good evening to you at home. i want to welcome you right now to this msnbc special on sunday night, trump and ukraine, the impeachment crisisment tonight i will be joined live by a special panel. a new whistleblower emerging today. and later tonight we will host a unique debate, and the stakes are high, with a scandal fueled by two secret whistleblowers. and a new vigor from a congress that has donald trump on the run and defending his presidency like ever before which makes it more striking to consider this scandal first exploded two weeks

ago. >> official impeachment inquiry. >> a mafia-like skak shakedown. >> what is that fellas people? >> biden and his son are stone cold crooked. >> we are done here. >> an assault on the constitution. >> this time looks different. while every day certainly brings new breaks in the story, the larger issues are not actually about each detail, but the dilemma of what defines the kind of abuse of power that should end a presidency. and in this special, we have a live debate on the two core questions in this crisis. one, are there grounds for the house to impeach the president now? and, two, if so, is there a

substantive case for the senate to convict the president? now i want to tell you upfront those are questions about the constitution and our system of government. they are not questions about anyone's feelings about donald trump. and if you are looking for political opinions on trump, that's not really our focus tonight. but if you are looking for a deep legal and factual reckoning, we hope this could be the right program for you because we're going to try to offer the context and the precedence that you might be bringing up with your friends as this whole debate continues to grip the nation. it will matter whether your friends agree with you or not. we have that debate with two of the leading legal minds in the nation. we begin with this weekend's bombshell. a second whistleblower emerging. and by the way, this is not a random anonymous story we have gotten today. it looks credible because the attorneys for the first whistleblower are the ones confirming this brand-new account and representing legally the new whistleblower, which

puts heat on a president who is struggling to respond. trump insiders saying there is no consistent message because the plan is whatever the president's whim is today. and that puts trump at a disadvantage heading into the worst period of his presidency right now. consider in sunday's show dominance and these political morning shows. today we could tell you not a single member of trump's white house represented him on television today. that's leaving people to improv and free style explanations. some republicans now saying the thing that trump already admitted was serious and maybe it's just a joke. >> george, do you really think he was serious about thinking that china is going to investigate the biden family? >> i doubt if the china comment was serious, to tell you the truth. >> that's a real request him just needling the press knowing

you guys would get outraged by it. >> we begin with our panel for trump and ukraine with presidential historian john m c meachum. i joined joined by eugene robinson. and melissa murray who clerked for judge sotomayor. thanks for being a part of our special, guys. i start with you, gene, in washington. they didn't need one more two by four to the head at the white house, but they certainly got it with a second whistleblower. your interpretation? >> well, first of all, the first whistleblower was enough, right? and the first whistleblower story, it was completely supported by the information later released by the white house about what president trump was doing with ukraine. and it was that revelation that set this in motion and that sort

of flicked the switch in the house from we're not going to impeach to nancy pelosi deciding that the house had to move forward. politics be damned. a second whistleblower, we don't know exactly what the second whistleblower has to say yet. it could be another bombshell. it could be something that profoundly deepens this episode or knowledge of this episode. it could be something else about this episode. we just don't know. but we'll -- you know, we'll be finding out. >> john, your view? >> well, i think that this was a break in the dam, the first whistleblower. it created a safe space, if you will, a safer territory for people to come forward. often, that's the point of this kind of statute. if one brave person will speak the truth, it will embolden

others. and, so, i love what you said a second ago about it is not about feelings. it is not about opinion. it is about fact. one of the questions we have to resolve in the country, and we're kind of in an unfolding civics lesson about it, is are we willing to acknowledge fact for what it is? as opposed to interpreting it before we get to whether it's actually a real thing. and so many folks are, as walter litman said, we don't see and then define. we define and then we see. and one thing that i suspect happens and i suspect more will happen, i suspect it gets harder and harder for the defenders of the presidents to say there is nothing here. >> yeah. you mention deflexive defenders. take a look at one of them who

