downturn. makes sense to get it in order, you fix the roof before the rainstorm comes. we're doing the opposite and will pay the price in terms of economic strength and affects all areas of our country's strength. >> maya, got to go. good talking to you always. maya macguineas. thank you for watching. "deadline: white house" begins right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c., where donald trump has declared war on the house impeachment inquiry. the perils for the president in doing so are immense and could include adding a separate article of impeachment for obstructing the inquiry that, of course, was one of the nixon articles of impeachment. donald trump turning to stonewalling as the impeachment inquiry is soaring in terms of support from the american public. adopting the defiant posture of obstructing a probe that 58% of the american public supports including nearly a third of republicans, so potentially

damaging to the president politically, that it's leading to questions today about what exactly the president is afraid that the diplomat scheduled to testify today would reveal. "the new york times" writes this, "the decision to block gordon sondland from speaking with three investigators for three house committees came just hours before he was to appear on capitol hill provoking an immediate conflict with potentially profound consequences for the inquiry and for the president, himself." despite the trump administration pulling the plug on today's planned testimony early this morning, there's already ample evidence from sondland's text messages with other diplomats he was deeply involved in the effort to get the ukrainian president to investigate the bidens. there's also a smoking gun text exchange in which he's confronted with the concern from another diplomat that military aid had been tied to the ukrainians digging up dirt on the president's rival. diplomat bill taylor wrote sondland, "as i said on the phone, i think it's crazy to

withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign." "the new york times" reports on what sondland did after he got that text message. "after receiving the text, mr. sondland called mr. trump who asserted it was false." sondland then replied to taylor's message, "bill, i believe you're incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind." and added "i suggest we stop the back and forth by text." nbc news confirmed today that sondland spoke with the president before sending that awfully on-message reply and adds that there are more text messages between the officials that haven't yet been released to the public. and if the substance of all those communications were something that white house lawyers felt so good about seems to me sondland would be up on capitol hill right now telling that story and donald trump would be live tweeting his own exoneration. but he's not. and that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us at the table, white house reporter for the

"washington post," ashley parker. former acting solicitor general neal kathyal. national political reporter for ox yo axios, jonathan swan. and chuck rosenberg. let me start with you, neal. it seems we already have a lot of evidence from this witness. all of it pretty incriminating for this president. what is the impact? it seems like the cons outweigh the pros unless there's something i'm missing. >> yeah, there's something huge going on here because coming in, the president, i think, was suffering from the fact there are all these text messages, all this stuff that shows trump was guilty. his only hope was to have his pal, sondland, come in, say, oh, no, that wasn't the case, explain what happened and the like. three hours before he was to testify, the white house pulls the plug on that. that's really suggestive of the fact i think sondland was going to come in and do the president no favors. the wind was definitely not at the president's back.

now it's blowing him down. remember, sondland is not just some person. he's a guy who works for you and me, the taxpayers. he's a public official. they're blocking him from testifying. something that they must be scared he's going to say something bad. >> can we go through the evidence i just laid out? the u.s. -- bill taylor who's a diplomat working in ukraine sends a text and saying "i think it's crazy" to tie the military aid for ukraine to a political campaign. and instead of writing back, no, no, no, that's not what we're doing, e.t. phones home and talks to the president who's told more than 11,000 lies and then gives that president's word to bill taylor, the diplomat, that no, no, no, there's no quid pro quo. unless there's messages we haven't seen, he didn't ask if there was a quid pro quo. it seems to have been the cover story for these shenanigans from the beginning. >> we don't know that the president said to sondland, there is no quid pro quo. we have is the text message five hours after the one before it saying, hey, this is crazy, how

can you tie this? and it's written and scripted like a bad lawyer would write it, like to a drug dealer, like, oh, when you said coca coke, you meant coca cola, speaking slowly, something like that. it's the whole layout of the text message one to another is incredibly suspicious. there are messages before from taylor and sondland, minutes and seconds apart then there's this five-hour gap and there's this highly scripted response. of course, all the other evidence, nicolle, is pretty damaging as well from the memo the white house sent over the july 25th phone call to the whistle-blower report, all of this stuff is coming out and this whistle-blower is looking more and more like the one person who's told the truth from day one. >> and we've got some breaking news about the whistle-blower, but just quickly on the evidence that already exists, a former law enforcement official told me that if sondland and kurt volker, the one diplomat who testified whose testimony yielded all these rich sort of windows into what they were

asking the ukrainians to do, they wanted this investigation to the bidens, if that operation had been rogue, the diplomats would have been fired. that the sign that indicates most clearly that the orders came from on high, either from pompeo or donald trump, were that those diplomats were not sanctioned or punished and that if they testify, they may be asked, well, who told you to tie the investigation of the bidens and military aid? >> by the way, career diplomats like mr. taylor don't tend to go rogue. i mean, they are used to receiving instructions and following them. i think your instincts, nicolle, are exactly right. by the way, i think neal's instincts are right. it's scripted and that to federal prosecutors like me seems suspicious. i wanted to add one thing, if i could. it doesn't americmatter in some that mr. sondland is not going to testify. that happens all the time. right? we don't always get all the evidence we want in investigations. >> yeah. >> documents with missing. witnesses don't tell the truth. and good investigators, good

