as you know he put out a presidency. statement that said that was the ambassador bill taylor is an most innocent phone call he's read, and i spoke to him about honorable man that served this country well ever since he left it, too. he read my phone call with the the military academy and start standing up for the people of president of ukraine, mitch the state department and mcconnell. he said that was the most and it's because of the movement finally, i mean, you and i knew innocent phone call that i've lindsey graham in the old days. read. i mean, give me a break. we knew when he had that i spoke to him about it too. i keep saying that the democrats backbone and that feeling of >> the president has said that he read my phone call with the ought to move forward because you told him that his phone call you may not see numbers change president of ukraine. with the ukrainian president was mitch mcconnell. he said that was the most all that much beyond this. innocent phone call. perfect and innocent. give me a break. do you believe that the >> the president has said that honor. you told him that his phone call when people like that turn it's more than watching 4 or 5% of president -- >> we've not had any with the ukrainian president was the polls turn. conversations on that subject. by doing something else >> i don't know how long the >> so he was lying about that? impeachment or admitting to secretary of state can hide >> you'll have to ask him. another crime. perfect. >> we're talking about politics. behind the word hypothetical. i don't recall any conversations do you believe that the with the president about that president -- phone call. >> we have not had any >> the person that delivered it politicians put their finger in >> three weeks ago president conversations on that subject. >> so he was lying about that? the wind and look at polls trump said that senate majority before they decide what they're has such credibility that it >> you have to ask him. going to do and support. would be difficult to dismiss leader mitch mcconnell personally assured him that i don't recall any conversations they could read the 15 pages it. he was in kansas again earlier with the president about that phone call. from bill taylor and put it trump's phone call with >> three weeks ago, president this week and there's rumors of ukraine's president was, quote, together with the whistle report innocent, and yesterday as you trump said senate majority and the summary of the phone a potential senate run there leader mitch mcconnell call and the text messages we that there's speculation of heard, mcconnell told reporters that's how he is looking for his that he and trump have never personally assured him that saw. maybe you shouldn't have to wait trump's phone call with for a poll to tell you that discussed the matter. ukraine's president was quote way out. good morning, and welcome to something isn't right here. innocent and yesterday as you >> all of that presupposes that

"morning joe." it is wednesday, october 23rd. heard mcconnell told reporters we have a majority of statesman with us we have msnbc that he and trump never discussed the matter. good morning and welcome to contributor mike barnicle, white house reporter for the morning joe. it is wednesday, october 23rd. women in the congress. >> two men, one school, people of character that aren't associated press, jonathan simply interested in their own westpoint, duty, honor, country. professional wellbeing and one man so far stepped up and lemire, professor at princeton committed to the country and the country's wellbeing and the adhered to that motto. state of our democracy and what >> all right. on that note, coming up on eddie glaude jr., joe is out on we have seen over the course of morning joe. >> they talk about the elite. 2 plus years is that we have in professor at clemson university an assignment he's interviewing some ways a deficit of the elite. do you ever see the elite? and columnist for the washington leadership, a deficit of they're not elite. character and deficit of decency you are the elite. ringo starr in los angeles. how cool is that? you are the elite. fun for him. post. he's obsessed with the beatles. joe is out on assignment this in the country and particularly morning. he's interviewing ringo star in in washington d.c. so willie and i are holding down so it's not just simply the 15 you're smarter than they are. the fort. there is a lot going on. page report, it's the so-called we're following a number of los angeles. we'll bring you that in the stories for you this morning transcript, it's the you've got everything going, you coming days. how cool is that? whistleblower, the evidence is know? including russia quickly so, let them keep calling us -- stepping in to the void that the and there is a lot going on. in plain sight. do you ever hear it? u.s. left in syria with trump's so it's just -- i'm not hopeful hey, you go to the best schools. we're following a number of hasty troop withdrawal. stories for you this morning you do a tremendous job. that we will see politicians the deal that russia's putin and including russia quickly you own companies. stepping into the void that the you work for tremendous turkey's erdogan struck just as u.s. left in syria with trump's salaries. you do all the things that you the u.s. brokered pause in morph into statesmen and women. do. you're talented with your hands, fighting expired. >> the special envoy to syria with your mind. and than you elite two of rudy giuliani's hasty troop withdrawal. told lawmakers yesterday he was associates are due in federal court today on charges tied to has just said." illegal campaign contributions. not con adultsulted before trooe the elite? get more elite than me? it's a case that connects to i have better everything than ukraine as well. withdrawn from syria. they have, including this. bob menendez joins the [ cheers and applause ]

the anonymous trump administration official who wrote an exclusive "new york two of rudy giuilani's conversation to talk about that. times" op-ed last year is back. morning joe is back in a moment. . morning joe is back in a moment. and i became president and they this time with a new book, and associates are due in court today. the anonymous official that didn't, meaning you became president. the washington nationals took game one of the world series wrote an exclusive new york last night with a 5-4 win over >> donald trump weighing in on times op-ed this year is back, elitism in today's america. the houston astros. this time with a new book and our next guest is a the washington nationals took game one of the world series self-proclaimed expert in this so how stroung were they? area. author joel stein joins the conversation next with his new the one game i went to these last night with a 5-4 win over guys were incredible. book in defense of elitism, why >> they have a 20-year-old juan the astros. i'm better than you and you are better than someone who didn't how strong were they? buy this book. >> they were incredible. "morning joe" is back in a >> they have a 20-year-old that moment. y this book. "morning joe" is back in a moment standard of care. you see right here juan soto. soto train tracks. it's how we bring real hope to our cancer patients- a bomb of a homerun. like viola. up over the train tracks. they beat garrett cole who's (alarm beeping) when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, he then hit a two-run double. welcome to our busy world. been almost literally her team at ctca created a personalized care plan where we all want more energy. untouchable since may this the nationals won 5-4. but with less carbon footprint. season. >> that was a big deal win for can we have both? that treated her cancer and strengthened her spirit. the nationals on the road in at bp, we're working every day houston. they have another one of their to make energy that's cleaner and better. so viola could focus on her future. top guys stephen strasburg on he's been almost untouchable and we see possibilities everywhere. their future. the mound against a pretty good this is how we inspire hope. pitcher from houston named this season. to make energy that's cleaner and better. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, hmm. exactly. this is how we heal. they have another top guy on the so you only pay for what you need. justin verlander. cancer treatment centers of america. it's already a great series. mound goents a pretty good nice. but, uh... pitcher from houston it's what's up with your... partner? appointments available now.

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officials to tie foreign aid were sighs and gasps when he money to demands that ukraine read his opening statement. i'm part of a community of problem solvers. he told members of congress that open an investigation into the the president directed officials we make ideas grow. biden family. to tie foreign aid money to this opening statement itself, from an everyday solution... willie was devastating for the demands that ukraine open an president. >> yeah, it's available online. to one that can take on a bigger challenge. everybody should read it. investigation into the biden from packaging tape... to tape that can bond materials it's a 15-page opening statement. taylor said trump insisted that family. this opening statement itself to buildings... and planes. president zelensky go to a microphone and say he's opening was devastating for the president. one idea can unlock a breadth of solutions. >> it's available online. investigations of biden in 2016 everybody should read it. it's a 15 page opening at 3m, we are solving problems that improve lives. statement. it's rukmini here from the new york times . election interference and that trump insisted that the president zelensky should want president go to a microphone and say he's opening investigations to do this himself. of biden and 216 election taylor wrote that gordon sondland told him quote everything was depending on hey, you see this? interference and that he should zelensky making a public statement including security want to do this himself. he wrote that the eu ambassador assistance. in his testimony taylor called told him quote everything was it a confusing and unusual arrangement for making u.s. dependent on him making a public policy toward ukraine. he told lawmakers sondland tried statement including security. to explain how president trump was approaching the matter like a businessman saying when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him can a banana peel fuel your flight. something, he said the he said he tried to explain how bp and fulcrum bioenergy think so. businessman asked that person to pay up before signing the check. president trump was approaching the matter like a business man together we'll reduce emissions and landfill waste

