bangor daily news that president trump's invitation for china to investigate the bidens was, quote, completely inappropriate. this makes collins one of the few republicans to speak out against the president. it comes as "the new york times" has a new report out this hour with inside information that joe biden is struggling to form a response to president trump's allegations surrounding ukraine, remake making him look more vulnerable than at any point in his campaign so far. let's go to nbc news white house correspondent hans nichols. hans, the president today cast a wide net on twitter. he attacked several of his favorite targets, including mitt romney because he was a republican who was coming out against the president. and then, again, there are all the reports that have come out, the cia, lead counsel as you were telling us earlier today with that criminal referral. where do we start? >> richard, think of the president's tweets as rifle shots. they have a broader implication. they are a warning to other

senators not to incur his twitter wrath. that's clearly the policy here, that's clearly the strategy. you've seen it in the past with the president. he attacks republicans that dare to challenge him. it's one way that he enforces unity within the party. on friday he said he thinks he's going to be impeached. he thinks democrats a have the votes. at the same time he's counting on the senate not to convict him. and he thinks he has mitch mcconnell on his side and he thinks he has about 95% of republicans. so that may explain why he's been so harsh in his attacks on romney today. we'll see crucially if he says anything towards susan collins. she's up for re-election in 2020? >> she's in cycle and it makes it a precarious position for the president to attack collins. the president may also need that one electoral vote in maine. maine is one of two states where they split some electoral votes based on which congressional district you win. the advisers want to steal a

congressional district and win maine's second district to make sure they have one more electoral college vote. >> where were we on the potential second whistle-blower that is related to the first whistle-blower potentially in some way? >> it's more corroborating evidence, right? in some ways when you talk to democrats on the hill, they're very clear that the call log gives them all the evidence they need, and then the president talking publicly about why he did this both in terms of iran and what he's also now prospectively calling on china to do is also cause for concern on capitol hill. you just heard from the senator from maine there also indicating that it's troublesome. so the interesting thing about this axios report that the president didn't want to take the call, the issue that democrats have with the call is not the fact that the president initiated it or he took it, the issue is his behavior on the call and asking the ukrainian president to look into the biden

as the call log suggests, and also look into the 2016 electoral, what some say is meddling in the u.s. presidential election. >> you spent the day at the white house today. what was the tone based on the latest reports in the last 24 hours? >> because of the president's aides and advisers have such a challenging of time keeping him on whatever strategy they are currently plotting to respond to the impeachment inquiry, the best thing to do is look at the twitter feed because the president is driving this conversation. it's the president who's in charge of the strategy. it's clear that he thinks he's being falsely accused and maligned. last night he called it a total sham. he had a little rant against shifty schiff, the nickname he has for congressman adam schiff u. when you look at his twitter feed, he's worried about losing republicans and that may explain why he's harsh in attacking senator mitt romney. >> thank you so much, hans. hans nichols there spent the day at the white house with the

latest in terms of response from the white house and the administration. thank you so much, hans. for more on the politics of impeachment, let's go to our panel. "washington post" opinion columnist and msnbc creditor jonathan k park. former congressman from florida, david jolly. as well as political columnist and former speech writer for bill frist, amy holmes. jonathan, we're looking at a flurry of developments in the last hour. you heard how we listed it at the top. there is the cia lead counselor, a potential second whistle-blower. there is the ignoring of subpoenas from the impeachment inquiry, the house intel committee that the house -- excuse me, that the state department says we're not going to do it. where are we at in this story line? >> it's like we're in the middle of a blizzard or hurricane or a horrible storm. we have been inundated by breaking news and new revelations for about, what, 10

to 12, maybe even two weeks every day something new. and the fact we have to watch the twitter feed to gage the president's mood, hans made a very good observation in that the president is driving the agenda here. he is communicating not just to the nation but also to democrats by attacking vice president biden so vigorously, but also by attacking mitt romney so vigorously to try to keep republicans in line. with each new revelation, keeping those republicans in line becomes even more difficult. the fact that he's throwing under the bus energy secretary rick perry and saying i never wanted to make the call in the first place flies in the face of what we've been hearing from him since the united nations general assembly where he said, yeah, i did it, yeah, i made the call, yeah, i care about corruption, yeah, i want them to investigate joe biden.