agents, build cases with imperfect information. i mean, is it troubling that he's not testifying? of course. would i like to hear from him? you bet. can you make a case whether it's a criminal case for impeachment without him? happens all the time. >> and it would seem, jonathan swan, that this white house is running the mueller playbook in a very, very, very different landscape. the mueller probe took place behind closed doors. there really weren't a lot of witnesses. there was a big report that came out at the end. but this is -- the conduct in question happened on the white house property. the transcript was released by the white house. there's really no strawman to point to. there's no deep state. this is donald trump's words released in donald trump's transcript by donald trump's aides and this is a trump-appointed ambassador. >> i think the view, certainly, from the president, is that by saying things out loud in public and transparently, they are less bad than if you said exactly the same words privately in an email or on a phone call, and it's --

we're sort of seeing something that we've never really seen before, which is basically testing the public. i mean, there are people who used to work in the administration at a very senior level who were stunned when he released that transcript. >> yeah. >> they were stunned. they thought -- i mean, when he was saying i'm going to put it out tomorrow, it's perfect, they're expecting, like, you know, a perfect phone call. and, of course, we saw what we saw. but this is what they're doing. he's saying it out loud. he's betting that by telling his people that this is perfect, that his people will agree with that and go along with that. it's quite remarkable. >> the other problem they seem to have is that they've moved the goalpost several times. their positioning now seems to be as long as they can't prove a quid pro quo, i'm fine, i'm free. is that right? that seems to be their public relations strategy, if not their legal one. all the evidence that has emerged suggests that everyone that worked for him was operating as though there was absolutely a quid pro quo, that both a visit to the white house

and a release of the military aid was absolutely tied to the ukrainians' enthusiasm and willingness and commitment in writing to investigating the bidens. so how did they feel like their no quid pro quo defense is holding up? >> their no quid pro quo defense seems to be literally no one said, hey, let's do a quid pro quo. >> the diplomat that said it in writing that we got -- >> who said he was worried it seemed like a quid pro quo then the other diplomat said just to be clear -- >> after calling donald trump. >> -- this isn't a quid pro quo. but there were people, to jonathan's point, it's mixed because the president truly -- when he released the transcript, he truly did believe that it was a perfect call. he did believe that it was totally appropriate. and there were people inside the administration who even before they read the transcript or knew about it, they thought, you know what, i think the president's definition of perfect and totally appropriate is a little different than mine and a little different than the public's. so they were -- they were worried about that going

forward. and so that's kind of the white house defense and then just to bring it to the republicans briefly, a lot of their defenses, you see a lot of republican lawmakers getting very squirrely when they're pressed on do you think this call was appropriate, would you have asked for the same thing talking to the ukrainian president? but republicans will sort of say, i don't think this is impeachable. they don't necessarily condone the content, but they're sort of -- their argument is both i believe he was joking and i'm not prepared to say this is ideal, but nor does it reach the level of impeachment. >> go ahead. >> just one point, i disagree with neal on the sondland -- on the way the white house was thinking about the sondland thing. i don't think they thought this guy was going to bring them down, was going to come in and be very damage in his testimony. he signaled he's basically going to say very nice things to them. there's obviously the worry about the inconsistency. he apparently told -- >> ron johnson. >> -- ron johnson so no doubt. it's much bigger than this. the white house is going to put

out probably pretty soon their legal guidance for how they're going to handle this which is basically to delegitimize the whole thing. they believe by sending anyone to the hill they give it some little bit a bit of approval or legitimacy and it's much bigger. they just want to say, to hell with you guys, we're not cooperating, we're not getting involved in this and maybe there are people who are concerned about sondland. it's very possible about that one thing. it's much biggerer. they don't want to legitimize -- >> i don't disagree with the idea that sondland was going to intend to be helpful. he's the million-dollar man. after all, he donated a million dollars to trump's inauguration. i think the problem is, any law enforcement or law enforcement-like investigation, yo w when you have a witness testify, going to tell the truth as best they can, there's going to be contradictions with records and the like. you start to -- the white house's story has fallen apart time and time again over the last week. it started with, oh, this is all hearsay. i didn't do it. then it was, oh, the transcript's beautiful and perfect. now the transcript's not so beautiful and perfect. so every new thing is actually

so far -- turn in the cycle has actually been one that's hurt the president. >> all i'm saying it seems to me their motivation is to delegitimize the investigation, not to cooperate in any way. that seems to be the -- >> i get the feeling they should have tried that before it had nearly 60% public support. the mueller investigation never had 60% of the american public eager to see the facts play out in front of them. to that point, it's another call from inside the house. as soon as we sat down, "new york times" breaking the news trump's ukraine call was, quote, crazy and frightening, according to an official that spoke to the whistle-blower whose entire seven-page account has largely been corroborated by donald trump's own disclosures and confessions and that transcript that donald trump's white house released memorializing and corroborating the whistle-blower's version of it. let me read a little bit from the story. "a white house official who listened to president trump's july phone call with ukraine's leader described it as, quote, crazy, quote, frightening, and completely lacking in substance related to national security.

