't say that at all. i didn't say that at all. it may get released. now, when you see the call, i hope you see it, frankly, you will find out that i did not do that at all. >> joining me now is someone with unique experience on these subjects, john brennan, former cia director and msnbc security analyst and someone who worked as the counterterrorism adviser to president obama. director brennan, when a phone call is made to a foreign leader, even with some of the restricted procedures that may be followed after some of his unfortunate experiences with a leak early in his presidency, people are listening in. they are often are intelligence officials, detailed to the white house. they take notes, correct? it's not a tape, it's notes, is that what i'm to understand this

transcript probably includes? >> right. it's not an intelligence collection by intelligence agencies, because intelligence agencies are prohibited from listening in on the conversations of u.s. officials. but there were probably people in the room when president trump made this call, monitoring the call to make sure there was clarity there and it didn't drop, and people who had responsibility for taping the call so it could be transcribed. there would be people who put together a memorandum of the conversation affidavterward. there are people who were authorized to be part of that call with a foreign leader. >> do you think someone would take their career and the presidency into their own hands and file a whistleblower report and the inspector general would validate it and say it was urgent and needs to be concerned over to congress if it only involved one phone call that may or may not be ambiguous?

or does it more likely involve a series of events or several calls? >> well, i don't know how many incidents it may involved. it goes to what john lewis said on the house floor, or elissa slotkin. when you take the oath of office, you take an oath to defend the constitution. this individual chose to go through the whistleblower process which is the congressionally approved and authorized way to make sure matters of concern are brought to the attention of appropriate individuals within the executive branch and then be conveyed in an authorized and appropriate manner to the committees of jurisdiction, the intelligence committees. it's clear that that did not happen. that's why i think it is important to move forward with a further investigation of what

transpired in that phone call, because if the allegations are true, i think as elissa and john lewis said, this is a serious violation of law by donald trump. that's why i think that impeachment proceedings are the appropriate route to find out exactly what happened during that call and maybe things attendant to that call that also involve very serious violations of law and threats to our national security. >> is it appropriate for the state department to grease the skids, if you will, for the president's private lawyer to meet with ukrainian officials and make allegations against the president's political opponents? >> highly, highly unusual. embassies abroad, and i've worked at them, frequently will make the arrangements for u.s. persons, not even u.s. officials, u.s. persons, to meet with host government officials if there is a reason for that

private u.s. citizen to meet with that foreign official. but to have donald trump's personal lawyer meet with ukrainian officials for political purpose, that, again, just tramples upon everything that our democracy is founded upon which is that there should not be political interference in the conduct of our foreign policy and national security matters. so what mr. giuliani did seems to be, again, something that is highly abnormal and may in fact have been a violation of law itself. >> and if you know, if you can recall from the obama years the president said today that president obama only sent bedsheets and blankets. i thought there were defensive -- that defensive aid was sent. i have to fact check that. >> there was defensive military assistance provided to the ukrainians. the big question was whether

there would be lethal, offensive aid provided. but there was a lot of aid provided, not only because of the russian invasion of crimea but the russian forces going into eastern ukraine. but just like a lot of things donald trump does, he totally misrepresented what president obama and the europeans have done. donald trump feels the heat now. i wouldn't be surprised it's going to continue to grasp at straws because he may have been caught this time, unlike other times when he had moments of unethical, unprincipled behavior. >> john brennan, thank you so much, former cia director, we appreciate you being with us

today. a brand-new poll of new hampshire voters showing more genes for elizabeth warren. steve kornacki has the details. and the democratic senator who met with ukraine's president weeks after president trump's call, chris murphy. stay with us on msnbc. nbc.ur ho, the way it works best for you, i'll take that. wait honey, no. when you want it. you get a delivery experience you can always count on. you get your perfect find at a price to match, on your own schedule. you get fast and free shipping on the things that make your home feel like you. that's what you get when you've got wayfair. so shop now! so chantix can help you quit slow turkey.rkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye.