when sondland testified before saying when a business man is house investigators last week, about to sign a check to someone by turning garbage into jet fuel. he said he did not recall any that owes him something he said at bp, we see possibilities everywhere. discussions with anyone at the the business man asks that state department or the white person to pay up before signing okay, welcome back. house about investigating the by turning garbage into jet fuel. beyond the routine checkups. author joel stein joins us now with his new book "in defense of the check. bidens. so jonathan lemire, what bill he said he did not recall any beyond the not-so-routine cases. elitism." great to have you on the show. >> thanks for buying so many comcast business is helping doctors discussions with anyone about books! i didn't know this many copies taylor laid out is a quid pro investigating the bidens. provide care in whole new ways. existed. you got one for me? quo, an explicit quid pro quo in all working with a new generation of technologies >> it's a great place for books. his testimony. >> taylor the top envoy to the >> thank you. powered by our gig-speed network. >> i know you know walter ukraine was asked to go by isaacson pretty well, so -- because beyond technology... there is human ingenuity. >> he hired me, yeah. >> what? he hired you? >> yeah. pompeo. taylor kept detailed notes and >> okay, well, you better not records and recounted. every day, comcast business is helping businesses the room was spell bound as he and the top envoy was asked to fail at this question. walter has the first question. went through his testimony and go beyond the expected. went through the time after time go to keep detailed notes and walter, take it. where he had disturbing -- as he to do the extraordinary. >> hey, joel. joel, i mean, we've known each put it, disturbing conversations take your business beyond. records and recounted yesterday other for more decades than with other members of the administration and the state the room was spell bound as he you'd like to admit you've been went through the testimony and alive, and you know how much i department, how he learned about liked your book, but what rudy giuliani and as he put it the time after time where he had particularly surprised me about this parallel foreign policy to as he put it disturbing your book was when you went in ukraine, the exchanges with conversations with other members of the administration and the to certain small towns, certain state department. ambassador bolton about what was how he learned about rudy places, and your mind changed. happening there when bolton you actually evolved in your tried to keep things on more thinking. giuliani. the exchanges with ambassador regular channels, and then to give us an example of some town spell out what is largely the quid pro quo, what the president bolton, the security adviser about what was happening there you went to where you actually met people and said, okay, my has time and time again denied as well and he tried to keep suggesting that the president mind has been opened up a

would only authorize this things on the more regular little. >> oh, this is great. military aid toed ukraine if it channels and then to spell out the last time you interviewed me, i got a job out of it, so what is largely the quid quo pro were to carry out the investigation into corruption, this will go well for me, i'm and that namely meant, of sure. i went to a town in america with course, the bidens. suggesting the president would >> and this is really a direct only authorize this military aid the highest percentage of trump voters, and i thought i would to ukraine if it were to carry teach them a lot and they would line david ignatius being drawn out the investigation into teach me a little, like from the inside in terms of someone who was there and a part something i could stitch on a corruption how would you doyly, probably, and keep in my of this. what bill taylor described, house. but instead, it kind of changed david, how would you the way i lived, because they characterize that? would gather every night on porches and not look at their is that a crime? were you consulted about the >> well, he certainly has the phones and go to church and have these communities, and i really elements of an exchange of withdrawal of troops. something for something else of thought, like, they knew more >> i wasn't consulted. about how to live than i did, >> we did so and they attacked but i definitely knew more about value. that's usually called bribery. within a matter of hours and you how to vote than they did. we'll leave it to the house to characterize that? is that a crime? >> so, what did you take away >> it has the elements of an decide how they want to assess from them on the political side? exchange of something for say those were unrelated but it you say, you talked about the voting of it. the specific charges. would say to me there was a when they talked about donald trump and how he impacted their something else of value. yesterday's testimony as we read that's called bribery. lives, what'd they say? >> well, i think as people, we it had the feeling for me of a relationship. >> turkey appears to be tipping point. feel speed. we don't -- we don't feel speed, committing war crimes. it just was of a different it's up to the house with how do you disagree with that? we feel acceleration. and what they have felt, even character of what we've seen they want to assess the specific >> turkish supported syrian before, mika, and i've tried to though white christians are opposition forces that were still the most powerful group in think what is it about the way charges. yesterday's testimony had the the country, they feel like they feeling for me of a tipping have less power than they used under general turkish command to, and it's an existential taylor wrote these 15 pages. as you can see from the pictures and did carry out a war crime crisis for them, and they just he's a mild mannered kind of and we have reached out to want to stand on top of the turkey to demand an explanation. mountain and yell "stop."

classic foreign service officer. and i could feel why they feel i think there are two things. first, he wrote it almost as a christians are more point. discriminated against than black >> that was the u.s. ambassador people, because that's the experience they're living. detective story. as you can see he's a mild >> so, did you get any sense of he arrives in kiev not to syria. facing questions yesterday on understanding that there's this the impact of turkey's offensive why so many feel such resentment mannered classic foreign service second as he calls it irregular in northeast syria. officer. he wrote it almost as a toward people like us and where channel that's really running we live and how we make our things. so through this narrative, he detective story. he arrives in kiev not living? >> yeah, because they knew more learns more and more and begins about my life than i knew about to see that these other people theirs. understanding that there's a like, they had traveled to cities, they certainly have are running a policy that has second irregular channel that's running things. televisions where they see nothing to do with our stated so through this narrative he either this show or "modern policy that congress has voted, learns more and more and begins family" or some show that pretty and then the second thing that's to see these other people much replicates my life. running a policy that has and i went to this town and i in these 15 pages is a tone of nothing to do with our stated walter isaacson joins the really knew very little about policy that congress has voted. moral outrage. conversation along with willie them or their work or their and me. lives, and that made them really here are ukrainians literally on my first question is was there any argument made in that angry. >> were you surprised that -- i would assume that you heard a the front lines fweagainst russ testimony in support of this lot of references to god and fighting an undeclared war in church and religion -- the east. >> i went to church, yeah. taylor goes in the front to see policy that chose that in >> that you don't hear, like it, and he writes with real from, for instance, democrats conviction that more ukrainians running for president? >> yeah. will die because president trump yeah, or from me, or on this is withholding this military show. so, yeah, they're living a very assistance for political anyway. >> not really. he tried to put the best face he different life than i am, and purposes. they wanted me to see it and he doesn't say so, but he's could on it. and he writes more ukrainians know it, and i'm glad i did. outraged, and i think that comes through and will come through will die because president trump for anybody who reads this. is with holding this military not only was he not consulted >> claire.

>> you know, i understand where assistance for political you were because for a lot of my purposes. he doesn't say so let's talk but that the policies in place >> bill taylor, let's talk about bill taylor personally for a few state, that is the reality. >> yeah. moments. bill taylor graduated from west >> and i think one of the things point, he served in the 101st that our presidential candidates having the kurds control an area are missing -- and i'd love your with the turks on the other side take on this -- is to speak airborne, led a combat infantry directly to these folks who was working back in august that platoon in vietnam and has was agreed to by the turks and served the united states of about his personally. really for them, donald trump america in the state department they just decided to go ahead was like pulling a pin on the under consistent administrations republican and democrat, and hand grenade and lobbing it into d.c. and saying, well, nothing yesterday the white house's and he served the united states response to ambassador taylor's of america in state department else has worked. we still can't afford to retire, statement and testimony under consistent administration we still can't afford to send yesterday was to describe it as and through and what we have is our kids to college. part of a smear campaign from election politics and not everybody who gets free stuff is republican and democrat. somebody other than me. far left lawmakers and radical and yesterday the white house's national security being decided talk about the failure of our response to ambassador taylor's by the president of the united candidates thus far to speak unelected bureaucrats. states and it's a betrayal to directly, especially to people statement and testimony was to living in places like rural describe it as part of a smear that's how they described missouri. >> yeah, i think it's important campaign from far left lawmakers that people in missouri, which i ambassador william taylor. and radical unelected the kurds and our policy with as david ignatius just indicated will now pronounce correctly -- it had the feeling, his bureaucrats. that's how they described >> both are correct. >> no, i'm going with yours. statement when you read it of a ambassador william taylor. russia and it's one of the worst it's important they do that, but a radical unelected bureaucrat national security blunders i sea change in this now shuiftin have seen. i also think we all need to step >> senator, it's willie geist. but as just indicated, it had back for a second. the reason i wrote a funny book the feeling, his statement, when about this is because every people like mark meadow and jim you read it, of a sea change in other book about politics now is so angry and serious, and we've jordan and most of the this. you mention them coming to an now shifting people like mark agreement to fill the void as gotten our self into a really