that's according to a memo written by the whistle-blower at the center of the ukraine scandal, a cia officer who spoke to the white house official. the white house official was, quote, visibly shaken by what had transpired. the cia officer wrote in his memo, one day after mr. trump pressured president zelensky of ukraine in a july 25th phone call to open investigations that would benefit him politically. a palpable sense of concern had already taken hold among at least some in the white house, the call veered well outside the bounds of traditional diplomacy," the officer wrote. this is more corroborating evidence and this would indicate why the trump-appointed inspector general of the intelligence community stamped this whistle-blower's complaint as both credible and urgent once he started digging into the whistle-blower's sources. >> sure. the inspector general is hearing from the men and women in the cia or, you know, in the intelligence community who either heard the call or spoke to people who heard the call or saw a readout of the call.

and it is, as they say in this article, crazy and frightening. >> yeah. >> this is not the way diplomacy is conducted. and while we do ask our allies for things in return for aid, it's never personal political favors. right? we may condition aid on their advancing some -- >> advancing democracy or giving women rights, it's usually not dirty up joe biden's son. >> exactly. so anybody who would have seen this or heard about it should have gone to the inspector general with precisely this information. this is troubling. deeply so. >> you know, jonathan, it's one you can't help but sort of recognize the patterns. john bolton resigned recently or left under whatever version you choose to accept over the president's alarming idea of having the taliban at camp david three days before the anniversary of 9/11. the aides on the nsc staff, i th think it was h.r. mcmaster and dina powell who were in the oval

when russian diplomat sergey kislyak and laugh lavrov talked. their way to point to trump of not disclosing intelligence is to suggest they'd not given it to him. the idea he's acting crazy and frightening with national security officials is the thread that runs through al of trump's interactions with foreign leaders. >> yeah, and people inside the white house, current and former, have different reactions. that's when you often asked on this show why did people stay, right? there are some people who do believe, as this white house official told the whistle-blower, that the president's behavior was crazy and frightening and some people use that to justify staying. that i can be a guardrail. i may not be able to change everything, but i can be there to make sure that this one thing doesn't go off course or make sure it goes off course a little later than it would have otherwise. and then there's people who at a certain point for whatever the issue is, they hit their limit and they leave and they say, i cannot countenance this. i'm either leaving the white house. i'm going to the private sector

or i'm becoming a whistle-blower. i'm sharing information with the whistle-blower. but i do think that helps explain some of the behavior of current and former officials, how they're reacting to an environment that they often at times find quite alarming. >> look -- >> go ahead. >> i was going to say, there's quite a difference between something that's crazy and frighting which this new "new york times" story is about, and something about personal president self-interest and subordinating american policy. >> right. >> one is one that maybe the voters voted for in 2016 knowing some of the -- >> yeah, on display at every maga rally. >> the other self-interest, done in secret, trump's plan was to do all of this with ukraine in secret. indeed, his justice department hid all this evidence from the people and took this whistle-blower to have it come out. that's something that's fundamentally different. that's what i think why the impeachment thing has such legs because that is really the textbook definition of what is an impeachable offense. the president's subordinating american foreign policy to his personal interests.

>> i think it also explains why former national security advisers are nowhere. i mean, if he were really innocent of anything that the whistle-blower had attested to, wouldn't h.r. mcmaster show up somewhere saying i was on dozens, hundreds, of calls and meetings with donald trump, foreign leaders, he would never do that. wouldn't dina powell show up and say i was on dozens of calls -- i mean, wouldn't mattis come up and say for all that i saw, we disagreed on syria policy, which he went ahead and did, anyway. not one person, except rudy giuliani, has come out and said trump wouldn't do this. >> let me broaden your theory a little bit more i agree with you, by the way. if this were normal, the way diplomacy worked, you'd expect individuals from both parties who served many presidents who say, no, no, no, slow down, this happens all the time. >> they said the opposite. peter baker wrote a story yesterday that said the opposite. >> precisely. it's the opposite. peter baker's right. >> all right. neal, chuck, we're so grateful to have you. thank you for starting us off. chuck's latest episode of his fabulous podcast, "the oath," is

now available. this week he talks to our friend, joyce vance. you listen long enough, there might be another surprise appearance by her dog, bella. we loved having her yesterday. when we come back, nearly two-thirds of americans support the impeachment inquiry into the president. that includes almost a third of republicans. 49% of americans also support his removal from office. when we come back, why donald trump's straw men are failing him this time. also ahead, how trump's call with the leader of turkey caused a record number of gop defections at a time when donald trump needs them most. and inside that disastrous policy of abandoning some of our closest allies in the region. all those stories coming up. on! let's hide in the attic. no. in the basement. why can't we just get in the running car? are you crazy? let's hide behind the chainsaws. smart. yeah. ok. if you're in a horror movie, you make poor decisions. it's what you do. this was a good idea.