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elizabeth warren is solidifying her grip as a top democratic contender, as a new poll out from new hampshire shows warren is leading the field, locked in a statistical tie with joe biden in another key early voting state, this as biden is preparing to deliver a statement this afternoon in response to president trump pressuring ukraine to dig up dirt on biden. joining me now, yamiche alcindor and steve kornacki. we understand from mike memoli that joe biden is expected to say for the first time today at 2:30 that if the president doesn't comply with congressional demands for the whistleblower complaint, that now impeachment proceedings should start.

that's a big step, warren had said it early on but joe biden had not said it. >> yeah, and that feels like it mirrors what we're seeing in the democratic party, people who like joe biden, in the last 24 hours their tune is changing on this. >> john lewis, yamiche, has been someone we've all looked up to and gone to at critical moments in american history because of his unique role, having survived the beating in selma and havihaving seen so much history unfold. for him to take the floor today, following the series of events, for him to take the floor and call for impeachment inquiry, i interviewed congresswoman elissa slotkin, i don't know if you saw, she and six other moderate democrats writing in "the washington post" that it's time

to begin an impeachment inquiry. >> this feels like an inflection point. john lewis has served as the conscience of america for decades. he is an iconic figure, first in the civil rights movement and then in the congress. when john lewis comes out for impeachment, people will listen. people on both sides of the aisle will listen. i've been talking to joe biden campaign sources, i've just been texting them, and they tell me vice president biden feels like donald trump really crossed a line here. he was waiting on congress to go and do their due diligence but he feels donald trump is being blatant, asking a foreign leader to launch a political investigation of him for his own political gain. white house sources say the president often reveals what

everyone wondered what happened, the president is telling us clearly i was on the phone with the president of ukraine, i did talk to him about looking into biden. the question is do we care and will this be something he faces consequences for. so far the president hasn't faced consequences for behavior that people have seen as problematic. this feels different and it might be different. >> of course time short, the campaign is near or nearing in terms of we're getting a lot closer to actual voting in february. does this hurt or help joe biden? he's been going up and down in the polls, debate performances has been uneven. is this sticking in the way donald trump learned he can make things stick on other opponents, republican primary rivals and then of course hillary clinton? >> i don't think we've been able to measure any of it yet, but

separate from that, biden's got to worry about elizabeth warren right now, two new polls in the last couple of days show biden falling behind warren in two early voting primary states. if he loses both of those, it's hard to see a path for him to the nomination, frankly. >> she's creeping up to 13% from single digits in african-american constituency. if you lose iowa and new hampshire, south carolina may not make that difference. >> we have seen so many candidates in the past who say, the polls don't look great in iowa or new hampshire so i'm not going to give much of an effort there, i'll set my attention, rudy giuliani, remember, that was florida, al gore said it would be the southern states on super tuesday. we've seen them skip those first states and jump-start it after. what you say is absolutely true,

if you win iowa, the world changes for you, you have money, you have media attention. if you're losing it, you lose all those things. if you say, i'll just wait until the fourth or fifth state, we've dwroet s yet to see a candidacy jump-start then and win the nomination. >> and the president isn't just taking one question and saying, okay, i've said what i'll say about biden for the day. with world leaders and others, he keeps going after joe biden. >> the president has been open about the fact that he will accept dirt on a political opponent from a foreign leader. of this question doubling down on that. on south carolina, i just came there, a lot of joe biden supporters told me they're loyal to him but a lot of people said, hey, that elizabeth warren, i'm learning more about her, she

seems feisty and seems like someone who can argue with the president and stand on her own two feet. i think elizabeth warren is absolutely making inroads into the african-american community as they learn more about her. >> yamiche, steve, i can't think of two better people to talk about politics with. coming up, former homeland security secretary jeh johnson. as for the iranian foreign minister, not so much. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. >> reporter: mr. president, will you meet with president rouhani this week in new york? >> there is no meeting scheduled. >> reporter: will you meet with president trump? >> no! president trump? >> no! but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast...

