♪ aloha and namaste, everyone. i am john heilemann in for nicolle wallace. and the stunning admission from president trump's acting chief of staff that despite the president's repeated public denials, the white house did in fact hold up nearly $400 million in military aid to ukraine, conditioned on our ally undertaking an investigation into the democrats in the 2016 campaign. from the white house briefing room just a couple of hours ago, here is how mick mulvaney described the president's decision to withhold that military aid that ukraine was desperately seeking in the midst of a hot war with russia. >> that he also mentioned to me in the past that the corruption related to the dnc server?

absolutely. no question about that. but that's it. and that's why we held up the money. now there was a report -- >> so the demand for an investigation into the democrats was part of the reason that he wanted to withhold funding to ukraine? >> the lookback to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation. and that is absolutely appropriate. >> now that, my friends, that is the first time in the ukraine scandal that a white house official has publicly acknowledged the existence of something that you do not need the four years of high school latin to know is called a quid pro quo. and that of course flies in direct contradiction to what the president has been saying over and over again. >> there was no quid pro quo at all. >> there is no pro quo. >> there was no quid pro quo, unlike biden. the text message that i saw from

ambassador sondland who is highly respected was there's no quid pro quo. he said, by the way, there's no quid pro quo. and there isn't. there was no quid pro quo. there was nothing. >> oh, there's a quid pro quo, all right. and the glaring contradiction and conflict between the president and his chief of staff is just the latest damning development in the rapidly escalating and metastasizing impeachment inquiry as current and former officials are now testifying at a breakneck clip. today as we speak the sitting u.s. ambassador to the european union gordon sondland is at the center of many of the flash points in the ukraine scandal is giving a deposition behind closed doors in the house of representatives. and sondland too, despite being a wealthy trump donor, previously considered a stalwart loyalist of the president, that man is painting a nasty picture of trump's conduct when it comes to ukraine. in an opening statement obtained by nbc news, sondland makes clear that it was trump himself

who pushed his personal attorney, rudy giuliani, to have ukraine look into the democrats saying it has written testimony. quote, my understanding was that the president directed giuliani's participation. giuliani was expressing the concerns of the president. sondland goes on to add that giuliani's goal was to, quote, involve ukrainians directly or indirectly in the president's 2020 re-election campaign. now sondland of course is just the latest in a parade of trump administration insiders all telling a consistent and damaging story about donald trump in the ukraine and it's quickly taking the president's attempts to erect a stonewall and reducing them to rubble. joining us now at this table my friend eddie glaude on capitol hill, msnbc news correspondent heidi przybyla, former watergate prosecutor joan banks, and white

house reporter for the "new york times," michael crowley. guys, i am going to start with you, crowley, just because you were there in that building where we saw something important. this has just been ways that have been strongly adverse. tell me just what the reaction was to mick mulvaney today and what you make of what we heard. >> well, i think it was amazement, john. mick mulvaney essentially came out and copped to a big part of the fundamental accusation around this impeachment proceeding is built on, which was there was a quid pro quo involving american government, foreign policy towards ukraine that was connected to the president's fixation on the 2016 presidential election. now he said that the quid pro

quo did not involve the bidens and burisma. but that doesn't mean, number one, that it was appropriate to condition the aid in this way. and number two, let's accept for a minute mulvaney's contention that it is appropriate that this is part of, you know, this is a legitimate subject of inquiry and that politics is part of foreign policy and get over it as he put it. just what is the thing that is the premise here? it's a theory that just as, you know, to be honest, not credible or accepted by virtually anyone who understand what happened in 2016 that suggests that the dnc server that was hacked and which the fbi concludes and robert mueller's report explained in intricate detail how it happened was hacked by the russian military intelligence services was actually somehow this was

done by the ukrainians and that the ukrainians are part of a cover-up because a cyber firm that helped do some of the forensic analysis has some ukrainian ownership, but maybe the server is in ukraine. i mean, so even if you accept mulvaney at his word or his premise that this is a valid subject of inquiry, the backdrop of this, the reason that this would be of interest to the united states is just based on, frankly, what is hard to call anything but a conspiracy theory. so the reaction i think was really one of amazement, number one that he came out and the story has now changed that there was a quid pro quo and then, number two, that the white house is basically saying this is a legitimate basis for such a quid pro quo. >> right. so, matt miller, i want to come to you on a number of levels, but i'm going to start with this level, but we've got the department of justice after mick mulvaney has said these rather astonishing things.