shhhh. i'm being quiet. you're breathing on me! if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. let's go to the cemetery! a wealth of information. a wealth of perspective. ♪ a wealth of opportunities. that's the clarity you get from fidelity wealth management. straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management.

to help you grow and protect your wealth. some things are too important to do yourself. ♪ get customized security with 24/7 monitoring from xfinity home. awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today.

donald trump's flailing out loud today as new signs emerge that the place he ran to escape political ruin during the mueller inquiry, lies about his conduct, attacks on the investigators, and obstruction of the investigation, itself, don't appear to be working when it comes to the impeach chlment inquiry. several new polls out today showing growing support for the inquiry, itself, the most dramatic a new "washington post" poll shows 58% of americans, 58% of americans don't agree on much anymore, 58% of americans support the inquiry. that's up 21 points since july. and a full 49% of americans go so far as to say they support impeachment and donald trump's removal from office. that's not just among trump's hardened opponents. almost a third of republicans support an impeachment inquiry into trump's conduct with

ukraine. a staggering 57% of independents are supportive of the inquiry. joining us at this table, politics reporter for the daily beast, betsy woodrufp swan. and karine jean-pierre. move moveon.org members. i think it was surprising when the report came out with 150 contacts between donald trump's orbit, ten acts of criminal obstruction of justice, they didn't really move. after the mueller report came out, 39% supported on impeachment inquiry and may have been some of what led to nancy pelosi's sort of stubborn refusal to head down that path. 58%. >> yeah. >> support this one. >> it's astonishing. i don't think we've -- in trump's time, his era, we've never seen numbers move this quickly. there's a trend line we're seeing from i think this is the fourth poll now we're seeing on impeachment and so it's, like i said, it's astonishing.

i want to go back to the mueller investigation for a second. i think the difference was there mueller wasn't leaking and donald trump had the bully pulpit and his enablers and they were able to put information out there over and over again. now we're in a situation where it's pretty much clear cut. it's not confusing what happened. even though he's trying to confuse it. and the democrats actually have the bully pulpit as well. to be able to push the messaging, to be able to talk about getting down to the truth and uncovering the lies. so i think we're just in a different ball game. it's clear cut. it's not as confusing. and we're not talking about a secret probe. right? we're talking about something that's pretty out there in the open. >> you know, betsy, i think it all also is coming from inside the house. all the calls coming from inside the house. the whistle-blower was close enough to have contact with enough white house aides for a trump appointee to stamp the complaint as credible and urgent. it's been corroborated by the president's own utterances. and it's easy. it's cheating. it's asking a foreign leader to

dirty up your opponent because you're too politically weak to do it yourself. >> it's the kind of narrative you can explain in about 30 seconds and all the core facts that democrats are mostly relying on have been released by the white house. we have the memo detailing the president's call with ukraine's president. anyone can read that and no one disputes that the four corners of the memo are an authentic document. vi everyone agrees on that as a fact that the memo exists. we have the whistle-blower complaint, the president and republicans dispute, the merits of that complaint, the document, itself, is not in question, and the simple fact in this case that the president asked a vulnerable u.s. partner to investigate one of his top political rivals, everyone agrees on that. there's just not room for debate. in a moment when so many basic facts are up for grabs, unfortunately in american public life, in this case, those core things, everyone agrees on including the white house. >> and he did seem to benefit from sort of branding the mueller probe as being tied to a deep-state conspiracy.

this has all happened literally on the north lawn of the white house. >> although i will say, i'm skeptical about this poll for a few reasons. i'm skeptical about being -- for democrats being too excited about this poll. the reason is trump's approval rating has been out of step with impeachment for a while. and now we're seeing it come together. and i don't know how much is chicken and egg, pelosi back in mueller hasn't come out for impeachment. i don't know how much the whole democratic party is saying we are for impeachment. how much that has a sway on democratic votes. this poll says almost one-fifth of republicans support his removal from office. >> support the inquiry. >> no, no, almost one-fifth support his removal it says in this story of this poll. give me a break. i mean, last month you had 85%-95% of republicans job approval who stuck with him through helsinki, charlottesville, stormy daniels, "access hollywood," mueller,