so it seems as though he is just throwing spaghetti up against the wall trying to not -- it's more that the president is trying to solve problems that are in his face at the moment that he sends the tweet without really thinking about the impact that they have in the long term with this scandal. >> amy holmes, i want to get your reaction here as we look at two prominent conservatives. we just talked about mitt romney and how he was critical of the president. that's different than han impeachment vote, but we see the reporting coming out according to the bangor daily news where we have senator susan collins who is also saying that, quote, completely inappropriate what the president has done so far. might you see some of the conservatives in the house and in the senate here starting to turn? >> that's a very different question. a lot of republicans and

conservatives are not at all surprised that mitt romney and susan collins have come out against the president. they've often been in opposition to this president depending on what he said, what he's done. and they come from states that tend not to be as favorable towards president trump as some other states like, say, south carolina. more moderate states. utah has not traditionally been a big fan of president trump. going be back back to what jonathan is saying, in a word it's called impulsive. we know this about president trump, that he tends to be impulsive. he's a one-man band, a one-man show. that's been one of his like that. i spoke with a pollster about what polling they're seeing, and he told me that, hey, they have a poll that shows two-thirds of the american people would like to see congress work with president trump to solve the nation's problems. that's not the message we're hearing from president trump. we're not hearing a message of

discipline and a message that works with moderate centrist voters. he is playing to his base, and the base has never liked mitt romney. that's not news. it will be interesting to see if he's able to peel off any other moderates or traditional trump opponents. >> you're talking the trumpists. >> will we see a ben sass come out against president trump and perhaps lisa murray ykowski. >> david jolly, this is a space you know well. what do you think about the names brought up by amy as well as what jonathan was talking about? >> i think the bell whether in the house is will hurst who is retiring, has an intelligence officer-backed background. this hits close to home for him. there are other members leaving the house, susan brooks in indiana, martha roby in alabama, perhaps. when clinton was impeached, we saw five democrats move over and vote with republicans. we may see that number in the house. the senate is a totally different beast, obviously. i think mitt romney is a bell

weather there. the question is if you see mitt romney and and sass, even murray koufax move, does it start a trend or is it -- are they more isolated by doing so? particularly for mitt romney, he's likely going to be in the senate for a long time, but the entire republican party is going to try to reconstitute after donald trump. and mitt romney might decide, you know, based on conviction i can vote for an alter of impeachment and it positions me to lead the republican party back to normalcy in 2020 or 2024. i don't see enough republicans moving to convict the president, but richard, as we learn every day, who knows what comes out between now and the next 60 days? >> yes, yes, yes, yes. jonathan, one of the senators that did face a voter that said where do you draw the line, we got one more week before they come back to the beltway. more lessons to be learned

potentially here. how important is next week? >> it's important in that with each new revelation and with members of congress being out in their districts, they're not on vacation. they're having periods out there where they're talking to constituents. the bind that senator earnest found herself in is she's a republican but she's got this person in front of her who is saying the president and i'm para phrasing here, the president is a bad dude, what are you going to do to hold him accountable and all she could say was, you know, i don't think we should coddle dictators or coddle north korea. i think russia is not our friend. and i think we've gotten to the point for a lot of americans where it's not enough to say that you disagree with the president on this or disagree with the president on that because unlike the mueller probe, the ukraine scandal is something people can see and

understand easily. the president of the united states using the power of his office to shake down a foreign leader for his own personal political gain that is a national security problem and also a problem for american democracy, but also a problem for did he do period. because if the united states doesn't stand up for the rule of law and is in support of democracy, then what nation will be? and i think americans pride themselves on being a leader in the world, and right now we don't have a president who reflects that. >> jonathan, i don't think it is quite so cut and dry. i think a lot of people like myself read the rough transcript, got to the biden part and cringed. it was inappropriate and it was ham-handed and ham-fisted, not unlike a lot of what president trump does, did as a candidate in 2016. the question is is is it impeachable. seems both sides have gone through such extremes, one side