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♪ ♪ ♪ i was just thinking of this in terms of watergate. it's as if after watergate, richard nixon came out and said, yeah, we ordered a burglary of the watergate because you needed to get to the dnc's secrets. basically he has said to the country, yeah, i brought up joe biden with the leaders of ukraine because i need an investigation of him. it's really astonishing. >> as the political firestorm rages, questions are swirling

over president trump sparked a 2020 edition of, russian are you listening, coaxing foreign leaders to interfere in our election and investigate his rival. joining me is jeh johnson, former homeland security. >> and former federal prosecutor. >> and a former federal prosecutor. >> for rudy giuliani. >> working under rudy giuliani. >> he hired me to be an assistant u.s. attorney, 30 years ago. >> let's start with there, then. what's the propriety of the president pressuring ukrainian officials to dig up things on joe biden in contradiction to what had been the u.s. position, the european position, that to get rid of that prosecutor in ukraine because he wasn't being tough enough? >> where do i start? >> and helped in all of this by the state department. >> first, i find it extraordinary that an american president would ask another government to investigate a

private american citizen. so there's that. who happens to be the son of his chief political opponent. andrea, as i'm sure you know, it is a violation of federal law to solicit or knowingly accept foreign assistance in a federal election. we spent two years with the mueller investigation, asking ourselves whether there was collusion or conspiracy. here the president, by his own admission, seems to have gone directly to a foreign leader to ask that foreign leader to investigate someone who happens to be the son of his leading political opponent at the moment. so the connection is there because of the president's own actions, his own words, by his own admission. i find this whole thing extraordinary, difficult to get my head around.

and i also found it very significant, the seven moderate democrats who wrote the op-ed this morning, one of them is mikie sherrill who lives not far from me in montclair, new jersey, who is very much a moderate democrat, now talking impeachment. >> let me ask you this. if you were nancy pelosi right now, would you go this route? it's politically difficult. but is it unavoidable now? >> it's a tough question. i'm not the speaker of the house and i don't have her political skills or acumen. this is a moving freight train. however it comes out, i think it's important that we remind the public that there is an election in 14 months. and that's an opportunity for change, no matter how the whole impeachment drive comes out and what the senate does, and the senate is republican-held at the

moment, we still have an opportunity to make change in 14 months. this should not be regarded as letting our democracy off the hook, letting american voters off the took from learning the facts, congress doing its basic oversight, separate apart from making a decision at the ballot box in 14 months. >> as a former top lawyer, you had security clearance. is there any precedent for a whistleblower report not being given to them? >> no, it's too big. the transcript of the call will probably leak so you may as well just give it to them.

it is unthinkable as a former cabinet secretary that i would tell my general counsel to withhold something from congress that congress believes they're entitled to. they're going to get it one way or another, sooner or later, you may as well do it. >> jeh johnson, thank you for your perspective. coming up, former vice president joe biden scheduled to give a speech in the 2:00 hour, the closest we've seen to biden calling for impeachment. stay with us. i wanted to help protect myself. my doctor recommended eliquis. eliquis is proven to treat and help prevent another dvt or pe blood clot. almost 98% of patients on eliquis didn't experience another. and eliquis has significantly less major bleeding than the standard treatment. eliquis is fda-approved and has both. don't stop eliquis unless your doctor tells you to. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding.

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with all the dozens of world leaders addressing the u.n. this week, perhaps the most of the impressive and passionate remarks have come from 16-year-old climate activist greta thunberg who delivered to scathing speech at the climate summit at the u.n. yesterday. >> people are suffering. tired ecosystems are collapsing. we are in the beginning of a mass extinction. and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal

economic growth. how dare you. >> something tells me this is not the last that we will hear from greta addressing the united nations. coming up next, one democratic lawmaker who met with ukraine's president after that fateful phone call with president trump. senator chris murphy of connecticut is here. he's calling for impeachment now. that's ahead on "andrea mitchell reports." >> i don't know how i live in a country, i help lead a country that allows a president of the united states to openly admit to this kind of corruption and get away with it. what if other kinds of plants captured it too? if these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon like trees we could help lower emissions. carbon capture is important technology - and experts agree. that's why we're working on ways to improve it. so plants...