suddenly they say this is the breaking point. i don't believe it. quinnipiac poll says 94% oppose his removal. i think people are getting ahead of themselves thinking republicans are doing a big jail break on trump. i think the support there is stronger than this poll suggests. >> and, i mean, i think the other indicators for where the republicans are is they're a-wol. i don't know if you were back for the sunday shows. >> i've seen, the silence is notable. >> i think the polls can also be indicators. i take your point that republicans support trump and oppose impeachment. i think the idea that the white house is rattled by some of these swings in pub lk approval in a way they never were. he railed against the mueller problem before he took off his pajamas every day for 23 months. this has been going on for what, four weeks? >> i'm not saying it's not notable. >> i take your pioint on republicans. i can see it. the swing, especially among independents which is where all the vaping and all the sort of frantic little things, school uniform-type stuff they're trying to do is their own

admission that among swing voters, among women, among independents, they're dying. >> what's interesting is if you believe, any poll can be an outlier. if you believe there is this shift, it does seem there is some sort of shift, what's interesting to me and still an open question is the white house is actually running a very similar playbook on this as they did -- >> totally. >> -- to mueller. the president's trying to discredit it in the court of a public opinion. we're hearing congress being called a kangaroo court. we heard it's a coup. we heard the whistle-blower is guilty of treason. the white house, as jonathan said earlier, is getting ready to basically fight every single thing when it comes to what k k congress is asking for, what they did with a high degree of success with mueller. and the question is with the public polling moving as it is, with congress now doing it with the force of an impeachment inquiry, even though they haven't voted on the house floor, does that change how successful this, quite successful, playbook was the first time around? >> well, i think one of the other differences that they seem to have encountered is a

whistle-blower has credibility. the public just -- they think back to upton sinclair, whistle-blowers sound the alarm on bad stuff. i don't know who this whistle-blower is, but whoever he is, his account has been corroborated by the white house's own evidence. >> yeah. >> what's the playbook for that? >> everything in the whistle-blower account just about has been 100% corroborated by what the white house has put out, as you were saying, by the actual memo of the transcript they put out, by additional reporting. i think that is problematic. again, you're still seeing them trying to discredit the whistle-blower. >> yeah. >> this is yet again the president going up against his own intelligence community. >> right. >> going after a cia officer for treason. and it's an open question, is that successful this time around? >> and what's interesting, to me, just in look -- and i'm as skept ical as you are about polls. i rarely cover any trump poll. i think he has hidden support that doesn't show up in polls.

the question of the inquiry, i think there are people that tolerate an inquiry in the end may not support his removal as it gets closer to the election. i think it's undeniable that there's support for getting to the bottom of his efforts to basically extort a foreign leader. >> that's no question. it's also the kind of thing that i think everyone in this country is automatically just interested in. >> yeah. >> it's easy to understand the narrative is pretty simple. i think we all want to know as much as possible about this story. going back to the issue with the whistle-blower, one thing i can tell you is that there are serious concerns within the intelligence community that the way the whistle-blower is being described by republicans and the way it's being covered is going to significantly impact the president's trust in the i.c. ever since he was elected going back, even to before, he bought into conspiracy theories about the intelligence community, but this particular moment has generated especially grave concerns. >> already a very shaky relationship. that's a good point. all right. after the break, donald trump may have put into motion one of the most disastrous foreign policy stumbles and failures of his presidency. and the theory among insiders is

that he may have been rolled by the leader of turkey in a phone call that doesn't appear to have been monitored by really anyone. how trump's betrayal of one of america's most trusted allies has rocked his own administration and sent republicans running to distance themselves from him. that story next. screening for people 50 and older at average risk. i've heard a lot of excuses to avoid screening for colon cancer. i'm not worried. it doesn't run in my family. i can do it next year. no rush. cologuard is the noninvasive option that finds 92% of colon cancers. you just get the kit in the mail, go to the bathroom, collect your sample, then ship it to the lab. there's no excuse for waiting. get screened. ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. covered by medicare and most major insurers.

unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans have a lot to take advantage of like medicare's largest health care network. hey, that's my dermatologist! $0 copays on all primary care doctor visits plus rewards for preventive care. go ahead, take advantage. it's what gives audible themembers an edge.listening; it opens our minds, changes our perspective, connects us, and pushes us further. the most inspiring minds, the most compelling stories:

audible. i was told to begin my aspirin regimen, blem. and i just didn't listen. until i almost lost my life. my doctors again ordered me to take aspirin, and i do. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. listen to the doctor. take it seriously.