is also a target which also makes an agent's or lawyer's job more difficult. take a look at rudy giuliani. >> the reason they don't want me on is they know something you're not reporting on. i've got it all. >> all right. >> i got it all. >> the conversation will continue. >> there is a lot more to come out. we haven't moved to romania yet. wait until we get to romania. >> john, i don't know that i want to get to romania, but it's not my call. >> it sounds like a mel brooks movie, right? wait until romanian. if mel brooks had done programming for cspan. you know, there is a little bit of, you know, art buchwald, who was never better than dpuring watergate. as he put it, he didn't have to work that hard. the caricatures of folks unfoildiunfoild

i ing here are rivivid. what i would say to anyone either going after the president or defending the president, this is the kind of period that we write books about and that shape generations of politicianpoliti. watergate shaped a generation of politicians, mccarthy, the new deal. you go all the way back. there are these important inflection moments that live far beyond where we are, and i think we're unquestionably right in the middle of one of those. >> well, that brings me to professor murray because there are the books that capture the history of the stakes. there are also criminal law text books and administrative law textbooks filled with the cases that emerge from these types of crisis and hard cases can make bad law. but there may be some easy cases here, professor. i wonder what you think not only about the question we tackle tonight, which is the evidence

mounting for the house on impeaching the president but also the exposure of other individuals, some by, according to donald trump's latest defenses, according to him, you know, tattling on them. >> well, obviously, this is escalating and unfolding in ways that perhaps we don't even understand yet. but one thing does become clear and as john said, the presence of the second whistleblower really does corroborate the second-hand testimony of the first. and that's really important. that adds fuel to this fire. more than i covered for other people to come forward. i wouldn't be surprised if we had new whistleblowers coming out in the second couple of days or weeks. in terms of past precedence and what we have seen before, we saw with watergate that even as president nixon chose to resign before he was formally impeached by the house, we still saw many white house aids doing federal time for their work in the nixon white house. so, again, it is never the crime itself. it is always the cover-up and

what seems to be part of the story here is a massive effort to cover-up things that happened in this white house that were not only unorthodox but perhaps an abuse of presidential authority. >> go ahead, gene. >> no. i was going to say, keep your eyes, though, on the crime itself. i mean, because the thing about the first whistleblower's complaint is that it has been corroborated by evidence of the white house itself released. if you just take the evidence that donald trump has given us, you have a sort of blueprint for impeachment right there. you have the withholding of the aid to ukraine. you have the phone call, which is very clear to everybody. now we have the text messages back and forth between people who were working for the president on ukraine. there is a lot on the record

already. and maybe the second whistleblower has something completely new, but you could just focus on what we already have. >> and, john, as the historian mentioned at the top of our special, the book on impeachment, i know it is early. with all due caveats, where do the issues fit in in your view in the history where we have a spectrum of the process leading to a president leaves office with nixon and two other very different impeachments in the different times we've gotten there in history. >> i would say they're more serious than andrew johnson. the issues that surrounded andrew johnson's impeachment were existential. it was about white supremacy. it was about the verdict of the civil war. but when congress got down to brass tax, they really kind of backed into something. and i'm not going to inflict the tenure of office act on everyone on a sunday. >> you don't scare me. >> trust me. >> you don't scare me with your

historical legal references, mr. meachum. >> actually, this is the one place that would find that one, so we found each other. so you backed into that. >> so the issues of -- the issues of the johnson impeachment hugely important. when they got to impeaching him, not so much. this is -- and then nixon is about an abuse of power, using federal agencies for political benefit, using federal agencies to block investigations into political crime, break-ins and other things. this -- the clinton issue, i think this is far more important. i think this ranks with or right above watergate just historically speaking. if you go -- because think about it. this is what impeachment was created for. put yourself back in 1787. you're in that hot summer. you're in the pennsylvania state

house. you are trying like hell to figure out how to make this thing work. the mind of man had never at a stroke attempted to do this, to create a government like this. they're incredibly wary of executive power, not least because of the king. the king was an issue, too, but they had seen royal governors. they knew there could be abuses of power. they were anxious about following the well worn historical path of an attempted republic that becomes a dictatorship. what do they settle on? this thing called impeachment. they're very clear it is not about as madison put it, mal administration. it was just, you know what, we disagree with him. let's impeachment and try somebody else. that was not this. this was not that. this was different. and it was about how do you protect the integrity of the system? they would have fully understood the idea of a president colluding with a foreign power in some way to achieve their own