saying his blazer is criminal, depends on the lawyer you ask. on the other side, the president himself saying it was a beautiful call, it was a perfect call. those are both extreme positions on that and it's not leaving americans with a lot in the middle. the middle could have been other avenues. but we're not getting that. frankly, i see -- hold on. i see a lot of americans saying wake me up when it's over. it's the same old same old, people going after the presidention looking for a pretext, now they have one. i don't see the political game changed at all. >> we can't look at impeachment as if it's a criminal trial in a "law and order" episode. impeachable offenses are very broad. let's not forget president clinton was impeached for lying under oath. what we're dealing with here is by magnitude ten or 100 times bigger. the president of the united states is a national security threat. >> as you look at the poll

numbers when it looks at americans and what they think of this process right now, it's not really leaning one way or the other. if it were to lean more towards yes, we do support impeachment or impeachment inquiry, might that, then, get those who are in the middle more towards one side of the argument right now? because they are concerned about the repercussions of a president coming after you. >> first of all, i think every member of congress needs to answer to the constitution in this moment, not to polls and not to voters. what happens as politicians can be lagging indicators or leading indicators. you follow the polls or you drive public opinion. this is the moment where they lead. this is cut and dry. he confessed to abusing the office of the presidency for the express purpose of the president benefiting politically. you can start in may when the vice president's visit to the

inauguration was canceled. you can go to the phone call on july 27th when the president expressly said i have a favor to ask you before i answer your question about aid. you can go to six weeks of text messages between the u.s. ambassador to the eu and ukraine. let me finish. no, there is absolutely not. absolutely not, conflicting information. you can go to the whistle-blower report which fully corroborated to what the president confessed to all the way to september 1st where the president of the united states dispatched vice president pence to tell zelensky you're not getting your money. this is abuse of office. you do not need a criminal code violation to impeach a president. this is exactly what the architects of the impeachment language, madison, mason, and randolph envisioned, a president using a foreign power to interfere with the integrity of our elections. this is impeachable conduct. everything else is a deflection. >> that's the case against the

president. you can also talk to law professors who would say they could poke holes in that. as far as the whistle-blower, there are things in there -- >> the president can we find. >> people who were on the phone call. >> he confessed, amy. >> the point that i'm making is that there is a gray area. we have not heard a consistent, coherent defense from republicans and the president. what we've heard is a lot of pile on. >> thank you. stick around, you'll be able to talk to each other more as i can tell you are enjoying doing talking about this new report from "the new york times" about joe biden dealing with the attacks from president trump. coming up, a new report says president trump is cutting staff at the national security council as the white house reels right now from a whistle-blower complaint related to the agency's work. later, the president of the center at 2020 as joe biden

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welcome back. major changes are coming to the national security council amid the impeachment inquiry into president trump according to a new report from bloomberg. it says that major staff reductions are on the way. this comes as the president continues to zero in on the whistle-blower who sparked this controversy. who might it be and whose complaint is in many ways related to the nsc's work. >> the whistle-blower wrote not

that conversation. he wrote a vicious conversation. in other words, he either got it totally wrong, made it up, or the person giving the information to the whistle-blower was dishonest and this country has to find out who that person was because that person is a spy. >> the whistle-blower was wrong. the only thing that matters is the transcript of the actual conversation that i had with the president of ukraine. it was perfect. >> then the president today on his twitter said this. this is fraud against the american people. tom, the reduction in the staff from the national security council, first thing one might ask, does that endanger our national security? >> no, it doesn't have to. the national security council varies in size. it varies depending on what the president wants the national security adviser's job to be, what the national security adviser and staff, what their