did you consult with the joint chiefs of staff when you made the decision? >> sure, i consulted with everybody. i always consult with everybody. if you remember, about eight months ago, i talked about doing this. we kept 2,000 people there and slowly brought them out. >> just because your secretary of defense quit, you always consult with putin, erdogan. that was the president yesterday when he was asked about his decision to pull troops out of syria, a situation that at this moment the administration's giving congressional staff a top-secret-level briefing on top and despite trump's claims, his decision threw everybody for a loop, that's according to a new

nbc news reporting. "confusion ensued in syria and in washington in the hours after trump agreed during a phone call with turkish president erdogan to move u.s. troops out of northeastern syria to clear the way for a turkish military operation in the area. according to multiple current and former u.s. officials, the white house's announcement of the decision late sunday night blindsided not just america's kurdish partners in the fight against isis but almost everyone. senior officials at the pentagon, the state department, and the white house. lawmakers on capitol hill. and u.s. allies in europe and the mideast." earlier today the white house confirmed trump invited the president of turkey to washington next month. everybody's here. this story, just to tie it back to the last conversation, seems to threaten his support among people, not that they're going to vote to convict him after impeachment, but just, it makes it all the more distasteful what they're being asked to do for him. >> this has had a huge effect on

capitol hill. more than any story i've seen since charlottesville in terms of the extent to which republican senators that he really needs have been shaken by this. it's all well and good to have rand paul and mike lee saying supportive things on television, but when you have people like lindsey graham shaken as much as he is, marco rubio, when you is -- >> portman. >> he needs people like -- portman, john cornyn. >> burr. >> grassley. these are key people. they are horrified by this. and to not have briefed them is just -- is political malpractice. i think it's worth tieing the two together because you can't separate anything at the moment. >> yeah. >> and he needs these people to be rock solid. i don't believe that it's going to change the calculus on impeachment or anything necessarily, but it's had a profound effect in the senate based on all of our reporting. >> the other problem that i think he reveals, again, is around his instability. i mean, you, again, i'm down

here enough to pick up in what's in the water. again, between the tweets and the way he responded to this story, you have people just saying, you know, republicans saying i don't know that we can handle eight years with him. >> and it's such a marked difference as nbc reporting shows from the way this was handled eight months ago when the first announcement was made. when that first announcement came down, sentcom officials had time to reach out to the head of the syrian defense forces, our partners in northern syria were able to wake him up, tell him what was happening, make sure our kurdish partners knew this change was in the works. the marked difference this time has been extraordinarily jarring. another piece of this that's important is that those syrian forces recently at the united states' behest moved south some of the defense materials, machine guns, other weaponry they had south away from the turkish border. they did that to cooperate more closely with the united states, and now if you're a member of the sdf, it looks like you got pulled into a bait and switch by the united states. >> this, ashley, is what i heard

from half a dozen former national security officials who'd worked for republicans mostly and some democrats who said that what we have done, we don't come back from. what we have done is the sort of thing that trump should like. people, allies, willing to do some of the fighting for us, and as well as or better than us, they also serve as informants and translators. american soldiers stay alive because of the contributions of the kurds in this fight against isis. and he's put all of that into jeopardy. >> i think the reason you're seeing such consternation and alarm on capitol hill is that the president has always been an unreliable partner, an ally, and in some ways prides himself on that. people told me privately he thinks it makes him a better negotiator because no one ever knows if he's actually going to do the crazy thing. this isn't just in their eyes, what we're hearing, being unreliable, it's being unreliable on issues of life and death. and so to abandon an ally who's fought with us for something

they believe can throw off stability in the entire middle east, leave these kurds in grave danger who have been supporting us, they view it -- you're hearing from republicans, they view it as unconscionable. that's why we're seeing such a strong reaction. hay s they say it's destabilizing the region, giving a leg up to all the u.s.' gio political foes, iran, russia, and abandoned people in a way that could be catastrophic. >> are democrats, do you think, in the right posture to make the most powerful and the least political sort of life-and-death argument that ashley just described to the country? >> i think so. that's what nancy pelosi wants to do. she's been very, very clear about it. just like donald trump walked into impeachment. like he's essentially impeaching himself which is what nancy pelosi would say. like, she was pushed into this because of this -- what happened with the call with ukraine president and it being clear as day what he was trying to do which was election interference. this is donald trump. i think what's interesting here, it's like, okay, we know what donald trump did is dangerous.

we know it's bad policy. but it's about politics for him. right? he's tainting his own jury pool when you look at the republican senators. he's doing that -- he's putting a crack into his own firewall. and so it is -- it just doesn't make sense what he's doing besides him just wanting to be chaotic. right? which is very much donald trump. but one thing i would say that this shows is it does show that when republicans come out, not just one or two, when they come out -- >> yeah. >> -- there's no real cost. right? if they come out together, there's no real cost here. and so maybe that's a lesson here that they can take from this. >> is there any indication that trump takes these defectors, these republican critics, seriously? >> which -- >> i mean, lindsey on tv basically saying they're wrong. does she care? >> he would see that as, of course, lindsey says that, he sea says this, he jokes, what