he says, oh, yeah, quid pro quo it's just an okay quid pro quo. we now have a senior doj official telling nbc news that the mulvaney admission is news to us. if the white house was withholding aid from ukraine with regard to any investigation by the justice department, that is news to us. that seems like a pretty stunning thing on its own, matt, just in the sense that this justice is coming out and kind of saying essentially the acting chief of staff is saying something here that is in contradiction to what we know to be true and what the president has been claiming. we are going to distance ourself from the second most powerful person in the country. tell me what you think is going on here. >> it is a striking thing for doj to do and i think it's important to note that they went out of their way to do this. this wasn't questions coming in -- they sent this statement basically to every reporter. they wanted the world to know this today after watching this mulvaney press conference. and this is the second time they have distanced themselves from the way the white house has handled this.

remember after the white house released the memo of the conversation that the president had with president zelensky where he pushed zelensky to talk with bill barr. the justice department put out a statement saying that they didn't know about that until they got this criminal referral to look into whether or not the president has committed a crime. bill barr very publicly took a bullet for him at the conclusion of the mueller report but this one is too much. if they want to find someone else to kind of blame on this they have to look somewhere beyond the justice department. >> matt, do you think the suggestion here is that they are saying mick mulvaney is lying or that he might be telling the truth if there was some off the books foreign policy thing going on related to this investigation, the doj just had no -- we had no part of this whatsoever, and just keep it away from our doorstep? >> i think it's a little bit of both. i think they are saying that, look, if they were pushing -- if they wanted -- when the

president wanted ukraine to cooperate into an investigation or to announce an investigation what happened in 2016, that wasn't the doj investigation. that wasn't this thing that barr has had running with durham. it's a separate conspiracy theory that rudy giuliani was running around pursuing on his own. and doj magazine i think bill barr's investigation into the origins of the mueller probe, i think that investigation is inappropriate. what doj is saying is what we are doing, it's not the crazy land stuff that rudy is out pursuing. we want nothing to do with that. >> right. jill wine-banks, we have seen this week the story this week has been kind of the story of all the president's men being assembled. we've seen john bolton put in the middle of this thing, although maybe on the right side of history. we've seen rudy giuliani's role expanded. we've seen mick mulvaney who previously had no complicity. and now we have mick mulvaney up

there not just contradicting what the president has said but saying it's legit for the white house to have done this thing that looks to most people like it's unethical, potentially illegal all in the service of what everybody with half a brain recognizes is a nut house conspiracy theory, not just as crazy as can be. so as you sit there and think about the analogies we always ask you for, what does this mean to you what's happened just now today, and where does this investigation go from here? >> well, as a trial lawyer when the facts are against you, you argue the law. when the law is against you, you argue the facts. in this case when the facts and the law are against you, you just make up conspiracy theories. that seems to be what's going on. mulvaney really did some damage to the president. rudy giuliani is doing consistent damage to the president. and you don't need a quid pro quo, but if you did, there is one. i never thought i'd have to say quid pro quo on television.

sort of like i've always wanted to say query clausam frigit. so now i've done it. i've said it on television. but it's a ridiculous set of circumstances. this is something that should fall into that sort of hashtag of say this not that. let's not say quid pro quo. let's say shakedown. that's what this is. there was a shakedown for personal political benefit. there was a withholding of something congress had approved funding that was necessary. and again we come back to russia. it was for protection against russia. so everything seems to relate back to putin and russia. and by withholding the money he was trying to get support for making up evidence that there is none that anybody knows of to support a ridiculous, as you have called it, conspiracy theory. and that is both criminal and impeachable. >> all right. heidi przybyla, i want to play a

little sound here from an interview that now has become iconic in a way in this investigation, interview that our chuck todd did on "meet the press" a couple sundays ago with ron johnson. i want to play this where you heard johnson, not the part where he was spouting his own crazy conspiracy theories but where he expressed a fair degree of discomfort. >> i'm asking a simple question about you clearly were upset that somehow there was an implication that military aid was being frozen because the president wanted an investigation. why did you -- >> right. but because i didn't want those connected. and i was supporting the aid as is senator murphy, as is everybody that went to that initial inauguration. but here is the salient point of why i came forward when i asked the president about that, he completely denied it. >> he adamantly denied it.