priorities are. for example, under the bush 41 administration, it was down to roughly 50 people. they had a very small council. now it's in the hundreds, so the size of the council, there is no direct relationship between the size of the nsc and national security. depends on what they're being asked to do. >> then if this is related at all to this whistle-blower complaint, the question might be did the former national security adviser have any connection to what we're seeing today? there's a lot of ifs there. >> if the president and the current national security council staff are deciding it's time to reduce some staff, that's one thing. generally i don't think the president really understands what the nsc does i don't think he understands what the staff does. and so it does raise the question, is he doing this because he's angry about leaks

and trying to cut down the number of people that have access to this information. if that's the reason, that's not a good reason to cut the staff. >> a report that came out today from carol leonning, i'll read the headline, trump's calls with foreign leaders have worried aides, leaving some genuinely horrified. carol was on our air this afternoon describing three buckets of concerns here, the most important bucket was potential national security data, secrets basically that the united states holds that may have been released during those conversations. >> you want people on those telephone calls. i mean, the president, i mean, this is why you have staff so that people can note what was said so that they can help piece it together and to work with the president afterward, to see if there was any kind of information release that might be a problem that they can then

alert other parts of bureaucracy or the foreign policy establishment, give them a heads up they know this is coming of that if you just had the president alone on the phone with a leader, all kinds of things bad things can happen either intentionally or unintentionally. again, if the reason for cutting the staff is just to get people off the phone and to get them out of the room while the president is talking to foreign leaders, that's a bad idea. >> we'll see you later in the hour? >> i will. >> tom nichols, thank you so much. brand-new reporting from "the new york times" about how the biden campaign initially struggled to respond to the president's attacks on ukraine. -excuse me. uh... do you mind...being a mo-tour? -what could be better than being a mo-tour?

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. new reporting tonight on how former vice president joe biden is dealing with the unsubstantiated and debunked accusations being hurled over his son's business deals in ukraine. the "new york times" paints a portrait of a campaign staff unwilling to dpaengage on the issue. now he looks more vulnerable than at any point since he entered the campaign. mr. biden has struggled to meet the moment or reconcile his

instincts with his prokaryote know protectiveness of his family's privacy. last hour biden's camp sends out a memo highlighting their strategy to combat trump by sticking to the facts on biden and his son's separate roles with ukraine, going on the offensive, launching a $6 million ad buy across broadcasts and digital channels in all four early states, plus putting out policies important to the american people. here's what biden had to say about the allegations of conflicts of interest yesterday in los angeles. >> how fast yowas your role as president and your son's dealings in ukraine, how is that not a conflict of interest? >> there's been no indication from ukraine or anywhere else, period. i'm not going to respond to that. >> back with us, "washington post" opinion columnist jonathan

capark, congressman from florida david jolly. former speech writer for bill frist, amy holmes. three folks that love to talk together. >> we do, yes. >> air hug. >> air hug right now. let's start with you on this, jonathan, as we did in the last segment. >> yeah. >> this article outlines what may be some who are critical of the biden campaign or intuitive were seeing, that potentially wasn't the joe biden that some thought he should be in handling these accusations which, again, are unsubstantiated. >> right. you know, the article in "the new york times" tracks with things that i've been hearing in my own reporting. you know, vice president biden in this campaign is never more focused than when he is talking about president trump. the fact that he was not quick

to go on the offense when the president was not only attacking him but his son, his family, cast aspersions on his tenure as vice president, seemed to be off his game. when he gave that very aggressive statement about a week ago where he said, you know, donald trump is worried because he knows i can beat him like a drum. >> right. >> i think it sent a message to democrats like, oh, he's awake, he's there. the ad released today that he has where he's saying that donald trump wants to pick the democratic nominee and we're not going to let him do that, paraphrasing, those are the things he should be doing. but this reticence to be more forceful and be more focused in going at the president, i think, is going to be a problem. part of the problem that the story points out, and i think it's true, is that the vice