authority and their own power in the republic itself. that was very much in their minds. that's why in the constitution you can't accept a title of nobility. you can't accept the gift of an office from a foreign power, because we know how the story turned out. we know we have had a good run of 240 years or so and god willing more, but they didn't. >> i hope people were listening closely to your point because the core principal being not disagreement to cancel elections but abuse of power that could endanger future elections. i mean, you just hit the core of it. i'm going to lose john and gu gree eugene. gene, my other question to you is, how do you think the special character of the president in this situation plays out? because donald trump is someone who both lies constantly. i say that as a journalist. and then occasionally blurts out incriminating truths, whether that was at the dawn of the

mueller probe about the elicit motive for removing the fbi director or as he done recently here given the democrats tremendous evidence in what in law we call a voluntary confession, which is some of the most damning evidence you can get. >> it provides a test. it tests the system because here is someone who lies all the time and as you said sometimes blurts out important truth. and, so, how seriously does the house, does the whole process take the defense? well, he didn't mean it. because he says a lot of things he doesn't mean. and, so, i guess we'll test the proposition of whether we can take the president's words seriously at all, which is a ridiculous question to have to ask about the president of the united states. the thing about taking trump seriously but not literally is if you think about it ridiculous. you can't take someone seriously

if you cannot believe a word they say, if you cannot put any faith in anything that comes out of their mouth. yet, that will be part of the defense. that's already the defense on the china question of, well, he -- you know, he obviously didn't mean it. he didn't say it like a joke. he said it several times as if he were serious. the system will have to find a way to take that seriously and to distinguish between what's real and what's not. >> that was his goal. i'm reminded of miley sicyrus. >> somebody tells you who they are, believe them the first time, mia angelo. >> believe that. >> i think that's the first time that miley cyrus and mia angelo have been quoted in the same paragraph. >> our special coverage is designed to take a pause from

these crazy news weeks and think it through. i'm grateful for john and eugene for helping us do that. melissa, don't go anywhere. i want to go deeper with you. we will take a quick break and get into donald trump's other wild claim. rick perry made me do it. and we have this live debate on the key questions. evidence and the arguments. but first right after this break, look who's here? of course we wouldn't do this without the one and only counselor to answer not only my questions but some of yours. i asked you this weekend to post them. i have your responses. and more melissa when we come back. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. i wish i could shake your hand. granted. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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welcome back to our live sunday night special. a second whistleblower. trump told republicans, not a lot of people know this, but i didn't want to make the call. the reason i made the call is because rick perry asked me to. axios first reporting that. now, rick perry made me do it is really out there as an argument. i can't refer to it as a defense because it is not a defense to a crime or a high crime to say that your employee asked you to do it. and the washington context here is that "politico" reports perry will be out by november. the wider context is you don't have to blame others for something you did that's innocent. you blame others when you already know it's bad. back with us to get into everything we have professor melissa murray and mia whyly. the rick perry argument, thoughts?

>> yeah. that's the only response, is to laugh. we had a whole bunch of legos on the floor at home today. who made this mess? rick perry made me do it. >> one of the things that's not funny about this situation is that we have people, particularly young black men, who are prosecuted because they have threats against their family of violence if they don't participate in gang activity. they don't get to say, the gang made me do it. they're still guilty of the crime even if they do it because they're afraid for their lives or the lives of their families. for a sitting president to suggest even informally that somehow the republican caucus should hang with him, which is what i think this call was about, right, as we saw some senators starting to express deep concern for some of his public statements that he's looking to shore them up and in

doing so casting blame on someone else, we don't know enough about the call. so i do want to say that. we need more detail. >> yeah. we're getting an account about one part of it. >> we need the whole context of the call. but any suggestion that being told to do something you must know is a crime because you had the mueller investigation on whether or not you were improperly trying to get dirt on hillary clinton from russians pretty much tells you you should at least have a red flag and maybe consult some attorneys before you do that, even if you have a member of your candidate suggesting it. >> to be clear, though, when he said that rick perry is the one who wanted the call initiated, this might have been a plausible reason for the secretary of energy to want to speak to someone at the head of the ukraine krian government. >> but to be fair, to put it all