he said i'd never do that. >> so, heidi, the president denied all those things to senator johnson. and yet now the acting chief of staff has gone on television to say actually is all happened, just the thing you feared happened. ron johnson in fact happened so i ask you how do we make sense of this, number one. and number two, what do you think republicans on the hill where you are now are going to say in light of the mulvaney fiasco this afternoon? >> we are trying to reach out as early, right, we happy to be meeting with a republican at the time that that interview took place. when i left i texted him. i didn't hear back, frankly, because i think there's just widespread confusion. my understanding is that it appears that the white house is now hanging on this very flimsy argument that if there was an open justice department investigation as there was on

russia that somehow these crazy conspiracy theories would be part of that and that therefore the entire thing was completely above board and legit that the quid really didn't have to do with the bidens. you see the justice department pushing back on that. and unfortunately for the evidence that also negates that. we saw where the president said i need a favor and he went into both the crowd strike server and the origins of russia investigation. and he said there was one other thing and he talked about the bidens. that's in their own transcript. then you've got the testimony now that is coming out from numerous officials including mr. mckinley who frankly resigned, a career diplomat of over 20 years. and he said, and i quote, i was disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents. that is the bidens that he is talking about there.

so all of these officials who are testifying very clearly understood that the quid pro quo involved burisma and the bidens. >> right. so, i want to go back to you, crowley. and i'm going to play again a little more sound here from mick mulvaney. we have not seen him ever before do this, especially when he's making so much news when he does appear before the cameras. here's some more news he made. he confirmed essentially that three or four days ago was considered pretty controversial, the assertion that basically rudy giuliani had been tasked with the president to take over basically running a shadow foreign policy related to ukraine. let's listen to mick mulvaney on that. >> did the president direct you or anyone else to work with rudy giuliani in ukraine? >> um, yeah. the, um, when was it? there was the may meeting and i think this has been widely reported. in fact i think sondland mentioned it in his testimony and i am pretty sure that rick perry mentioned it during his

interview yesterday with the "wall street journal" that in the may meeting in the oval office i think mr. johnson was there as well as mr. volker. the president asked rick perry to work with mr. giuliani. >> so, crowley, i ask you that's basically sort of like a, okay, giuliani's in charge here, we saw a reporting in "the washington post" yesterday, two days ago now about the three amigos. we are basically having these officials, whether they're intending to or not, come out and confirm not just on the record but on camera some of the most explosive kind of allegations and sup positions. this picture is not just being filled in but being filled in, in technicolor. it's about to make my head explode to see this kind of thing unfolding this way. this is not how scandals are supposed to go. >> no, that's right. but, you know, i guess part of

the trump playbook which is just he takes on every public fight in ignoring the normal rules and just doing it in his own incredibly unusual sometimes bizarre way. and in this case the strategy seems to involve, you know, admitting things in public like it's no big deal, i'm up here talking about it in front of the cameras. i am struck by the way mulvaney framed that. he said, well, this has been reported. it's kind of out there, it's kind of old news. yeah, you're right, but everybody knows this. and it is a big deal to have that admitted from the podium at the white house that the president's personal lawyer who is not on the federal government payroll is instructing government officials who two out of the three amigos' portfolios are not meant to involve ukraine in a very major way are going to be running ukraine policy

basically looping out the u.s. ambassador to the country. and he just kind of says, like, yeah, that's been reported and that's true. and it seems to be, you know, similar to this admission that there was a quid pro quo on the aid strategy of saying things in public in a kind of nonchalant way and hoping that that is sort of a form of inoculation. now, it's not going to work with house democrats and their impeachment proceedings. but to the extent it's part of the battle for public opinion. you know, maybe they're fwambling that that's an effective strategy. >> matt miller, do you think that there is just, you know, you think about during the russia investigation, one of the things that worked for trump that's kind of akin to what crowley is talking about here is the notion that trump would say no obstruction, no collusion. he got bill barr to say that over and over again. but now you've got him saying no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo, and mulvaney comes out and