planned as the americans moved bizarre situation that we just republican members of the united states senate their positions of meadows and jim jordan and most aside in northeast syria. need to acknowledge. like, when i was growing up, if denial to now a position of is there anything the united trying to come up with an of the republican members of the states can do at this point to you told me there'd be a populist revolt in the u.s., i'd explanation. >> the irony is na mark meadows united states senate from their positions of denial to now a mitigate the damage that we're be like, oh, well, there was an watching happen in real time? walked out of that ten-hour position of trying to come up economic collapse or there was a with an explanation. what is your resource here? war or a natural disaster, but deposition and declared that he >> well, trying to get the this is like an unforced error. didn't hear any quid pro quo. president to change course which >> yeah. is of course not an easy things were actually going nothing new, it was still in proposition because this is all pretty well. people wanted to burn the system about election politics for him. down on both the left and right, place. you know, in his column in the and i just want people to, like, step back, calm down, and let "washington post" made it clear he declared he didn't hear a people who have some expertise the question of whether this still run things, instead of quid quo pro. everyone just operating from the but if we were to keep a more happened is settled. gut and knowing more than the the issue now is how the nothing new. he said the question of whether substantial troop presence and this happened is now settled. generals. >> yeah, okay. at the same time, it's so there's at least three president -- the evidence is locations. interesting, you wrote a piece clear. how the president explains it one stops iran's pathway to in the "washington post"? now we have to assess what will and what congress chooses to do >> yes. threaten our ally the state of >> about why impeachment is the wrong road. the congress do and ting that about it. so you're right. >> yeah. >> why? something has changed. the smoking gun is here. >> well, my fear is that the evidence is clear. israel to that preserves the oil that's -- i think that's where we are. something has shifted. field so it doesn't fall into impeachment looks really you and david are right. now we have to assess what will elitist, and people do not like something has shifted. iran or others hands and creates the elites right now. the congress do and that's where i'm the only one out there the question now is what are the defending them as far as i can next steps. >> add one other thing to the a cash cow for them and that tell. and impeachment looks like -- we are. could be a way to fund the kurds it's trickery, right? list. bill taylor was asked by it's a bunch of lawyers getting in their effort and fight secretary pompeo to return to against isis and thirdly in the together and trying to use service. so the radical unelected southern part of syria if we obscure parts of the >> bill taylor was asked by kept a significance presence constitution, and then they go bureaucrat was asked by pompeo

to come out of retirement to the -- i mean, stuff that i because of experience in ukraine secretary pompeo to return to that there would at least and work. mitigate some of the as an elitist love. he agonized over the decision he consequences but to be very >> right. wrote in his opening statement. service so the radical unelected honest with you, some of what we have done is what the president >> there will be a supreme court his wife voted against it. has done, i should say, is justice in a wrote having a bureaucrat was asked to come out he was happily in retirement. of retirement because of trial. experience in ukraine and work. already having ripple effects. it's a pbs special for me. he agonized over the decision everybody in that region is >> i can see that maybe during this was someone hand picked by the clinton -- but when there is the state department, mike and he wrote in his opening pompeo, who's loyal to president recalibrating. trump. statement. his wife voted against it. i was at an event here in concern that a real crime has >> arguably the president's most he was happily in retirement. been committed and foreign loyal cabinet member and trusted washington yesterday where two policy is being used this was not a radically ambassadors from that region inappropriately and people's cabinet member. lives are hanging in the he says in his testimony he said we saw you in your spoke to an unnamed republican questioning of ambassador balance, how do you not impeach? mentor who said to him if you unelected bureaucrat. feel like you can serve the he was hand picked by mike jeffrey and you're absolutely right, why should we fight along >> well, it's great, if it's going to work. country even if you have if you're going to throw the side the united states if you're president out, if that's misgivings you should do so, and pompeo. >> and he says you should do to going to abandon us when you're effective, great, do it, but if he went, and he's provided the finished with us. it's going to wind up with the republicans not throwing him most vivid accounting yet of out, it's going to be what happened and potentially >> senator menedez, turkey, a the most damning tale. ineffective and it's going to look like -- it's going to look >> under oath. >> and now the ball certainly member of nato, yesterday in like political insider goes to republicans to say how sochi, president putin meets him weaseling, instead of dealing do you react to this? with what the country wants to >> it's interesting, mika, when you read the testimony and you and he's provided the most vivid deal with. and i think that just makes us and they carve up the territory. think about what was in the so the question now is turkey, look like -- squr testimony, what is in the account and now the ball goes to are they an ally? testimony, does it fit under the republicans, how do you react to if not, what are they? definition of bribery or >> i think they're a real >> the danger. >> that's the danger. it makes the elitists look like they don't care about anything extortion? >> it's a good question. challenge. but the machinations of they're everything that we government. i mean, it's pressure, and these aspire to turkey, the bridge >> who are the elitist? >> you have ten seconds to people are in the fight for between east and west, strong answer. >> i talk about the intellectual their lives. this? it's incredible. >> does it fit under the nato allies, secular country has elite versus the boat elite, >> and to clearly make it so people who care about ideas definition of bribery or

that lives were on the line. gone the wrong way and that's versus people who care about extortion? >> it's a good question. money. and i think we're in a fight it's pressure. why i and the chairman deal with that's the difference. these people are in the fight >> ukrainians could die. that's the first time we've for their lives. that was called the circulation heard that. it's incredible. of the elites. but i think we're in a fight he described that scene as >> and to clearly make it so between people who i call the looking over a bridge at russian that lives are on the line. boat people, because there's soldiers at the disputed nothing worse than someone that owns a boat, and the people who territory and thinking more ukrainians could die because of i call the intellectual elite. this. >> it's so staggering and really >> fascinating conversation. >> i do not have a boat, so -- makes you take into account everything this president has this. >> of course. said. he's serious, he means it, and e and the reality is for those >> you're good. that say well we want to try to >> do you have a boat? >> actually -- >> you do! >> i was just given a boat. h it makes you take into account he doesn't care if lives are on everything this president has i'm sorry. is that bad? the line. this has been proven, and by the said. he's serious. preserve turkey's relationship >> oh, no. did you hit it with a champagne way, which is the white house's he means it. account of what happened in the and he doesn't care if lives are in violation of u.s. law, that's bottle? something that i call that, >> no. >> good, okay. it's a pun. very first memo that the white on the line. you guys are the worst. house put out, and their only >> here's the name, top of the this has been proven and by the turkey was sitting with iran and rock. way, this is the white house's russia going back to the oh there you go. defense at this point given so many things that are on the all right, that does it for us account of what happened in the this morning. >> so disappointed. very first memo that the white meetings about the future of record and so many people who are going on the record is to >> stephanie ruhle picks up house put out and their only syria. coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. say, yeah, get over it. defense at this point given so turkey has been increasing with hi, there. i'm stephanie ruhle, and this the question is can america get many things on the record and so russia and we shouldn't be morning i am just down the road over a president potentially committing a crime in office and worried about the quote unquote concern about pushing turkey from a very busy capitol hill. shaking down another foreign many people going on the record it is wednesday, october 23rd, is saying yeah get over it and into russia's arms and the deal and let me tell you, there is a leader for his own political the question is can america get lot happening. we start with the white house over a president potentially committing a crime in office and yesterday just showed the lashing out at acting ambassador gain. is that who we want to be? continuing concerns about the to ukraine bill taylor after he more on the white house shaking down another foreign statement calling bill taylor a betrayal of our foreign policy delivered some of the most radical unelected bureaucrat. leader for his own political to russia. let's take a look at taylor's i don't want to depend upon damning testimony against

gain. is that who we want to be? russia for the national interest president trump yet. career. he's a graduate of both west still ahead on morning joe, and security of the united taylor told lawmakers that president trump informed point and harvard university's we'll talk about exactly who kennedy school of government. states. diplomats like gordon sondland he served for six years as an ambassador bill taylor is and >> good morning. >> i'm ticking off who won with that ukraine would not get why his testimony should be army infantry officer including taken seriously by lawmakers and this syrian policy the president military aid until president with the 101st airborne in the white house. zelensky did what he wanted. you're watching morning joe. we'll be right back. use. you're watching morning joe. we'll be right back. (contemplative synth music) enacted. iran won, russia won, the war the dictionary -- the dictionary vietnam. he is among the country's most calls that kind criminal assad won, turkey won, experienced diplomats with a i'm trying to figure out from career that spans nearly 50 this deal maker that he calls years serving in every himself in the white house, what did we get out of this? administration republican and democrat since president ronald reagan. he was appointed by president george w. bush in 2006 to serve as ambassador to ukraine and what did he extract in return served under both bush and for this victory. president obama. isis clearly won. after decades of service in is there any upside to this - [narrator] forget about vacuuming for up to a month. government, taylor left and was shark iq robot deep-cleans and empties itself serving as the executive vice decision that eluded all of us that you can see? into a base you can empty once a month. president of the united states and unlike standard robots that bounce around, institute of peace in washington. when he was called back after it cleans row by row. if it's not a shark, it's just a robot. marie yovanovitch was ousted >> no, we didn't win anything. from her position as ambassador ( ♪ ) the president won an applause line and that's what is driving to ukraine in may. and as willie mentioned he was him in his decision making. only tylenol® rapid release gels recommended to secretary mike have laser drilled holes. here's one of the biggest pompeo for that role by kurt they release medicine fast, challenges that we have.