country do you want to bomb next week? puts them in crude camps. lindsey the warmonger. rand paul, the dove. sees himself more in the rand paul camp. trump, he told people all the way through, i think every troop that we have in the middle east is a waste of time. waste of money. we get nothing from it. i want them all out. and i think people just thought who went and worked for him that we can persuade him against that. and they did for a while. and a lot of people went to the mat. john bolton went to the mat on this. mattis resigned over it. mcmaster fought with him over it. they all did. and now trump's just doing what he wants to do. >> you don't think it looks like he's -- i mean, he didn't do it -- sure, he told them what he was going to do and ran -- he did this in a phone call with erdogan where they were obviously negotiating -- he got the troops out of syria package where the ukrainians had to get the dirty up biden package. >> again, color me shocked there wasn't an interagency process and a white paper and, you know, a deliberative, careful, slow,

rollout perfectly planned with -- >> how about a staffer who's like the kurds will die? >> yeah. i'm shocked. >> all right. if paying off porn stars and bleep grabbing weren't bad enough, the president may have finally crossed the line for one popular member of his base. performance comes in lots of flavors. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacist-recommendeding? memory support brand. you can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere.

prevagen. healthier brain. better life. great riches will find you when liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. wow. thanks, zoltar. how can i ever repay you? maybe you could free zoltar? thanks, lady. taxi! only pay for what you need.

♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪ ♪ create up to 12 combinations with applebee's new pasta and grill combos starting at $9.99. and get more bites for your buck with our late night half-priced apps. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months after just 2 doses. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them.

before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs, or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. ♪ nothing is everything ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. all right. so a central figure in the president's base, someone responsible for a lot of the president's support among evangelicals, televangelist pat robertson, he stood by donald trump through a lot. stuck by him through the "access hollywood" tapes release, exposure of his affair and payoff scheme with stormy daniels, shady business dealin s dealings, even the policy of keeping immigrant people in cages. trump's decision to abandon our kurdish allies may have finally crossed a line for robertson. >> the president who allowed khashoggi to be cut in pieces without any repercussions

whatsoever is now allowing the christians and the kurds to be massacred by the turks. and i believe, and i want to say this with great sill l, the pre of the united states will lose the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen. >> locked out of heaven but is he screwed with his base? >> the only piece of the robertson argument i think has the potential to truly resonate with voters at least to an extent is the argument he's making that christians in the middle east will be put in danger by the president's policy decision here. experts are going to be able to have different opinions on the extent to which they're in peril and there's no question that the christian middle eastern community has faced intense purse cushi persecution for many, many years. voters in the united states in the evangelical christian community would potentially be moved by that argument. is it going to be enough to get them to flip on trump? i don't think so. i think it's unlikely, but that's the only extent to which

this complex geopolitical issue will resonate with people who follow pat robertson. >> he lost by 40,000 votes. he doesn't have, like, a margin. laura ingraham spends a lot of time on her show talk bing about this issue. >> another piece of this that's ve interesting is there are microcommunities in the u.s. that follow middle eastern issues closely. a sizable syrian-american community in pennsylvania, p predominantly christian syrians. i went to a rally with one of the pastors. they were incredibly enthusiastic with trump, they thought he'd be siding with assad to protect their fellow christians in syria from isis. again, a debatable point, but for those voters in that key swing state, it was very much a real and important issue for them and their second favorite candidate after trump was bernie sanders. >> oh. what do you think the political impact is of alienating any part of his coalition? >> i think it's dangerous for him. like you just said, he won by

less than 80,000 votes in 3 states that was known as the blue wall. i got to tell you, i'm stuck on the losing the mandate of heaven. i'm like, what -- >> locked out. >> you would have thought that would have happened a long time ago with donald trump. look, what we're seeing in the past four weeks, however long we've been at least in the impeachment inquiry moment is cracks in the donald trump support. i think this is one of it. and also you see the splintering in the republican party on the senate side. i mean, that is really real. and you -- and democrats who are pretty united, that's not looking good for donald trump. and you see that in the way that he's reacting, in the way he's tweeting nonstop. his kind of disastrous, you know, back and forth with reporters and it goes on and on and on. so we're seeing potential, a shift here. >> it's very difficult to overstate the importance of the evangelical part of his coalition. they turned out in large numbers

for trump than they did for reagan and he's delivered to them more than george w. bush delivered for them. look at social conservative policies. they're incredibly bonded to him. as you said, he's got no margin for losing voters. he won by a very small number of voters in a few key states. so evangelical turnout is absolutely critical. >> right. that's right. >> we don't moe whknow what eff that's going to have. anything that threatens that has to be taken seriously. >> right. it's not that they're going to vote for the democrat but if they -- >> no, it matters. it really matters. >> all right. that might be the last time you see a clip from pat robertson on this show. we're going to sneak in our last break. we'll be right back. en be right back. en

hey whoa, pop, pop... your shoe's untied. ♪ ensure he's well taken care of, even as you build your own plans for retirement. see how lincoln can help. frustrated that everyday activities cause wrinkles and there's nothing you can do about it? downy wrinkleguard is a fabric conditioner that helps protect you from wrinkles all day. pants washed with downy wrinkleguard and detergent are virtually wrinkle free. try downy wrinkleguard.