basically just lays out a quid pro quo even as blatantly as the one that's in the transcript from the phone call. do you think they're just betting on the no etition that americans will never understand what the latin means? is anything other than a textbook quid pro quo. >> it absolutely. i think mick mulvaney was trying to do two things. he was trying to get out ahead of some facts before the facts got him. he was right in the center of that. he was the one that the president directed to withhold that aid and he's the one that carried out that order. so i suspect what he was doing was trying to put that out and then define it in the best terms possible. and that's what they're trying to do with all of us. they have had to move the goal post as the facts have moved. and the difference with this scandal and some of the others at the white house is there are witnesses who are coming forward and laying out the facts to congress. so the white house isn't in the position where they can just deny, deny, and stonewall and keep the truth from coming out.

so what they are trying to do now is just redefine what is acceptable. you saw this for this last piece you played in saying it's okay to have rudy giuliani do that. the president can send whoever he wants to conduct foreign policy on behalf of the united states. presidents have directed outside officials to do things. negotiate the release of hostages. the difference is that he was not acting in the national interest of the united states. he was acting in the personal political interest of the president. and then getting others inside the government to do the same thing. and that's the thing they haven't been able to define in a way that should be acceptable to the american people or the republican senators. >> i really want to get both heidi and jill in real quick before we have to go to break. we had the sondland testimony still ongoing. heidi up there on capitol hill, it strikes me and i mentioned this when we started the block here that a week ago, two weeks ago the notion that the trump administration would enact a policy of stonewalling and hold

everybody back, given the history where they have invoked that policy in the past, hadn't been successful, seemed like there was a chance that a lot of these people wouldn't come forward because they would be afraid of retribution from the white house. and now you not only have seen most of them come forward or many of them come forward. but you are seeing them come forward and offer damaging account after damaging account. i just want to quote from sondland's opening statement today. all my actions had the blessing of secretary pompeo. secretary pompeo sent me a congratulatory note that i was doing great work. you know, the sondland testimony a couple days ago people thought sondland might try to protect trump. not trying to protect trump, not trying to protect pompeo. what is it you think that's driving this dynamic where the stone wall that has so protected trump in the past two and a half years is suddenly crumbling? >> i think it is the bravery of the individuals who came in the first place. they saw that they were kind of

paving the way for everyone else. and to your point of that dam breaking, now yesterday nbc news confirmed exclusively that bill taylor who is the acting ambassador to ukraine also hopped the flight because he is so eager to come here and give his own deposition. this one i think is going to be really critical because he is going to be able to not only describe the pressure campaign that was coming from the white house, but the understanding from the ukrainians and the panic that ensued in ukraine when it became clear that the quid not only was this white house meeting but that then in september military aid was being withheld. so bill taylor will be able to provide a unique perspective that some of these other witnesses up until now have not provided, which is the ukrainian understanding of the quid pro quo. >> right. so, jill, about a week ago or so the analogy to john dean. and said that basically the

whistle-blower was the with. they had similar functions in the watergate scandal versus this scandal. and now we don't just have a whistle-blower, even though some republicans on the hill are still trying to, like, say, we've got to see the whistle-blower, we've got to know who that person is before we go forward. we don't just have the whistle-blower or the tapes or john dean. but we've got essentially the equivalent of hald man, erlichmann, coleson, hunt, all basically the ekwifbment of them going up to capitol hill in front of the senate watergate committee and give testimony attacking, criticizing undermining richard nixon. i've never seen anything quite like this where it's just one piece of devastating evidence. but all the president's men, not the mick mulvaneys of the world, but a lot of them are effectively turning against the president before our eyes. >> john, you are completely correct. but i think i see this as

something that's built from something smaller, much like watergate did. it started actually with one of the burglars before his sentencing, he said i am writing a letter to the judge and i am going to say, and he did say that people higher up in the white house were involved, that lies had been committed during the trial. and that was sort of the first break. and then that led to other witnesses, john dean most remarkably coming forward and saying i want to tell the truth. and it just built the speed with which this is changing right now is really dramatic. it's a totally different set of facts. the american people are understanding that this was an exchange for the benefit of the president with no concern for the benefit of america. and as we start the evidence mounting and taylor will be, i think, a very significant witness. i think sondland could be as well. i can't wait to see the full