volker, the state department's for fast pain relief. the department of defense, i recently departed special envoy tylenol®. said that at the meeting at the for ukraine. white house. let's bring in national security there are 14 to 18,000 isis fighters still fighting in the expert columnist at usa today region and particularly in and author of the book "the syria. you have another 10,000 that were detained by the kurds. death of expertise" tom nichols. if the kurds have to worry about where are we in the ukraine scandal, especially after the fighting for their own lives testimony by ambassador taylor? they're not going to be protecting and detaining the >> what's left now to find out? 10,000 isis fighters and if they get released now you have a how many more times can we so i kept it in. fighting core of nearly 30,000 he started believing things that weren't true. isis fighters. affirm that everything that we that's a clear and present think happened is exactly what danger to the united states. happened? the president wanted one of that's a big loss. husband political opponents during the course of their disease around 50% of people with parkinson's investigated. he held up money that had been may experience hallucinations or delusions. appropriated by the congress of the united states for a specific but now, doctors are prescribing nuplazid. purpose, and tried to shake down the only fda approved medicine... >> thank you for coming on the a foreign government to get what road this morning. proven to significantly reduce walter, if you were walking into he needed for his political your history class and had to hallucinations and delusions related to parkinson's. teach what this moment was all about, what would you say? fortune. clear abuse of power, clear don't take nuplazid if you are allergic to its ingredients. elevating of the national -- of nuplazid can increase the risk of death >> first of all, all roads lead the president's personal in elderly people with dementia-related psychosis to russia when it comes to interests above the national and is not for treating symptoms interests. clearly endangering a friendly unrelated to parkinson's disease. donald trump.

country, a partner holding the everything he has done helps nuplazid can cause changes in heart rhythm russia. starts with him getting funding and should not be taken if you have certain from russia with the elections line against russia. abnormal heart rhythms or take other drugs but now we see him allowing at this point, how many more that are known to cause changes in heart rhythm. russia to carve up parts of times can esteemed, respected, tell your doctor about any changes in medicines you're taking. experienced diplomats come the most common side effects are forward and tell us that exactly swelling of the arms and legs and confusion. what we think happened is we spoke up and it made all the difference. ask your parkinson's specialist exactly what happened? syria and ukraine is at war with i think we're, you know, i think about nuplazid. the story's clear. russias that have invaded and we i think at this point we're just going to get additional details withheld money and used it that are just going to confirm what we already knew, and i think we are well, well into people talk about quid quo pro impeachable territory. >> david ignatius, as you read but it's a corruption and use of this 15-page opening statement, this document, and we haven't this money as a bribery and if i even seen the question-and-answer session. he was in there for nine and a half hours yesterday, it's clear how experienced he is, first of all, and the level of detail that is in here speaks to his were nancy pelosi i'd say this note taking and his collection is a turning point we have heard of documents because he knew something wasn't right, and he wanted to have a paper trail to this seat? enough. we're going to go on the floor explain in this very moment this seat is reserved and have a vote to have an yesterday, but it does speak to, for the restless. official movement to formal does it not, the sloppiness or those who need to move. the arrogance or some impeachment process and say hey, and roar.

and ride. this just happened. combination of this administration of this shadow up, down, over. foreign policy that they thought powering through. they could roll over bill taylor we don't need to hear too much more before we have to vote for and he just wouldn't say this seat is for those that get down in it. an impeachment process to begin. anything. he'd go along for the ride. into the fray. the arena. they learned yesterday over almost ten hours of testimony he this seat is not for spectators. >> on queue the president is ♪ gladiator tweeting about this subject. wouldn't. ( ♪ ) >> he was there watching, obviously the consummate missions have ended. professional, and as he realizes ♪ gladiator kurds are safely and nice to us. what's going on, he begins beyond the routine checkups. trying to say to people stop beyond the not-so-routine cases. this. there's a text that he wrote to this goes into the idea of just comcast business is helping doctors the isis prisoners itself flies gordon sondland who's the provide care in whole new ways. in the face of the testimony political appointee, who's the that we heard yesterday. e.u. ambassador, one of the -- all working with a new generation of technologies that special envoy he said that part of the regular channel as powered by our gig-speed network. dozens of isis fighters were taylor puts it that's really because beyond technology... there is human ingenuity. unaccounted for. controlling policy, and he says the defense secretary put that number at hundreds when he spoke about it a few days ago. it's crazy to condition our every day, comcast business is helping businesses he suggested that it was less of go beyond the expected. military assistance, 391 million to do the extraordinary. in assistance for an ally take your business beyond. fighting russia on russia on a situation because they would political favors. be heading to europe suggesting that's crazy. later he writes directly to that's your problem and not ours. >> they're not safe right now. >> or happy with this secretary of state mike pompeo,

he says this policy you're arrangement also there was an conducting is folly. that's the word, he speaks out, interview with the secretary of quiet man as we've seen. he speaks out and says this is folly. one of the questions i have this defense in which they said the morning is where's mike pompeo? >> yes. that is a huge question. >> the person he appointed to foll following so right now we have not seen the big prison break we all expected. in other words, as a result for take this job, to oversee the policy of stepping aside, we all expected a huge prison break ukraine, a country involved in a of isis fighters and yet we deadly battle with russia, proceeded anyway and using that where's the guy who appointed him? why doesn't he have anything to to be down to well over 100 or say? >> secretary pompeo, when he so so that's good news to us. gets asked about this, he says i'm not talking about hypotheticals. david ignatius, this is not a >> the focus that you have is on more on the white house the independents that were hypothetical. the guy he appointed now has an statement calling bill taylor a radical unelected bureaucrat. tallied here. >> yeah. the independents by a big margin incredible detailed story of how let's take a look at his career. this quote, drug deal went down now favor removal. he's a graduate of westpoint and so to speak. i mean, this is not a harvard universities kennedy school of government that served for six years as an army this sy achange. infantry officer including with hypothetical. he has to answer questions at the vietnam. some point to the reality that happened on his watch, doesn't he is among the country's most he? >> so mika, i think this is mike experienced diplomats with a

career that spans nearly 50 >> that's never been the case pompeo's profile in courage years serving in every moment. either he steps up and tells the before. what you saw first was a climb in the numbers for the inquiry truth. he obviously has been concerned administration republican and and now a climb in the numbers about this for months, that for removal and that is a pretty big number if you look for the comes through, or he does what democrat since president ronald reagan. he was appointed by president he's so often done, retreats and independents and what's going on waits if the preside-- for the bush in 2006 to serve as and by the way, inside that poll ambassador in ukraine and served also, 31% of the republicans under both bush and president obama. after decades of service in president to make up his mind and tries to be loyal to trump. now for mike pompeo it's not government, taylor left and was disapproved of his syrian going to be possible to do both, serving as the executive vice and i think there's going to be focus on him. president of the united states what did he do? institute of peace in what did he say, what did he washington. think now? when he was called back after decision. >> another focus will be on that's the highest number of disapproval for anything he has republicans who have been she was ousted from her position done in office. defending president trump him making this decision he may throughout all of this. let's bring in nbc news as ambassador of ukraine in may correspondent garrett haake. have thought it was going to be and as willie mentioned he was a great distraction but frankly, i wonder if you saw anything on capitol hill yesterday, you were there all day. the first thing that's really was there any initial reaction, recommended to secretary mike hurt him in his base. and what are you expecting pompeo for that role by the >> what do you make of we're state department's recently following these polls weekly and today? >> the reaction all day was so departed special envoy for there's a growing support it's ukraine. let's bring in national security fair to say in most polls by 205 striking, first from democrats expert columnist at usa today coming out of the room looking shaken. and author of the book the death this is not the testimony they were expecting even from a star of expertise, tom nichols. points for impeachment and then witness, and then throughout the also for removal from office. course of the day, watching these numbers are not going down. they're going up.