nyquil severe gives you powerful relief for your worst cold and flu symptoms, on sunday night and every night. nyquil severe. the nightime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, best sleep with a cold, medicine. we didn't have to stop the movie. i didn't have to call an ambulance. and i didn't have to contact your family.

because your afib didn't cause a blood clot that led to a stroke. not today. we'd discussed how your stroke risk increases over time, so even though you were feeling fine, we chose xarelto®, to help keep you protected. once-daily xarelto®, significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. in fact, over 96% of people remained stroke-free. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of stroke. while taking, a spinal injection increases the risk of blood clots, which may cause paralysis- the inability to move. you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. be sure you're doing all you can to help protect yourself from a stroke. ask your doctor if it's time for xarelto®. to learn more about cost and how

janssen can help, visit xarelto.com. during this time of intense polarization, mean tweets, ill will in this country, a message of respect, decency and tolerance from ellen. over the weekend, she and my old boss, bush 43, sat together at a football game. and when ellen took heat for being seen with president bush, she responded. >> me laughing together and so people were upset, they thought, why is a gay hollywood liberal sitting next to a conservative republican president. a lot of people were mad and they did what people do when they're mad, they tweet. but here's one tweet that i loved. this person says, ellen and george w. bush together makes me have faith in america again. and -- exactly. just because i don't agree with someone on everything doesn't

mean that i'm not going to be friends with them. when i say be kind to one another, i don't mean only the people that think the same way you do. i mean, be kind to everyone. doesn't matter. >> i love that. i also think it has some political resonance. i mean, i think that there is a danger for everybody in 2020 that people are so sick of the climate, they're so sick of the ran core, i think that's why 58% of people want to just see processes play out, things that are transparent appeal, moments ofappeal, and to the degree that bush's father and mother became friends with the clintons and then the obamas, that is something sort of missing out there. >> yeah, i mean, i think, at first, it's hard to argue with ellen's message, be kinder to everyone. that's just a fair, nice point. it's like coming after puppies. but i say that quite sincerely. i think it's something you sort

of hear from voters, one thing is voters just sort of feel exhausted. that seems to be the biggest reason why people will vote against trump, because they are just exhausted and they want a return to normalcy and i think you could make a point that in all of that, a return to normalcy would be a return to civility and sort of treating people kindly, as humans. >> i think ellen also sort of taps into this idea that one of the byproducts of the polarized politics and polarized media, it's like world war ii, being seen with the enemy. she obviously got grief for being seen with a republican president. >> yeah, and that guilt by association is incredibly potent at this moment. i think part of the reason that her sort of defense and her really warm attitude towards george w. bush is the extent to which they were really opposed on some incredibly important issues. part of the reason he was re-elected in 2004 was his

stance in opposing marriage equality. ellen would know that better than anyone. the fact she's willing to share a laugh with that guy is an indicator to the extent people who disagree on profound issues can still enjoy football. >> it is an instructive message about what breaks through. when i saw that moment this morning, i saw the video, i saw the moment, people sent it to me when they were seated together, it's just interesting what breaks through. >> it is. >> do you agree that that broke through? >> i have no idea about the pulse of america, i -- you know, when you are looking at some idiot australian. tell me about the white house. >> i think this is -- this is the point of what breaks through. that was it. >> look, i think that ellen has more than earned the right to sit with whoever she wishes. she can't pick my friends, i can't pick hers, and i think there are bigger things to talk about. we have an occupant in the white house who is literally destroying our state of the union, if you may, if i'm not being too hyperbolic there.

and i think that's the thing that really matters. >> all right, i lied. we have one more break, we're going to take it now, but we will be right back. ll be right t and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or life-threatening allergic and skin reactions. decrease alcohol use. use caution driving or operating machinery. tell your doctor if you've had mental health problems. the most common side effect is nausea. talk to your doctor about chantix. no cover-up spray here. cheaper aerosols can cover up odors in a flowery fog. but febreze air effects eliminates odors. with a 100% natural propellent.

it leaves behind a pleasant scent you'll love. [deep inhale] freshen up. don't cover up. febreze. we're oscar mayer deli fresh your very first sandwich,m... your mammoth masterpiece. and...whatever this was. because we make our meat with the good of the deli and no artificial preservatives. make every sandwich count with oscar mayer deli fresh. seaonly abreva cany to help sget rid of it in... ...as little as 2 1/2 days when used at the first sign. abreva starts to work immediately to block the virus and protect healthy cells.

abreva acts on it. so you can too.

we ran out of time, but i want to thank betty, jonathan, ashley and -- who else was sitting there? karine, my beloved karine. thank you most of all to you for watching. "mtp daily" with my friend chuck todd starts now. welcome to tuesday, it's "meet the press daily," i'm chuck todd. we have some breaking news on the house impeachment inquiry and breaking news that will probably get lost amid the impeachment chaos. but in any other