on rick perry, i mean, just seems to be of the highest order. and, again, rick perry made me do it, that boggles the mind. but not surprising. this is totally on brand. >> and one of the things that you look at as an attorney is the fact that donald trump has given a different answer to what this call was about and what motivated it throughout the past week and a half starting with, you know, oh, well, this is because i was upset about the europeans not putting in enough money. then it became it was about corruption. >> it's casting about. >> it's a casting about for what is the best answer that will get me the best response. >> i think what we're talking about is that it qualifies as a huge gaffe that your lawyers wouldn't let you make because it's a triple layer cake. like the first layer is this isn't true. then the other layer is it doesn't sound true because nobody thinks rick perry is the

foreign policy mastermind that makes donald trump do that which he doesn't want to do. and third is it's a confession that the thing is both happening and bad, which was not where he was ten days ago. >> uh-huh. >> you know, you know, it does seem to say, oh, i have to get away from this. i have to blame somebody. >> well, this whole week has been about getting away from this. and it just seems like there isn't a getting away from this. it seems to be getting deeper and deeper and deeper. the second whistleblower, the release of the transcript. i mean, this isn't going to go away. >> yeah. >> and i think it's time to really lawyer up with good lawyers this time. >> right. if you are going to compare -- if you are going to compare what the whistleblower are saying, one person the whistleblower did not highly focus on or blame was rick perry. i don't mean to take this too seriously. i'm just mentioning it. >> rick perry has not been in play since "dancing with the stars."

>> well, i thought you were going to quote earlier. so i was surprised by the miley cyrus, you know, reality ain't always the truth. >> reality tv. >> and sometimes reality bites. i have something else i want to do as part of our special. i mentioned this, and i mean it, we get to talk about all these interesting stories throughout the week. we have a little more time tonight. one of the things i asked you was send us our questions and we would get to some of them. here is a question that just came in from emma. is there any possibility that these senators can vote anonymously. it seems many would vote yes. >> brian on twitter says who represents the president at trial if we get there in the senate? is it about the office and therefore white house counsel or his personal attorney or both? and catherine writes in are the attorneys for the house inquiry

going to question the witnesses or just the representatives? that is a question that raises the way that there has been debates about how effective all the members of congress have been. as promised, we are reading to some of these. i wonder if you guys want toing tale any of the questions. >> do you want to start with anonymity. >> no. >> no. >> not happening. and you shouldn't want it to happen. >> politically i understand why people are asking. if senators are circling the wagons but really want to do something different but don't want people to know they did something different. but that's really -- first of all, you would already know just by the vote count. but it is the democratic process. >> and you are saying the founders wanted this to be an accountable system, not an anonymous system. >> to be clear, the constitution says nothing about how a vote should happen. but you would want that. the constituencies would want that. >> the senate rules say they vote according to the senate rules. and there is no secret vote in

the senate rules. so in theory they could vote to change the rules. but they would need a super majority to do that. obviously that's not going to happen. >> what about the lawyers we might see if there is a senate trial? >> well, this is an interesting one because the history is that it's members of congress, so they are the managers of the impeachment. >> prosecuting. >> prosecuting, right. >> but that does not mean and there is no rule that says that the house can't designate other people to ask questions. i suspect we will see a replay of part of what we saw in the house judiciary committee, right, or rather with house intel when barry burk was going to ask questions and what we saw was the -- was the congress members on the republican side making procedural arguments about why they couldn't have barry burk ask questions, so i would see a repeat of that. >> for the president, if we do

proceed to a trial in the senate, the president can have a mix of both white house counsel and private lawyers. we saw that in the clinton impeachment where sheryl mills was white house counsel. but you at others representing the president as well. so it can be a mix there. >> great details. fascinating learning from each of you. and i know that our viewers are interested because those are questions they wanted you guys to answer. so we appreciate it. i will tell everyone you can always give us more questions on all platforms. i will continue to do this, so i would love to get in more of your questions and get a sense of what you guys want to know about. now, coming up, the live debate with two legal experts on the core questions, all the evidence about whether to impeach and convict. much more on our very, very msnbc special trump and ukraine: the impeachment crisis. maria ramirez?