republican talking points shift, at this point, where are we in attitudes shift on this whole thing. i started to hear from more the ukraine scandal? especially after the testimony republicans things like, well, by ambassador taylor. could it have really been a quid >> how many more times can we pro quo if the ukrainians didn't know why the aid was being withheld essentially moving the you talked about secretary goal post throughout the course of the day in response to what affirm that everything happened is exactly what happened. pompeo earlier in this show. he understands history well and they had heard from the taylor cares about it. and the white house statement he held up money that had been was the capstone on all of this appropriated by the congress of going back into the mueller bag the united states for a specific of tricks ask smearing their own foreign service officers. purpose and and tried to shake we've been hearing more and more all the way up to george schultz of this over the last several down a foreign government to get days, republicans not trying to what he needed for his political and baker in the state push back at all on the department. he knows his picture is going to fortune. clear abuse of power. substance of what they're be there some day. hearing in these closed door clear elevating of the he has to stand up for national -- of the president's ambassador bill taylor, the depositions but really just personal interest above the hammering the process, going person he put there and say we back to the clinton impeachment national interest. play book saying this is an clearly endangering a friendly unfair process. it's being done behind closed doors, it doesn't count shouldn't have had this weird, essentially but not addressing the substance of this. to me the most interesting wacky, all of these weird people that don't know what they're doing trying to undermine a underplayed soundbite all day yesterday was mitch mcconnell bipartisan basic tenant of being asked to comment on this country. how many more times can they american foreign policy which is and being read essentially that come forward and tell us that we support the ukrainians just , tweet from donald trump saying oh, mitch mcconnell said this exactly what we think happened

is exactly what happened? was a perfect phone call, and mcconnell saying i don't remember having any conversation with the president about this. you are seeing republicans back away from this not knowing how to respond and clearly very at this point we're girm what wd uncomfortable following the white house's lead in smearing we're well into impeachment career foreign service officers. territory. >> as you read this 15 page i'll be very curious to see if the jim jordans and mark meadows opening statement and the level and other more reliable defenders of the president come to play today with a new defense here or if they follow the white house's lead and go that route. of detail speaks to his note >> dwyou anticipated my questio taking and collection of which is the approach some of documents. these republicans are taking. he knew something wasn't right and he wanted to have a paper it seems to be about process. trail to explain in this very they didn't want to talk about moment yesterday. the content of bill taylor's but it does speak to the testimony that the public all saw, but steve scalise, for sloppiness or arrogance of this example, the minority whip in administration of this shadow the house who has been a foreign policy that they thought defender of president trump was they could rollover bill taylor out re-tweeting saying the and he just wouldn't say anything. impeachment process literally being conducted in the basement he would go along for the ride. we learned yesterday after over behind closed doors to keep you the people from seeing what's 10 hours of testimony that he wouldn't. >> he was there watching and he happened. they even had a hashtag and everything else.

the argument seems to be this is happening in secret, except there are republicans in the room. can you explain what the hearings look like? >> sure, these do happen in a secure room downstairs. begins trying to say to people, it's a small room. when congress is back, when all stop this. three committees that are doing there's a text he wrote to the this, when these folks could all political appointee and eu be in the room, it becomes a standing room only situation, so ambassador part of one of the a lot of members come in and out throughout the course of the day regular channel that's controlling policy and he says and, yes, staff conducts the it's crazy to condition our majority of these interviews, but members are allowed to ask military assistance and he says questions. republican and democratic members, and based on the rules of this, members are not supposed to come out and talk to us very much about what they are seeing and hearing in the room, but of course this is congress. that's crazy and he doesn't get everybody talks about an answer. later he writes to mike pompeo. everything, so we get little bits and pieces of what's going on in the room. he says this policy that you're if there were leaks that were conducting is folly. he speaks out. beneficial to the president's quite man as we have seen. he speaks out and says this is argument, we would hear those as well. i talk to just as many folly. one of the questions i had this republican members as i do morning is where is mike pompeo. democratic members on most days, and we are not hearing leaks of >> that's a huge question. >> the person he appointed to favorable investigation from the

republicans who sit in these rooms day after day. take this job, where is the guy we are hearing these process complaints. look, there may be some political value to that. this is a tried and true tactic. it worked for bill clinton's defender 20 years ago. to say the process is unfair, that appointed him? why doesn't he have anything to this is over zealous, a. say? >> secretary pompeo, when he gets asked about this he says adam schiff and the deep state i'm not talking about and all these actors who they see as on this never ending hypotheticals. this is not a hypothetical. the guy he appointed now has an quest to get president trump, but there has been no factual incredible detailed story about how this quote drug deal went counter narrative presented about why what the president did or didn't do is okay. that has not emerged at all from down so to speak. this is not a hypothetical. these rooms or from the republicans who sit in them all he has to answer questions to day. the reality that happened on his >> garrett haake thank you so much. what a day on capitol hill, and watch. doesn't he? >> so i think this is mike of course we saw the president true to form yesterday. pompeo's profile in courage often when things get really bad moment. either he steps up and tells the truth. he has obviously been concerned and information appears to put about this for months. him in a terrible position, he or he does what he has so often loves to distract with just a little dose of racism for the does and retreats and waits for country, and his tweet using the the president to make up his mind and tries to be loyal to

totally terrible and inappropriate word lynching drew a lot of reaction, and then people were bringing up other trump now it's not going to be times that people very inappropriately used the word. possible to do it. what did he do? it's all a distraction. what did he think? we know he watches, not falling for it, good try. >> more than half of americans it's what you do, and at this say president trump should be impeached. what are republican lawmakers point it's not going to work. we'll talk about it, but we're thinking? that discussion and the new not going to be distracted. polling next on morning joe. d t still ahead on "morning joe," a polling next on morning joe. new poll just came out that shows support for impeachment has hit a new high. we'll dig into those numbers, plus, ambassador bill taylor wasn't the only one testifying before lawmakers yesterday. the u.s. envoy to syria was also on capitol hill. what he told lawmakers about the impact of turkey's offensive in northeast syria. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> got a little bit of everything today. wi we have a fire threat. we're going to have snow tonight and we have rainy weather exiting the northeast. boston still an umbrella morning

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over half of americans approve of the impeachment inquiry into president trump. according to a new poll out this morning 55% of americans approve of the impeachment inquiry. that's up 4 points since just last week and that's the highest level in polling. 44% say they disapprove down 2 and 48% say they believe president trump should be impeached and removed from

it's how we bring real hope to our cancer patients- office. also up 2 points, 46% said they like viola. when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, disagree, down 2. what do you think? >> that's basically down half her team at ctca created a personalized care plan the country that says the president should be removed and we're seeing a steady rise in that treated her cancer and strengthened her spirit. these polls. across the board including fox so viola could focus on her future. news and other places where we their future. have seen more and more americans believe certainly at this is how we inspire hope. the very least this inquiry is this is how we heal. valid and should be pursued but cancer treatment centers of america. then now we're seeing rising appointments available now. numbers of people that think this should be perhaps the end of this presidency. cancer treatment centers of america. beyond the routine checkups. so tom, let me get you in on beyond the not-so-routine cases. comcast business is helping doctors this. what do you think these polls matter for perhaps the provide care in whole new ways. constituents who matter the most, republicans. all working with a new generation of technologies particularly those in congress. particularly those in the powered by our gig-speed network. senate. are they looking at these numbers? are they going to start making because beyond technology... there is human ingenuity. their own political calculations as the calendar begins to approach 20? every day, comcast business is helping businesses >> the interesting thing of course is when you look at the go beyond the expected. national poll and you get half to do the extraordinary. of the country thinking about take your business beyond. impeachment, that's not the republican base and what's really clear, the first segment