text of what they are saying. but i think it is really starting a steam roller. and we now have the whistle-blower is completely unimportant because as adam schiff said, you now have the best evidence. you have the actual language of the conversation. the whistle-blower said this is what i heard about the conversation. now you have the president saying this is what the conversation was, and it is very damaging to president trump. >> all right. it's amazing. my thanks to heidi przybyla, to joel wine banks, matt miller and michael crowley. the white house taking credits for putting the green light. but that temporary ceasefire in syria is raising a lot of new questions at this hour. also as that crisis an impeachment, donald trump goes all in on another conflict of interest and one of his own properties saying that his golf resort in florida is the perfect place to host the world. he might even invite putin.

and remembering a giant on capitol hill and a key figure in the impeachment inquiry. congressman elijah cummings dead today all too soon at 68. we will be right back. right ba you should be mad at people who forget they're in public. and you should be mad at simple things that are unnecessarily complicated. but you're not mad, because you're trading with e*trade, which isn't complicated. their app makes trading quick and simple so you can strike when the time is right. don't get mad, get e*trade and start trading today.

did the president direct you or anyone else to work with rudy giuliani on ukraine? >> um, yeah. the, um, when is it, the may meeting and i think this has been widely reported. in fact i think sondland mentioned it in his testimony and i'm pretty sure rick perry mentioned it yesterday with his interview with the "wall street journal" that in the may meeting

in the oval office that i was in. i think senator johnson was there as well as mr. volker was there. the president asked rick perry to work with mr. giuliani. >> all right. put down your remote. nothing wrong with your television. we just showed you that sound earlier. now we are looking at it in a different light. bloomberg reporting that rick perry, secretary are energy, has just told donald trump that he plans to step down soon from his job as i said as energy secretary. white house officials are not disputing that report to nbc news. they say soon exact timing remains unclear why they reported that perry was going to leave by year's end. that's been speculated about for some weeks. it's possible now that this particular member of the three amigos may be in the departure lounge a little sooner. joining the conversation for this chat, robert costa, national political reporter for "the washington post." rick perry out the, do what's going on with that? >> as we have reported at the

"post," secretary perry has been leaning toward moving toward the exit for quite some time. the question now he faces is will he comply with the congressional subpoena. maybe he would be in a different position if he's outside of government to make a decision on his own rather than worrying about the administration's assertion of executive privilege. >> robert, i am curious about what you make of perry's role in all this. he has now been, as i suggested before, he's part of this three amigos as someone kind of running the ukraine policy kind of off the books not as part of the normal diplomatic or national security and foreign policy chain. at the same time the public things he has said so far seem to suggest, you know what, i was involved in this a little bit and i wanted trump to talk to the ukrainians, but not only to talk about energy stuff. i don't have anything to do with the stuff that he's in trouble for. but do we think there's a deeper story here to tell about rick perry? >> there's always more room to explore and to ask questions. the questions i'm asking as a

reporter about secretary perry is what was his intent when he interacted with ukrainian officials about natural gas in ukraine. we know based on our reporting that rudy giuliani had his own ideas about how different oil companies should be set up and natural gas companies should be set up in ukraine was talking to the president, was talking to ukrainian friends of his, business associates. but secretary perry as a secretary of energy overlapped at times with some of these conversations. the question congress will ask him is was his intent to meddle in ukrainian politics and business for political reasons or did he have the intent to do so simply as energy secretary? >> in the previous block i talked about how a bunch of people who thought that the administration might be able to put behind the stone wall or people who were seen as loyalists to trump have in a rapid fire of succession over the course of the last week got on the other side of the stone wall and have turned out to be antagonists of the president or at least have testified in ways that are damaging to him.