president doesn't want to get in the muck with president trump who, as we all know, has no problem going to the lowest point in a muddy pool. and so i understand that, but we know two things about democrats. they want someone who is going to take the fight to president trump. that is primary thing. and the other thing is they don't want democrats fighting with each other. >> david jolly, if you look at beat him like a drum, and i'm looking at these suggested message priorities, that chutzpah, that gumption that jonathan was describing in that statement that the former vice president did say, it's not here. >> sure. well, it's because it's rocked joe biden and put him on his heels. this is the last thing a candidate wants. this disrupts any momentum and gets the vice president off message. in terms of the subject matter itself, and it's important that in the media it is

contextualized, it is true that biden's actions have been investigated and no wrongdoing has been found. it's true that the international community wanted this ukraine prosecutor to be dismissed. joe biden was carrying that message. there was nothing illegal that joe biden did. however, any conversation around hunter biden reminds people of the swamp of washington. it's not illegal, but it's swampy that a vice president's son haed a contract for $50,000 a month to work in an industry in which he had no experience in a region in which he had no experience. the important context is, if it was illegal for a vice president or president's family members to make money off the office, donald trump would be out of office because his kids have been doing the exacts thing and the senate would be half empty. so it is swampy. as a democratic primary candidate, this gets joe biden way off message. the silver lining, richard, though, is this. if democratic voters decide to stick with joe biden, if joe biden comes out of this successful, he will have beaten

back this story, he will be stronger than ever, and then in the general election he can tell donald trump bring it on because the voters have shown they're going to stick with me. >> amy, you've been around campaigns, you understand how it works, the campaign fundraising numbers that have come out, they're not good for joe biden. he's in the $15 million range at the top of the fundraising numbers, warren, sanders up there in the $25 million range. is he starting to feel some of the criticism in real fundraising outcomes potentially? or is it because of his reaction to the accusations? >> well, it is his vulnerability, whether it is original allegations or his reaction. i will tell you that on this network exactly two weeks ago i predicted that the biggest beneficiary of the ukraine debacle will be elizabeth warren. she's ahead of biden in iowa and new hampshire.

all she has to do is sit back and let two birds be killed with one ukraine stone. it's serving her very well. as far as the allegations concerning the former vice president, it's a bit surprising that he has been so flat footed when this has been an issue for him. it was raised in "the new yorker" this summer in a huge block burst piece about hunter biden, would he be a liability and would biden cronyism and his son who have benefited in these ways from having the last name biden, would that be a problem for biden moving forward? you would think campaign would be locked and loaded ready to go to answer those criticisms. what we've seen is they haven't been, and that's a problem. >> jonathan, i'm going to read from the article. it reads the strain grew so acute that advisers lashed out at their own party, urging surrogates to criticize the dnc. has this caused a larger problem with the party at all do you think? >> i don't think with the party.

i do think it's unusual for a campaign to turn to the party for help when it's under attack. the party takes a neutral stand until there's an actual nominee. >> i think bernie sanders might disagree with that from 2016. >> i might disagree with bernie sanders, amy, but the point i'm making is that that vignette in the article just shows how acute the problem was. they were looking for outside help because the vice president dwont anything or wasn't listening to their advice. >> david jolly? >> look, i would credit his opponents in the democratic primary, maybe his opponents had an opportunity to pile on, but they've decided not to. some like senator kamala harris have gotten his back and said i'm with biden on this one. look, there is no good for joe biden in this story line, that is why he has hoped it would go

away. an extracted impeachment -- his opponents aren't piling on. if he comes out with voter support in a democratic primary, he'll be stronger than ever and this will backfire on donald trump. >> 15 seconds, amy. >> those are a lot of ifs and we'll see how it goes in the next debate. i assume the vice president will be asked these questions and we'll see if his opponents keep mum. >> three friends, great to have you over on a saturday. thank you. up next, the president has tied so much of his political fortune to the economy. what impact will an impeachment have on the markets? we'll talk to two experts on that. you just saved a bunch of money by switching your boat insurance to geico. it was easy. folks, can it get any better than this? is that what i think it is? that is an armada of tiny sushi boats.