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our special continues. up next we're doing i'm really excited about that i don't think you will see anywhere else. this is the full legal and constitutional debate about these key questions, should the house impeach donald trump. if so, is there evidence for this house to convict. we have two legal experts face-off when we come back.

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i can'twhat? ve it. that our new house is haunted by casper the friendly ghost? hey jill! hey kurt! movies? i'll get snacks! no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on our car insurance with geico. i got snacks! ohhh, i got popcorn, i got caramel corn, i got kettle corn. am i chewing too loud? believe it! geico could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. welcome back. we will tackle the most fundamental question in america right now. did the president commit an impeachment offense. i'm joined by two of the nation's top legal experts to get right into that question in this segment. the constitution says the house

has the sole power to impeach. and that is basically like a prosecutor indicting someone. for the president it's a determination there is enough evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor that the senate will hold a trial, which is why congress says this part is easy. they point to the huge amount of evidence that trump plotted to abuse his power to get a favor from a foreign leader, bringing up biden and his family on that infamous call saying whatever you can do to get it done, please do it. other evidence includes testimony from the would be defendant donald trump who confirmed he pushed ukraine to go after biden and his son. >> the conversation i had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don't want our people like vice president biden and his son creating the corruption already in the ukraine. >> the president confirming a lot there.

but does it meet the constitution's requirement the president should only be impeached on these grounds, treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. we welcome former federal prosecutor john flanry. he assisted in democrats in the clinton impeachment debate and constitutional attorney david rivken who served in the white house counsel's office and has represented the 26 states that challenged the constitutionality of ob ama's affordable care act >> nice to be here, ari. >> great to have you. i want to say for viewers to understand, we will begin with each of you getting 60 seconds to make your concise opening arguments, and then we will have the substantive debate. mr. flanry begin. >> thank you. the original founders of the nation were very concerned with a single executive there must be

some way to curb his power and influence. madison thought we had to be concerned about teatyranny. the question is of the crimes they enumerated what ones could we say have been violated here? i suggest the campaign finance act is one in which we have an e emolument. we have bribery. i'm withholding this money that you need for your nation. but first i want you to do something for me and give me the dirt so i can get re-elected. there is the question of obstruction, not just withholding information on a false example of what he thinks should permit him to do it. so i also think that any impeachment should be in the form of a conspiracy. that is the president, the vice president, the secretary of state and the attorney general

because all were involved. >> counselor, thank you. a tight one minute on the argument for impeachment. david, your response? >> ari, good to be with you. my 92-year-old aunt is a big fan, so i appreciate a chance to talk -- >> shout out to your aunt. >> i appreciate the chance to talk about the constitution. let's pretend we're not talking about donald trump. really only interested in the constitution. both are fundamentally wrong about the place of impeachment on our constitutional permanent. the framers were deeply ambivalent about impeachment. they debated for quite some time the possibility of not having any impeachment power in the constitution. they debated who could be trusted with exercising this power. they wanted to give it first to the state legislators. but they were tremendously concerned about abuse. by the way, i'm pretty sick and tired hearing that abuses of

executive power was the only thing that animated the framers because they were much more concerned about abuses of legislative power. they believed to be as strong as branch. they were very concerned precisely because of a malleable definition of high crime and misdemeanor is pretty much whatever al says it is. what do we have here? let's forget this is donald trump. let's take seriously the proposition that -- >> and counselor, you're at time. >> let's take the proposition he was interested in investigating corruption in ukraine and you could not possibly get into this. >> you have to finish. you have one sentence to finish. you're over time. >> that is perfectly time. we're talking about impeaching him for presidential power. >> you were never good with rules. >> both of you have laid out at the highest at altitude why this