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democratic senator chris murphy is a leading member of the foreign relations committee who met with the president of you ukraine earlier this month. he is now calling on the house to begin an impeachment inquiry into president trump. in a statement murphy, former house member, writes to use america's global credibility as a casino token, to be cashed in for personal political gain, is an intolerable abuse of power and totally anathema to the rule of law. joining me now is senator murphy. what changed your mind? >> ultimately it was the president's brazenness in advertising this corruption that convinced me there had to be a consequence. if the president can get away with trying to trade america's

credibility to get a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election, what else will he do to try to defeat his political opponents. we have a rule of law for a reason. we don't allow presidents to try to bully foreign countries into interfering in our elections for a reason. but this president seems to suggest he acts with a degree of impunity that is so dangerous for american democracy. that is why i decided to make this recommendation. >> do you have concerns given the fact that you know the senate, the senate will not convict him. mitch they will would hamcconne have a complete transplants of his brain and hart feart for th happen. so it will die with a house recommendation if it gets that far. >> let's let the process play out. you are probably right, but let's have a true investigation where we can try to understand the scope of this pressure

campaign and maybe if republicans see the breadth and scope of it, they may change their minds. but even if they don't, i think that there is just a right and wrong moment that we have entered into. the president has crossed a line and regardless of the prospects of impeachment in the senate, the house needs to make it clear that the president can't get away with this, the president cannot leverage the credibility of the united states, risking our you own country's security in order to advance his political interests. >> we've seen a series of events, debbie dink gegell now favor of impeachment, rosa delauro, hakim jeffries, and then john lewis goes to the floor of the house. all of these events plus a caucus meeting today and nancy pelosi saying she will have a statement later. it seems as though this is a very choreographed rollout, and i should also mention the seven

freshmen members with a military background who came out with the op-ed today. it seems as though they are moving toward what sounds like a select committee. >> well, you know washington, d.c. and know that this place doesn't often choreograph these man you'ves. i frankly made the decision on my own. i think a lot of house democrats made a decision on their own as well. simply recognizing the gravity of this moment. and what i've recommended, whether the house listens to senators or not is another matter, is for an impeachment inquiry to begin. i leave to them to figure out the exact mechanism by which they do that. and ultimately though i believe if the underlying conduct that appears to be true ends up being true that is impeachable, i will let them do their business, let them come to a conclusion and of course i will end up having to vote on whatever articles of impeachment they bring forward. and so i of course have to wait

to make a final determination until the house comes to a conclusion on their own process. >> of course we all watched the judiciary committee and of course how corey lewandowski made a mockmockery of their pro. and how would this be any different? >> my understanding is that impeachment is such a specific remedy for a wrongdoing, the courts may grant more deference to the investigatory process of the impeachment committee than they may to standing committees of congress. and so to the extent that we will inevitably get into a fight with the administration over whether they will provide us information at the top of that list would be the whistleblower complaint, it may be much more likely that we'll get that

information through an impeachment process. >> if they do not release the transcript of that phone call, and that phone call may not be dispositi dispositive, may not prove anything, could the whistleblower in any case come forward? >> well, from what i understand, the whistleblower if he comes straight to congress may lose the protections afforded to him by the law which is why it is so important for republicans to follow the law. but i'm not sure that we need much more than we already have. i mean, the president once again today is making it clear that he pressed zelensky to investigate one of his political opponents and that he referred zeflgs t zo his campaign representatives to assist the investigation. so from the beginning i never thought that you need a quid pro quo. you don't need the president saying explicitly that you won't get your aid if you don't do my political bidding. there is an implicit threat in

every single demand the president makes and once the president decided to enlist zelensky in his 2020 re-election race, whether or not he made a threat associated with it, it is already an act of corruption. >> and the president said today that we held the money right before the phone call almost $400 million that you and congress had mandated because the europeans were not doing enough and the u.s. was doing too much. >> maybe. you know, i do know that senator johnson who was with me on this trip to ukraine represented that thaws the explanation that he had received from the administration. but the president needs to understand that when you are asking for a political investigation into one of your opponents from a foreign government and at the same time you are withholding aid, whether or not you have made that explicit statement, of course they are connected. which is why we don't allow

presidents of the united states to demand that foreign governments do things that are in the political interest of the president. that is why we don't allow that line to be crossed. so once again to me, the proof of the quid pro quo is, frankly, not that dispositive to me. >> well, we are exactly out of time. thank you, senator murphy. here are ali velshi and stephanie ruhle. hey there, andrea. >> sorry, we were measuring our height to make sure that we're in the right place. our apologies. >> that is not true. we were sitting here soaking in the awesomeness of all things andrea mitchell. congratulations to you for the award. tonight here in new york city, he was thinking about his height, i of course was thinking about you. >> and fortunately andrea mitch emknows that is not true. congratulations, you have yourself an excellent rest of