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the unemployment rate hit a major milestone this week. it fell to 3.5%, the lowest it's been in 50 years, a fact that the president did not forget. >> it's greater than it ever was before, our military, our economy. [ cheers ] we have the greatest economy in the world. we have the greatest economy we've ever had, tremendous numbers just came out today. you heard that. >> that was a sign of relief after a volatile week on wall street. friday, all things considered, he is pleased with the state of the economy. >> not everyone fully shares

economic opportunities and the economy faces risks, overall the economy is, as i like to say, in a good place. our job is to keep it there as long as possible. >> meanwhile, the president has predicted that an impeachment inquiry will hurt the economy. but one expert says that is not the case. "washington post" opinion writer he lean olen writes let's be clear, if impeachment is what's causing the stock market's volatile performance, trump's news conference thursday morning would have set off further careening. joining us now, helen o linen along with chris lu. thank you both for being here. let's start with your writing. is it linked? >> it is not linked. but first i want to say something else, that we're even talking about this shows what a terrible place we've come to because we shouldn't equate it with the stock market. trump is trying to do this is kind of a sign of his

desperation. this is absolutely not linked and we know it's not linked. lucky for us. the stock market was really falling the first part of the week. it was down 900 points tuesday, wednesday. thursday morning it's still going down. it's down 300 points. trump comes and speaks. he immediately mentions the china trade talks, asks china can you look into joe biden. and what does the stock market do? donald trump just doubled his trouble. he has just admitted on camera please help me, foreign government, please help me. and the stock market promptly goes up for the next two bays before the unemployment numbers come out on friday. >> chris, what's your thought? >> unfortunately for donald trump the u.s. constitution doesn't allow a president to commit high crimes and misdemeanor if the economy is doing well. while the numbers that came out, the jobs numbers yesterday were a bit of a relief, let's be clear. the u.s. economy is slowing and

it's not just the jobs numbers, it's the manufacturing. it's consumer confidence and the services sector class bigger part of the u.s. economy than manufacturing. the problem for trump is that the economy is a lynch pin for his re-election. if it slows it's going to be the same point as what he inherited from barack obama that he criticized so, so sif rowsly during the 2016 election. as the economy slows, that's going to cause political problems. we are not going to hit a recession, from we're clearing slowing down. >> looking at the gdp numbers, lagging indicators as we look at them. helen, 3.1 in the first quarter of 2019 down to 2% in the second quarter. so it's trending down. >> there are worrisome sides on the unemployment numbers as well. yes, unemployment is at a record low level, but workplace participation is still below where it was at the start of the great recession.

wage growth is, at best, a anem. where is the pressure to raise wages? it's not there and it's probably not there because there's still a lot of people on the sidelines hoping to get in. >> on the sidelines, chris lu, as well as the wage gap itself when we are looking at those who make a lot and those who make a little and that difference is not getting better. >> that's exactly right. wage growth is not what you would expect at 3.5% unemployment. real wage growth is 1.2%, that's not enough to make people's lives better. there are proven ways you can grow wages. democrats have been pushing for a minimum wage increase. it has not gone up in ten years. but it's fueling a lot of the movement on the left right now. after you give $1.7 trillion tax cuts, that really goes to the

wealthy and corporations, none of it has gone back to workers and lifted the wages as the president predicted it would. >> what is the trump economy? >> the trump economy is an economy that is good but is slowing down. there's doesn't seem to be a way around admitting that at this point. donald trump can say what he wants, but the signs are, as chris pointed out, they're not that great right now. >> chris, how would you characterist characterize the trump academy? >> basically the barack obama economy with a $1 trillion deficit every year. >> thank you so much. chris lu, see you in a bit. next, what to look out for in the week ahead, including testimony from the ousted ukrainian ambassador whose firing raised concerns among diplomats and national security officials. as soon as the homeowners arrive, we'll inform them that liberty mutual customizes home insurance, so they'll only pay for what they need.