is so important. john, let's get into it. you can build on the points you made or respond to what david said. >> i would like to respond. >> you can't impeach the president for foreign policy. >> this was about personal interest. this was about his election. this was about having dirt on what appeared to be one of his principal opponents in the general election. it is a big difference between talking about policy and talking about what favors him in an election. and he apparently started this in about may with his lieutenant rudy giuliani. but let me say something else. the members of the founding fathers who were deciding what to do, they were very concerned given that they had a king. and they were very concerned that they not reproduce here without such royalty the same error that they thought captivated great britain. >> john, let me press you on what evidentiary point and bring in david. you have laid out your argument. >> right. >> what do you say to people who would look at this and say right

now the strength of the evidence is two anonymous individuals as witnesses. >> it's not. >> and the president's words which many of his critics say carry no weight anyway? is that enough to remove the president? >> i disagree with. i think we have evidence independent of what started this, which was the whistleblower. what we have is the statement in the conversation, the read-out that tells us that in response to the remark by the president of ukraine, we are almost ready to buy more javelins. president trump says i would like you to do us a favor, though. we have rudy going on the air explaining all this. then we have the president doing additional similar acts. we find out he's called australia and he's asked china to help him on this. so the evidence is overwhelming. this is one of those cases in which rarely you get the person admitting to it and the entire nation knows about it. >> i appreciate a little bit of equal time. i'm not interesting in debating

the credibility of the whistleblowers. let's assume that president trump for a certain period of time delayed the delivery of aid because he sincerely believed there was a genuine corruption that took place in ukraine. not just corruption in the sense of what joe biden told him to do but corruption in a sense that you had efforts to involve ukraine, italy, australia, britain and a number of other foreign countries into digging dirt on then candidate trump on mr. manafort. you may disagree with that, but there is some credible evidence that suggests that. >> did he need that to win? >> and his goal -- >> david, do you need that to be true to win? >> no. that's why you investigate. my point is very simple. to the extent that there is a shall we say for the benefit of the viewers, a strong probability that that was the case and the ultimate irony here is that the obama administration, a number of the

members of the obama administration stand accused credibly in engaging in exactly the same conduct. withholding a billion dollars from ukraine, seeking to get ukraine to deliver things, it is ironic to me that nobody is interested in looking into that -- >> wow. >> i'm surprised you make that argument. as you know, that's not an argument of legal or constitutional significance because that's the past president. >> no, no. i need to -- >> david, i'm going to finish the question and then you get to get in. the only real question here is the evidence facing this particular person who may or may not be impeached. >> with respect, there is constitutional precedent for impeaching former holders of office. the best example of it is the impeachment of secretary bellmap, secretary of war under president grant, impeached by the house after he resigned. >> you knew tonight you were

invited to debate this particular issue. >> precisely given the framers' concern, having impeachment focussed solely on this particular president because of a conduct that is at best identical to the conduct of a previous administration is the highest form of weaponization and pollicization of impeachment power that is constitutionally dangerous. >> i suppose all republicans have a problem with focus because they can't add anything to say to the facts that are actually out there that relate to whether or not we can, should and, i think, must impeach the president. so we talk about everything else. but in that answer that i thought we weren't going to talk about trump specifically, we talked about everything else. so i guess that fits the original premise that david has chosen. but having done that, basically what he's saying is we have a right to ask all these people to investigate for the purposes of what? helping the president run for

re-election, a very personal goal, having nothing to do with public policy. there is a history of looking at impeachment and seeing if there was a good faith reason for any act that a president >> let me plea one piece of sound from the person in question, president trump who has spoken in broadways about something that david has referred to. which is he does have under the constitution these powers. what i want to do is turn to the other part of this debate, the senate part -- >> can i just make one point? >> i'm going to go back to you, first follow my lead. i'm going to play the president talking about his article ii powers, take a listen. >> then i have an article ii where i have the right to do whatever i want as president. but i don't even talk about that. look, article ii. i would be allowed to fire robert mueller. more importantly, article ii allows me to do whatever i want. >> that's the way the president sees it.