on the basis of your reporting, do people inside the administration lookiatric perry and see someone who is dangerous to the president? or do they think that rick perry is kind of still under the president's control? >> first of all they don't really think it's a stone wall. we have a constitutional system. congress has oversight of the executive. and the white house can assert executive privilege, but many of these officials, whether it's secretary perry or members of the national security apparatus can still put their hand in the air and say i'm going to testify before congress if congress is issuing me a subpoena. and many people involved when you talk to administration officials current and former, they want their hands clean here. they see an unfolding situation. many of them now want to go to congress to make their own case. >> costa, stay there. when we come back, we will have news on that ceasefire between turkey and syria. ween turkey and syria hbrush. but my hygienist said going electric could lead to way cleaner teeth. she said, get the one inspired by dentists,

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as if all this impeachment news was not enough, a temporary ceasefire has been agreed to between turkey and the kurds in syria a week after turkish president erdogan launched a military offensive against our allies following trump's withdrawal of u.s. troops in the regionone. vice president pence this afternoon after speaking with erdogan said there would be a five-day pause that would only be stopped permanently if and when there is a complete withdrawal of kurdish forces. and piled praise on his turkish counterpart. >> great day for the kurds. it's really a great day for civilization. i just want to thank and congratulate though president erdogan. he is a friend of mine and i'm glad we didn't have a problem because, frankly, he is a hell of a leader and he's a tough man. he is a strong man. and he did the right thing. turkey is a friend of ours, a neighbor of ours and they are a member of nato. and what turkey is getting now

is they are not going to have to kill millions of people and millions of people aren't going to have to kill them. >> the president calling this a great day for civilization. but the u.s. just essentially surroundered a region of syria to turkey. and it's all because of his call with erdogan a week and a half ago which enabled the incursion to happen in the first place. george conway calling out the irony tweeting the house burned down, but, hey, the arsonist gets to brag that he put out the fire. let's bring in mark and former chief of staff to vice presidents joe biden and al gore. nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons. keir, let's start with you. you have spent a lot of time in that region. you were in ankara earlier as the vice president and the president of erdogan met. >> reporter: john, you know, yesterday i said that this

outreach by vice president pence and secretary of state pompeo was unlikely to be successful. i should've added unless they completely cave to everything that turkey is asking for. i mean, effectively what they've done is not just try to stop the bleeding in syria, but done anything they could to try and stop the political bleeding in washington. and those words from president trump that you played just a moment ago were just absolutely stunning because effectively what he is saying is that he really supported president erdogan's ambition all along comparing this invasion of syria with his own un-orthodox staff saying that turkey needed to clean out this area which is a pretty sickening way to describe thousands of kurds having to flee the area, something that many people have described as ethnic cleansing. so, in terms of the deal, there

are lots and lots of questions and there are disagreements now between the kurds already and the turks over exactly what it involves the kurds saying they were simply handed this. but it seems to suggest that president erdogan gets his 20-mile corridor, his so-called safe zone. the american using the same words as president erdogan has used that turkey will police that zone and that the kurdish militia, the kurdish ypg that helped america fight isis that they will be disarmed. there are going to be some celebrations here in the presidential palace here in ankara tonight. >> i just want to ask you, i think i hear what you're saying and i think i understand this the right way, that this ceasefire is essentially kind of part and parcel of the initial abandonment of the kurds and that on a scale of kind of moral bankruptcy, it's basically just as morally bankrupt as the first thing the president did. it's essentially these are like

these are two things that proceed in tandem in terms of how we look at them. >> yeah. i mean, look. i think it's important if you like warn the american people that what president trump is doing here either knowingly or not knowingly is really setting the kurds up for being blamed when this ceasefire fails because effectively the kurds have really got pretty much nothing. they were actually defending pretty well, albeit against a turkish millitary that has far outsurpassed their strength. and turkey will be preparing for if there is a renewal of violence to blame the kurds for that. and what you heard president trump say today kind of sets him up for being able to echo that. and there is another point, john, too, which i think people should be very, very worried about. perhaps it's understandable that

america has swung behind turkey, turkey being a nato member and an ally. but on the other side, of course, is president assad's forces backed by russia. and you've got to wonder how this is going to play out if there ends up being a clash between turkey and syrian forces. how exactly is america going to respond to that and could we be looking at a pause but in the long run, god forbid, a wider conflict? >> keir simmons, thank you for weighing in, really helpful and really clarifying. and what huge remaining questions are as we go forward. i want to turn to you and ask you a question. but first i want to play a little sound from mitt romney who, among many republicans, critical of president trump for what he has done initially in allowing this to happen, and now an hour or so after the ceasefire was announced, took to the senate floor and said the following. >> this is a matter of american