we asked where is pompeo and why is the white house going with these kind of stories about radical bureaucrats. they're playing to the base. they think their firewall against impeachment is that the base will keep the republican elected officials so terrified that they won't go far enough, that they won't support the impeachment of the president and that they won't vote to convict and remove him but at some point, even the republicans have to start thinking about the degree to which the president is a liability and whether they're let's take a look at these better off without him. we saw this in the nixon polls at 28 past the hour, a live look at washington, d.c. the sun has yet to come up. impeachment that all the republicans were going right to but over half of americans say the wall for the president right they approve of the house up until the minute t month of democrats impeachment inquiry into president trump. according to a new quinnipiac university poll out this morning, 55% of americans approve of the impeachment

inquiry. that's up four points since just last week, and that is the highest level in quinnipiac polling. 43% say they disapprove, down two, and 48% say they believe president trump should be impeached and removed from office. also up two points, 46% said they disagreed down two. jonathan lemire what do you think? >> that's basically about half the country that say the president should be removed. we're seeing a steady rise in these polls crass the boaacross including in fox news and other places where we see more and more americans believe, certainly at the very least this inquiry is valid and should be purs pursued. now we're seeing rising numbers of people who think this should be perhaps the end of this presidency. tom, let me get you in on this. what do you think this matters for the -- what do you think these polls marritter for perha the constituents who matter most, republicans, particularly those in congress in the senate, are they looking at these

numbers, are they going to start making their own political calculations as the counter begins to approach 2020? >> the interesting thing when you look at the national poll and you get about half of the country thinking about impeachment, that's not the republican base, and what's really clear, you know, the first segment we asked where's pompeo and why is the white house going with these kind of stories about radical bureauc t bureaucra bureaucrats? they're playing to the base. they think their firewall against impeachment is that the base will keep the republican elected officials so terrified that they won't go far enough, that they won't support the impeachment of the president and that they certainly won't vote to convict and remove him. at some point even the republicans have to start thinking about the degree to which the president is a liability and whether they're better off without him. we saw this, you know, back in the nixon impeachment that all of the republicans were going right to the wall for the

president right up to the minute they weren't. what's interesting about those numbers as well is that trump has managed to get to where nixon was literally within about a month of resigning the presidency. i still think that the impeachment numbers are always going to reflect the approval numbers, and the approval numbers probably have a floor somewhere in the high 30s because of the nature of the trump movement, so you may not see -- i keep saying that the democrats ought to move forward because you just may not see numbers change all that much beyond this unless, again, of course, you never know. the president can always make those numbers move by doing yet something else impeachable or admitting to another crime. >> i understand we're talking about politics. i understand politicians are going to put their finger in the wind and look at polls before they decide what they're going to do or support, but they could just read the 15 pages, too frrks bill taylor and put it together with the whistle-blower report and the summary of the

phone call between president trump and president zelensky and the text messages we saw. you maybe shouldn't have to wait for a poll to tell you that something isn't right here. >> you know, all of that presupposes, willie, that we have a majority of statesmen and women in the congress, that we have people of character who aren't simply interested in their own professional well bei being, and who are actually committed to the country and the country's well being and the state of our democracy. what we've seen over the course of these two-plus years that we have in some ways a deficit of leadership, a deficit of character, a deficit of decency in the country and particularly in washington, d.c. it's not simply the 15-page report. it's the transcript. it's the whistle-blower. the evidence is in plain sight. i'm not hopeful that we will see politicians morph into statesmen and women. >> well, but the public might help with that when you look at these polls, it's certainly

definitely -- i mean, president trump was following those polls throughout that entire election he went through. he must be looking at them now, but others would be members of congress, republicans looking at where the sentiment lies with what has happened in this white house. you never know what could happen. >> eddie is right in those trump districts, those red districts, he still enjoys huge support, president trump, including on the question of impeachment so they're not compelled to move. >> and those republican lawmakers fear the consequences. they know if they speak out against him, it's not just a tweet. let's say we do advance this into an impeachment, into a senate as republican who speaks out against the president, the make america great again primary challenger is announced the next day with the president's full backing. >> you know, it's interesting, at least to me andwere around then covering it. there was an element of character that came to the fore, came to the front slowly among the watergate hearings. i mean, you had very reluctant

republican members of congress both the senate and the house, they came forward. they weren't being pushed. weren't being urged. they came forward. >> all right, coming up, after deciding to pull u.s. troops from syria, president trump abruptly turned his focus on securing oil in the region. >> i don't think it's necessary other than that we secure the oil in a little different section, but we secure the oil. keep the oil, we want to keep the oil. >> so what prompted the oil rush? nbc news has new reporting on the republican allies including a fox news analyst who urged trump to rethink his decision twice. "morning joe" will be right back. ♪ (dramatic orchestra) performance comes in lots of flavors.

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president trump has se seemingly always been very receptive to maps. when he was moving into the white house, he had a map of his election results framed. there you go. when hurricane dorian was raging toward the u.s., he showed a doctored map that predicted the storm would definitely hit

alabama, and earlier this month, he tweeted a map of the u.s. that said try to impeach this. now his allies are using maps to explain the situation in syria to him, and they're trying to get him to understand some logic. joining us now nbc news correspondent carol lee. carol is out with new reporting this morning alongside courtney kube on how lindsey graham and retired general and fox news analyst jack keane showed the president maps of syria, turkey, and iraq to try to explain why removing troops from syria would be detrimental to u.s. interests. carol, tell us more. >> sure, well, el w what we sawe last few days is the president really focus in on these oil fields and talk about this em publicly saying you know, maybe we need to keep some troops there to protect the oil fields. we need to secure the oil fields, and it really raised

this question of, you know, first of all confusion. what is the policy? what is the mission here? are troops staying or going? if so, what are they supposed to be doing there? is this now about just guarding oil fields, and second, it was -- it just left some people scratching their heads, where did this come from? it seemed to come out of nowhere. it turns out that on october 8th, retired general jack keane went to the white house and showed the president this map and said, look, here's where all of these oil fields are, two-thirds of the oil fields in syria are in places where u.s. troops are deployed, and if you pull everybody out, iran's going to come in there and take these oil fields. he felt like he had gotten somewhere and made some headway but he didn't. he came back a week later with lindsey graham and he went through this exercise again. the idea is to break things down with visuals, not necessarily military terms, and we learned

that basically everyone around the president his national security team has had these maps since he came into office and would routinely show them to him when he wants to withdraw troops from syria and talk him back from doing that. that obviously didn't happen until after he already made this decision. i think the question now is whether this is going to sting. really don't have any clarity on whether troops are going to stay there, if so, how many for how long, and so those are questions that the president's going to have to answer in coming days. >> wow, yesterday the deal expired between the united states and turkey for turkey to pause its advance into syria, and in that void, "the washington post" reports russia and turkey agreed yesterday to a plan to push syrian kurdish fighters from a wide swath of territory just south of turkey's border. according to the post, the agreement will leave turkey and russia in control of territory formerly held by kurdish forces once allied with the u.s.