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of those depositions from happening. the potential star witness to keep an eye on comes at the end of the week, marie yovanovitch, the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. back with us, chris lu who served as senior official in the obama white house tom nichols. chris, what are you looking at for this coming week putting on a couple of your old hats? >> a lot of people thought it was mistake for democrats to go into recess and they would lose their focus. they haven't. they have continued to build the public case for impeachment. not only the volker deposition but the subpoenas they issued for the white house and the state department. the challenge is for republicans. last week they were able to

dodge a lot of questions about the president's comments on china. there will be more information that will come out, more documents will go out there. the news reports there might be a second whistle-blower out there. it's continuing to stay on message. focus all of their attention on ukraine and the other trump scandals. >> tom, i'm going to focus on the ambassador to ukraine. how essential is she to this proce process? >> i think the questions around her will be timing. what was she removed? what was she told at the time? what okbjections did she raise? these are sticky questions. the president has the tendencies to throw things all out there.

that makes them fair came for asking a lot of questions. >> what was she known for? >> she's had a long history with the state department as a career ambassador rather than a political appointee. she has a great reservoir of experience in that region. she has a long history as a professional diplomat. that will serve her well. >> if you were is can go a question, what would you ask? >> it would be what instructions did you get from the white house in terms of investigating not only hunter biden but these

conspiracy theory allegations. what did you do with those? what did the ukrainian leaders tell you? what were communications that were either transmitted to you first or secondhand through rudy giuliani. there's a lot of questions that need to be answered. this is a distinguished career ambassador who until this tenure had had no controversy in her past. the fact she was removed at the behest of rudy giuliani raises all kinds of questions. >> tom, rudy giuliani, will they ask him to provide testimony? do they need to ask him to provide testimony? chris was alluding to that complexity. >> i would. >> it it's remarkable. the first thing that goes through my mind is why is rudy

giuliani talking to anybody? what capacity does he have in any facility. why is he there? does he have some kind of status as a government representative? it just blows my mind every time someone mentions rudy giuliani and i imagine i have the same reaction that a lot of world leaders do which is why is the president's personal lawyer talking to me. what's going on here? >> is there any precedent to this? >> presidents have always used a back channel for important communications. in a very limited way. for example, during the cold war, we would -- a president would send a business person or well known member of his party for one or two discussions to say on behalf of the president, i'm just transmitting some ideas here. this is quite different. this is rudy giuliani kind of racking up shadow secretary of state miles. flying around talking foreign

leaders. in my view there's no precedent for this. this is really a remarkably irregular relationship with the president's lawyer. >> oversight had on here if you bring in rudy giuliani to give testimony, is that a plus if you're a democrat or is that a negative for his potential distractions? >> it will be a potential distraction. you need to hear from rudy giuliani. i think as importantly you need to get copies of whatever documents he has. whatever text messages he has. in many ways he's been a prosecutors dream because every time he goes on tv and holds up his big ipad and shows off texts he's giving a road map for a whole series of materials that democrats should get their hands on. they should talk to other witnesses. he should be later in the process. you'll want as much information at your disposal before you talk to him. >> what are you looking for this coming week?

>> i think unfortunately, what we're always looking for is@be's tweets first thing in the morning. it's what we're waiting for. >> so are many of his staff. >> everybody is waiting. we're now being governed by instantaneous presidential reaction. as chris points out every time the president or rudy giuliani goes on there, more questions open up. >> 15 seconds, chris. >> the biggest help to the democrats has been donald trump. every time he goes out there on the south lawn, he is confirming he may have engaged in impeachable conduct. >> have great friday, rather saturday evening. thank you for being here. that wraps it up for me this hour. you can reach out to me on social media and i'll get right back to you. up next, all in with chris hayes. it's tough to quit smoking cold turkey.

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tonight on a special edition of "all in." >> there is no pro quo. >> yes, pro quo. damning new evidence of an explicit quid pro quo in the shakedown. and just how much are republicans going to defend? >> i'm not a crook. >> the prosecutors who brought richard nixon to justice on the mounting case against donald trump. >> i'm innocent of all charges. >> live from studio 6a in rockefeller plaza, "all in" starts right now.