honor and promise. so too is the principle that we stand by our allies, that we do not abandon our friends. the decision to abandon the kurds violates one of our most sacred duties. it strikes at american honor. what we have done to the kurds will stand as a blood stain in the annels of american history. are we so weak and so inept diplomatically that turkey forced the hand of the united states of america? turkey? >> incredulous, mitt romney. eddie glaude, i am going to ask you if you're an ally of the united states, if you're an adversary of the united states watching this unfold in the stages that we've now seen, what think you? >> well, if you're an ally you don't trust the united states. the stain is there. we are in a pretense that we are

the moral arbiter across the world has been thrown in the trash bin. we need to linger on the fact that donald trump, the president of the united states, the leader of the free world, said that turkey needed to have it cleaned out. that the five days is in some significant way as samantha powers tweeted a kind of gesture towards ethnic cleansing in some ways. so it seems to me that if you're ally, you know that this is just the latest libya, the treaty with iran. there is no promise that america can make while donald trump is in office that the country will keep. if you're an adversary, you know you have a bully. you know you have someone who's pliable, who will move if you move him. if you don't blink he will blink first. so erdogan, whether he's an ally or whether he's an adversary he got what he want and trump looks like what he always looks like, a bully with no real punch. >> tell me what one can adduce

about donald trump's view of the world if one can adduce anything from this. is this the trump foreign policy driven by whim caprice by matters that are inexplicable other than the desire to be on the good side of robert portmvl? >> i think we don't really know what role the fact that trump has business interests in turkey played in his decision to roll over to turkey. but what we do know is that vice president pence, they have newly installed copies of chamberlain's biographies because this was just an appeasement of a dictator. this was not a ceasefire. this was a decision by the united states to tell the kurds that they have five days to get out and give over all this territory to turkey or risk further ethnic cleansing where we are certainly going to not do anything to help them. that is appeasement of erdogan.

it is an appeasement of authoritarianism. and also by the way for our own security one consequence of this is we don't know how many isis fighters who the kurds currently have jailed are going to escape as a result of all of this and where those isis fighters will go next. but this is just a horrible decision by the trump administration as a matter of foreign policy and it has devastating consequences for our national security. >> so this comes just a few hours after we were all treated to the release of the letter that trump wrote to erdogan last week. i just want to put that letter up. it's still worth talking about because it's so extraordinary. the letter, the language purely is unfiltered trump. there is no administration, democrat or republican i've ever heard of in which there wouldn't have been five people stopping any given president who would have gotten drunk enough to send something like this to a foreign head of state. it includes the language that will hopefully be on someone's grave stone someday. don't be a tough guy, don't be .

and then i'm going to ask mark an interpretive one. just like the transcript that they put out of his talk with the ukrainian president in which president trump says it's perfect and it's exculpatory to the rest of us would see it as being damning and incriminating. what are people in the white house thinking they are getting that's positive out of putting this letter in front of the press and the american people? >> there is an acceptance inside of this white house that president trump will resist any attempt to put up a guardrail. so mick mulvaney, the acting chief of staff and many others inside of the west wing instead try to work with the president to channel his instincts and his behavior and to let whatever happens happen. and this is a president who is operating on those instincts without much advice. and there is no real presence in this administration who is countering his point of view. >> so, mark, but i ask this

question. costa's reporting is always rock solid, and that's clearly what happens why trump gets to send the letter. the question i am so befuddled by is how is it they didn't have to put this letter out? they are putting it out for what purpose? do they think this makes trump look good, spontaneous, smart? >> we've been talking about that a lot. part of me originally thought he was sort of backdating a letter just to make it look like he was putting some kind of stake in this that he actually had a point of view two weeks ago and that the letter was never sent. first of all it might've been trump. you can see the president saying, look, put that out. i wrote that letter or let's craft a letter because this just shows that i cannot be contained at all. it's almost of a piece of sending mulvaney out there to say, look, we did this, this is old news at this point, even though we have been denying it for the last three weeks.