turning to david, so everyone understands, to the second part of this, which is if the house impeaches, should the senate actually convict president trump and vote to convict and potentially remove him from office, which has never happened in american history, for which john's side of the debate is a hard and high bar? david, then john. >> my point advice simple. the senate should not convict, the house should not impeach. let me explain. we're talking about a perfectly legitimate use of presidential power. namely, to push a recipient of american aid to investigate past corruptive act to ensure that they don't occur. ironically to ensure ukraine doesn't interfere in american presidential elections again. john's beef and democrats' beef is that president trump benefits from it politically. let's stipulate that he probably does. let me ask a simple question. can you think about any foreign policy action that does not bring some benefits to a sitting president? for example, if you call chairman kim tomorrow, give me a

good deal on nuclearization of korea, he calls chairman xi, why don't you finally give me a good deal that shows what a great foreign policy leader i am? benefits and enhancing his political luster. do you live in a world where you think american politicians or politicians anywhere in the world have to be completely apolitical? if you never heard the expression, good policy is good politics? what's the difference here? >> a barrage of rhetorical questions, john flanery -- >> good ones. >> let me get this on the record. david thinks his questions are good. i bet john thinks his questions are good. many of our guests think their own ideas are great but we do too, we appreciate the expertise. john action your response? >> i don't think i've asked any questions yet. i am a student of the theater of the absurd and i love listening to questions that have absolutely no bearing on what we're doing. i think there is a big difference between having peace

throughout ukraine and russia and with the eu. but that's not what this was about. this was about getting a specific person investigated to help the president in a presidential election ongoing after he had read the polls, period. no other question about it. as for going to the senate, i think, yes, you're right, there is a high bar. because of how we count. we need 20 republicans. but are we saying that there is no fact that won't concern them? are we saying that they won't be moved by this conspiracy? we're told that as many as 30 are upset with this president. they saw what they did to the senator from utah. is this the kind of president they want who's done this misconduct, which is not in the history of the republican party? are they going to be so concerned about the political inconvenience of standing up for what's right at the risk of being re-elected? are they going to be concerned about the nation over their own personal interest? >> two tenacious lawyers who have been given more time than

any other segment we've done because we wanted to give this an airing. you're both invited back as these issues may stay in the news. thank you both so much. >> thank you. >> i really appreciate it. we'll get reaction and reviews from our special panel of judges right here. maya and melissa when we come back. must be hot out there, huh? not especially. -[ slurping continues ] -what you drinking? gasoline. right, but i mean, what's in the cup? gasoline. [ slurping ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

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let's consult with our judges maya and melissa, good evening. melissa, what did you think? >> hated it. i have to say david coming in with a strong executive power argument, executive power is strong, especially in foreign affairs. but it is not unfettered and it doesn't allow the president the opportunity to press his case with a foreign power to gain advantage over political opponent in a domestic election. so that was a hard pass for me. >> i agree with melissa. he essentially said that there's almost no case in which congress can exercise its constitutional authority to investigate and

have a trial around whether or not a president should be impeached. remember, his whole argument was, i'm not debating merit action, i'm just talking about impeachment power. then he spun the facts to say, there are not facts here, i will interpret the facts to say congress can't do what it's acquitted to do. one quick fact countering what he was saying, he's saying the president was just acquitting his powers about corruption, a legitimate presidential power and concern. except there was a memo from the pentagon to four committees of congress back in may, before the money was to be released, saying they have made sufficient progress on corruption, and therefore, the money can be released. >> melissa, what is the best argument on trump's side in the senate. i think the best argument will be whether or not there was intent to pressure a foreign power to do a quid pro quo. and i don't know that it's necessarily a terrific argument. i think there is a lot of

evidence, again sort of suggesting that there is a lot here. >> part of that argument of, if you have no idea what you're doing, how can you do wrong? we'll build on that and more. i appreciate you both being here, we're out of time. >> thank you. >> to everyone who joined us on air, you at home, those who sent in questions, thank you so much for watching our live msnbc special. you can find me tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern with some of the great same guests. we have a big week. right now, rachel maddow's "betrayal: the plot that won the white house." this is an msnbc special presentation. >> this is a jagged little puzzle of a story. here's some of the pieces. a bitter race for the white house, a candidate who would do anything to win, maybe even conspire with a foreign government, a secret campaign