the post points out that the deal bolsters russia's preferred end game in syria's civil war by allowing its ally, syrian president bashar al assad to gain control over more of his country's territory. russia is also prodding states in the region to recognize the syrian government's authority. willie, it always ends up with putin. >> there it is. >> david ignatius, you can come through that story. i wanted to ask you about the focus for the white house and specifically for president trump about oil. the defense secretary esper said yesterday we're going to have a small contingent of u.s. troops stay behind in syria to work with the kurds on securing the oil. what are they talking about, and what do you make of that objective? >> let me start with russia moving in. they have quite literally taken the space th, the positions eve that the united states was holding. the russians have negotiated a

new cease fire deal with turkey. russian troops will be making joint patrols with turkish troops as the u.s. was doing until things blew up with trump's decision to let the turks invade. the russians are negotiating with the kurds to arrange the -- where the kurdish troops will be, so they're really playing all the levers here. essentially they've taken over the structure the u.s. had built in northeast syria and are now owning it and running it. on this question of the oil, i've heard lindsey graham make this argument, the oil is the strategic leverage point. i've been to those oil fields into my trips into syria in the east. my fear is that we're turning u.s. troops into a militia that holds bargaining chips as opposed to a real military force. the idea that the kurds after we

have betrayed them will have leverage to deal with syria simply because u.s. troops are holding these oil fields strikes me as farfetched. that's the kind of thing russian li militias have tried to do in that part of syria to get 25% of the takes for oil fields. not an appropriate role for u.s. troops. the saddest thing for me yesterday about syria was hearing our special envoy jim jeffrey testifying before the senate. he was asked by senator menendez, were you consulted about president trump's sudden decision to withdraw these troops. jeffrey just says flatly i was not consulted. our special envoy was not koun su consulted. >> david ignatius just pointed his finger on a salient point in all of this, the sadness of it all. the sadness of seeing the united states retreating from northern syria, being pelted -- vehicles

being pelted by potatoes, the president of the united states saying don't worry about it. it was only 28 troops on the ground being removed, which is ab su absolutely not true, and now we may keep a residual force there to save the oil fields which is incomprehensible to many military people. your thoughts on the sadness aspect of what has happened to the united states in this region? >> even if you take into account the shame of, you know, people pelting our vehicles with fruit and rocks, the fact that our allies are coming under attack, the fact that the russians are now going to gain a foothold, that we're now on the outs with a turkish ally that has been part of our alliance system for a half century, at the bottom of it all, you come to the realization that it's for no

reason at all, that there was no strategic reason whatsoever to do this. all of this is happening because the president got on the phone and didn't know what he was doing because he is unbriefable, he doesn't listen to anyone. if someone calls him and says this is what i want, then that's what he does. that's really -- that amplifies the sadness that people are going to get hurt. america has been shamed, that we are in retreat. the russians are on the march. we're on the outs with an ally, and for what? for nothing. simply because the president of the united states has no idea what he's doing, doesn't understand geopolitics, doesn't care about our alliances. so i think, i feel the same sadness mike is talking about, but i think there's an anger underneath it for me that all of this tragedy is taking place inkprens bli fcomprehensibly fo

reason at all. >> carol, lindsey graham has played a fascinating role with the saga with the president. they were campaign foes turned close allies. senator graham is willing to break with him on a few issues, namely immigration and this foreign policy matter. do you sense that graham feels like this is a small victory or is he going to try to push more? we know he's been out there time and again very critical of the president's stance here in syria. do you think that he is going to try to revisit this to try to get him to change back further? is there any sense the president would be willing to give another inch here? >> it's not exactly clear how they could change back further than where they are now given how quickly things have unravelled in syria and the vacuum that's been filled by the u.s. pulling back a little bit. our sense was that senator graham and jack keane felt like they had made some headway with the president and at least could get -- were on the road to getting him to agree to keep

some sort of u.s. presence there. the map and the oil fields are kind of -- they're not insignificant but they're just a tool for basically people to use who want the president to maintain some sort of u.s. influence and leverage in this area rather than pull completely out. so the oil fields are something that the president understands. it's his language. it's money, and that sort of thing. so you know, to the extent that tha they've made headway with him on that, they feel good about it. this is a president that you know as well as anybody changes his mind on a dime, and there's really not any full reassurance he's going to stick with this plan as you saw from his remarks this week. it's really all over the place, and no one has full clarity about what the policy is and what the troop levels are going to be and for how long and what the mission is. >> this is an incredible time. it's hard to take it all in. nbc's carol lee, thank you.

we'll be reading your new reporting, it's incredible at nbcnews.com. coming up, jon padoret said yesterday was the day that ensured donald trump's impeachment. we'll read from his piece entitled "trump will be impeached" ahead on "morning joe." great weather, great friends. you just saved a bunch of money by

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53 past the hour, a manufacturing recession may be on the horizon for several swing states. a sharp contrast from president trump's campaign promise to deliver more blue collar jobs in 2016. according to an nbc news analysis of the latest employment data out of the 22 states with manufacturing job losses so far this year, some of

the biggest percentage drops are in states where trump won by less than five percentage points. in pennsylvania the manufacturing sector lost just over 8,000 jobs while north carolina lost 7,700 and wisconsin lost 6,500 jobs. tom, just politically this reality can't be good for the president, but he touts such a strong economy and such success. >> well, part of the problem, of course, is that he has the ability to play news like that to his base as never being his fault. you know, this isn't the normal kind of news cycle where the economy hits bumpy territory and people look to the president and say, you know, you made promises. you already saw it, for example, with some of the farmers saying yai, i'm suffering, and i know this is because of the chinese and the bureaucrats at the

agriculture department and the congress. the president's base is very reluctant to ever blame him for anything. the president to some extent painted himself into this corner with his only i can fix it rhetoric ask then promind then none of the things that are happening could possibly happen. it will hurt him with other people. i still wonder how much any of this ever dents him with his base because they are so completely committed to the narrative he is infallible. >> we think about his policies in terms of tax cuts, in eviden in now that trump sold folks as we like bernie sanders would appeal to. how might this play to the democrat side, right, that the folks in those battleground states are actually being hit harder, and will it actually play to in some ways the left and more progressive side of the party that's trying to put

forward a more robust argument of how to address the circumstances of those folks who are hit hardest by trump's trade policies in some way? >> i think -- for a while now i thought the progressive side of the party have a problem because i think there are gettable votes in those areas, and i don't think there's any point in trying to convert trump voters because i think there you're dealing, you know, with a pretty steadfast group of voters. on the other hand, i think there are people who might have been inclined to stay home who could come out to register their displeasure if the democrats don't scare them off on other issues. i think if the democrats play this as a matter of kitchen table issues and quality of life and are you better off than you were four years ago, and also, are you tired? i think one of the places where these meshes is that the president's antics are a little

more tolerable if you think things are going well. it is easier to kind of wave it away and say well, the economy's good. i know he does crazy stuff, but if the economy starts to sink, then the president's antics, i think for ha smathat small grou people could become a deciding factor if the democrats don't scare them off. >> tom nichols, that you think so much. coming up member of the house intelligence and judiciary committees, congressman ek swalwell joins us. plus, the u.s. envoy to syria was also on capitol hill yesterday, senator bob menendez will be here to discuss the foreign relations committee assessment of the impact of turkey's military offensive. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪ ce asking me, "is your daughter ok?" that's where i felt relief. we're the rivera family and we plan to be with usaa for life.

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too perfect! i can rent this? for that price? absolutely. what is this, some kind of fairy tale? it's just right! book your just right rental at thrifty.com. oh! baby bear! it is the top of the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." it's wednesday, october 23rd, still with willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire and joining the conversation former u.s. senator, now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill. former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense now an nbc news national security analyst, jeremy bash, and chief white house correspondent for

the "new york times" peter baker. joe is on assignment, but he'll be back. we're going to begin this hour with the capitol hill testimony that is raising serious concerns about president trump's denial of a quid pro quo when it comes to his dealings with ukraine. acting u.s. ambassador to ukraine bill taylor spent more than nine hours behind closed doors testifying before house lawmakers yesterday. according to "politico," two sources in the room for taylor's closed door testimony say there were sighs and gasps when taylor read his opening statement. taylor told members of congress that the president directed officials to the foreign aid money to demands that ukraine open an investigation into the biden family. in his 15-page opening statement, taylor said trump insisted that president zelensky go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of biden and 2016 election interference

and that president zelensky should want to do this himself. taylor said that e.u. ambassador gordon sondland told him everything was dependent on zelensky making a public statement including security assistance. in his testimony, taylor called it a confusing and unusual arrangement for making u.s. policy toward ukraine: taylor told lawmakers that sondland tried to explain how president trump was approaching the matter like a businessman saying when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check. when sondland testified before house investigators last week he said he didn't recall any discussions with anyone at the state department or the white house about investigating the bidens.caskill, this is, you know, i think it was tom earlier who brought up like how much

direct line to president trump and a direct connection with a quid pro quo. >> there's a couple of things here. first of all, the whistle-blower is now irrelevant. we can quit talking about who it is or where they worked or the identity because now there is multiple first person sources of what was going on. >> starting with the white house memo itself. >> starting with the summary of the call itself, and then you add on giuliani's statements, you add on sondland's statements, you add on mulvaney's statements. now you add on bill taylor's statements, so let's forget about that. the other thing that's really bugging me right now is these republicans are all talking process, that this is a secret proceeding. america, the republicans are in the room. they are there listening to all of this testimony. they are asking questions. this is not being hidden from the republicans on capitol hill. they have access to all this information, and eventually the public will too once it gets