it's again, there is a form of inoculation in beak almost so quasi transparent in how, you know, almost self-dealing they've been throughout this whole thing. >> i will say this. i believe it is the case that this letter was actually sent and was not just a fictitious letter o bbc reports and i do love this. this is my favorite thing of the day that turkey's erdogan, quote, threw trump's syria letter in the bin which is pretty much the place where it would have to come to rest. thank you for taking the time. up next, remembering elijah cummings with one of his long-time friends on capitol hill. we will be right back. it's amazing what you can uncover with your dna results from ancestry®. i was able to discover one cousin, reached out to him, visited ireland, met another 20 cousins. they took me to the cliffs of moher, the ancestral home, the family bar. it really gives you a sense of connection to...

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>> that is the question of our time. one of dire importance from congressman elijah cummings, who pa passed a way this morning at the tender age of 68. elijah served maryland's 7th congressional district. he was a much beloved statesman. he also served at the chairman of the house over sight committee. we're going to talk about his legacy with congress woman district of columbia eleanor. congress woman, great to see you here. i know you knew him well, knew him long and well. talk a little about what he was like as a colleague and what kind of impression he left, what kind of -- the kind of mark that he left in his years in that body where you now serve. >> well, condolences to his wife and his family. but i should say that our loss is deep because at the height of his power and when he was perhaps most needed, we have

lost a giant in the house of representatives. the chairman was in the midst of the impeachment inquiry from which i have just come. and it's interesting to know that today i just received a copy of the summary that he and other -- the two other chairmen -- wrote of their critique of trump's response to that inquiry. now, we have perhaps even more impeachable offenses. we needed elijah as much as we have ever needed him. and while we would have felt this loss no matter when, we were dependent upon his leadership and none of us can fill the vacuum that's been left here in the house of representatives. >> congress woman, i'll say i knew him pretty well and one of the things i can say for him was that he is irrepressible.

he was a fierce partisan and a fierce fighter and yet someone who was filled with a wilting sense of joy almost at all times. there was nothing he loved more than work. took great joy and passion in it. he worked i think all the way until the very end. i believe he was still chairing committee meetings from hospice as recently as last week, is that right? >> well, he was having -- we didn't even know he was in hospice but we had a meeting last week with him. those of us on the committee and your characterization of elijah is correct. what he gave forth on television and in committee hearings was, of course, a very commanding presence. but i have to tell you that he was seen by all of us who knew him, including my republican colleagues, as a very gentle spirit. there are very few members of this congress who combine that kind of feeling and respect from

colleagues at the same time that remember what our committee does. that you must hammer the other side. >> only because we have a break we have to get out to in a minute, i want to say a couple things about the man from you. you know, as i said a second ago, a fierce fought as hard as i've ever seen. a civil rights figure. you know, he integrated a swimming pool when he was being attacked with rocks and bottles at the age of 11. so he was in the fight for a long time. he embodied the obama notion to disagree. >> disagreement to the -- to the character of his interlocken. right? he brought the fact that he was the son of a share cropper. when he took the oath of office, he -- he brought the fact -- brought up the fact that his father said if only he had been given an opportunity, what he could have done. so with the death of representative elijah cummings, i've said we are in a moment where we have a deficit of decency. and with his death, that deficit has been tripled.

>> yeah. thank you, congresswoman. thank you for spending the time with us. eddie, thank you for those words. i just will say i've met a lot of congressmen in my time and a lot of congresswomen, nobody i've ever written about or spent time with was a more profoundly decent and uplifting person than elijah cummings. we'll be right back. an elijah cummings. we'll be right back. perfect . whether you're looking for a top-brand at a great price. ready to upgrade. moving in. moving on up. or making big moves. deliveries ship free and come with a 100-night free trial. no matter your budget. or your sleep style. we have quality options for everyone. so search and shop. save and snooze. and rest easy, knowing that we've got your back. literally. that's what you get, when you've got wayfair. so shop now.

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they did not get to talk long enough. we'll get them next time. does it for this hour. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts right now. daily" with c starts right now ♪ welcome to thursday. meet the press daily. good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington where, i don't know, we're running out of ways to describe how alarming and consequentia