passed the investigative portion. >> claire, the white house is saying their defense at this point, and even mick mulvaney kind of, you know, really stepped in it, but he did it, too, get over it. this is what we do. what's wrong with it? is this a crime? >> it is a crime. it is a crime to shake down a foreign government for your political purposes, and this is a classic shakedown. as somebody who prosecuted shakedown, this is a pry na fascia case has more than been made. it is time to take it to the jury which is the senate, and shame on republican senators if they try to smear this man. this is a west point grad, a veteran, and the republican senators know it. so if they try to smear this guy, they really should have trouble sleeping at night. >> and you see they haven't attacked him at all in the content. it's all been from steve scalise and others. this is happening in the basement of the capitol as if

that has something to do with it. jeremy bash, the white house talked yesterday in a statement about a radical unelected bureaucrat, apparently referring to ambassador taylor. ambassador taylor was pulled out of retirement by secretary of state mike pompeo back in may. so the radical unelected bureaucrat is someone hand picked by this administration to come back and run ukraine because of his experience in that country. if you read through his statement, there is an explicit quid pro quo. we don't have to dance around this. what did you see in that testimony yesterday, at least the part of what we heard? because he was in there for nine and a half hours. all we have right now is his opening statement. >> we're talking about a west point grad, someone who served in the 101st airborne in vietnam, served in the army. served every republican and democratic administration since 1985 and was hand picked by the trump administration, by secretary pompeo to lead our efforts in ukraine, and now here he comes with a shocking set of

facts. the one fact that really jumped out to me. we knew that on september 1st, 2019, a sunday, ambassador taylor sent a text message to ambassador sondland saying are we now conditioning security assistance on these nef investigations, and sondland famously said call me. when they did call each other sondland said i was wrong ambassador taylor. i had previously told the ukrainians that only a white house visit was contingent on them doing these investigations. i was mistaken. from the president i'm now told that everything is on the table including the security assistance. that is clear, direct, firsthand evidence that the president was demanding a quid pro quo. >> peter baker you're on the front page of the "new york times" again this morning with the news analysis and the sub head is damning testimony raises the stakes of impeachment. so now that ambassador taylor has spoken and we have seen his

opening statement, what's your sense, where do the republicans go from here from denial in the past, what do they do? do they go to explanations? excuses? where do they go? >> well, one of the this i thinks that bill taylor's testimony does that we hadn't really heard up until now is put the real world consequences on the table. he's the ambassador, or the acting ambassador on the ground there. he describes being at the war damaged bridge in eastern ukraine where he could see the russian-backed separatists on the other side and really feel up close the consequences of the war that has been waged for five years by russia, and his point to the house investigators yesterday was there's real consequences here. if watergate and the monica lewinsky scandals were about our system of government, our system of justice and the integrity of them, this is actually about not just those issues but also issues of life and death on the ground. he said if the aid that was being held up in his view at the very least to leverage ukrainian

cooperation with the president's political needs was withheld from ukrainians that ukrainians would die as a result. that makes it harder for republicans. republicans have been outspoken in their support for ukraine against russian aggression. they have been outspoken in saying the united states needs to do more to help defend the ukrainian, you know, integrity of their country, and therefore he has put this on the table for them saying, well, this is what happens when you withhold aid for domestic political purposes. >> jeremy bash, peter baker you heard him use the phrase life and death on the ground. you heard him use the word integrity. you've worked at both shops, the pentagon and the cia, the integrity of those two places in dealing with any ambassador around the world is a constant. it's part of the everyday process of representing the united states overassesseas. what kind of damage does this do to like d.o.d. and the cia,

intelligence and military? >> those military and intelligence officers that you've referenced are duty bound. they and they swear an oath to the constitution to defend our nati forward into harm's way to do this day in day out. we don't even talk about it much in the media. these people are on the front lines, and the idea that we would sacrifice our interests and that people would die, our friends would die, the ukrainians would suffer casualty, would suffer losses as ambassador taylor so starkly reminded us yesterday because donald trump wanted a political favor or help in his 2020 re-election? that is the ultimate abrogation of national security. that is the ultimate abuse of power and undermining of american security and influence in the world. >> claire, among the many things that bill taylor provided us with yesterday was an explanation from the inside about what investigations meant. the white house said we wanted corruption broadly, we were very worried about corruption. in this opening statement taylor

said i had come to understand well before then when the call was released, the summary of the call, that investigations was a term ambassadors volker and sondland meant matters relating to the 2016 elections and to investigations of burisma and the bidens. he wasn't made aware of the phone call between the president of ukraine and the president of the united states. didn't know about that until it was made public. more broadly in the inside he knew what investigations meant. it meant look into a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election and the biden family. >> 100% political. 100% the personal agenda of the president of the united states. bill taylor realized at those moments that people in ukraine were going to die at the hands of putin because the president of the united states was manipulating the appropriations process, money that had been approved by congress, widely supported on a bipartisan basis in order to further his political agenda.

the interesting thing about bill taylor, i think if i was presenting this case as a prosecutor to the senate, bill taylor would be one of the most important witnesses because he does have such bona fides as a bipartisan broke in this. and secondly, he took copious notes contemporaneously. there are exceptions to the hearsay rule that included recorded recollections in some instances. so many of these notes could, in fact, come into evidence in court because he made a habit of doing that, and therefore they're considered more reliable by courts. so he is really someone who has strength not only in what he knows but the way in which he gathered the information contemporaneously with the time all these things were going on. there is no way men and women of good faith can listen to this testimony and look at his recorded notes and believe that

this is some kind of conspiracy to smear the president. i challenge my republican colleagues to say that with a straight face. >> it's fascinating. in his latest piece for commentary, trump will be impeached, john podhoretz argues that a ambassador's testimony seals the deal. ambassador sondland said everything was dependent on such an announcement including security assistance. it comes from testimony of a acting ambassador to the ukraine bill taylor and instantly makes all but impossible the task of anyone seeking to defend trump against the charge that he held up military aid to ukraine to secure a political advantage in the 2020 election unless trump and sondland deny this and offer evidence that taylor is wrong or lying, we now have contemporaneous confirmation that the president intended to hold up military aid to the

ewi ukrainians to secure domestic political advantage, that's the ball game, whether what trump does obliges the senate to remove him from the presidency will be up to republicans in the senate to decide at the trial that will follow what i think is now inevitable impeachment. the fact that the aid to ukraine has, in fact, gone through despite trump's illegitimate temporary suspension may be the straw the gop will grasp to prevent his conviction in that trial, but that's no defense of trump's actions. if i'm right, they will in effect have to concede the wrongdoing and say it is too minor to lead to such an extreme sanction. so trump won't be the first president to be removed from office, he will however be the third to be impeached, and as i said, that will be bad enough. jonathan lemire, i think the connection, the very simple math that people do that the president admits to shaking down

a foreign leader to get dirt on a political rival, that sentence needs to continue and say that people's lives were put on the line and, you know, the president was using military aid to hold back -- holding back military aid and that people could die and possibly did given the time that it took to discuss all of this. >> there's a real possibility that we will look back upon yesterday as an inflection point in this matter. the account from ambassador taylor is so gripping. it's so clear. he brought evidence to support what he said. time and time again he talks about efforts where he tried to push forward the relief, tried to push forward the military assistance and was rebuffed by administration officials, by those in the state department. going to mike pompeo, trying to take it directly to the president to try to have a sense as to what exactly is going on here, and as you just said, what we saw yesterday was the real world consequences is the idea of ukrainians whose lives are at

risk, who are in a state of combat with the russians and russian backed brigades across that border, across that bridge that peter baker wrote about, and i think that republicans now who have always prided themselves as being anti-russia how will they make that calculation going forward. it will take 20 or more republican senators to vote to remove. that still seems like an extraordinarily big number for a party that has remained so loyal to this president. i think this is a moment where at least some of them are going to have to come to grips with what happened, examine their own c consciences. >> it's reality and it's been admitted by the white house itself, if it's too an extreme connection to make that people's lives were put on the line for the president's political gain, then republicans maybe could get some guidance with his policies in syria? >> yeah, well, that's the one place we've seen pushback from

republicans. we saw lindsey graham leading the pushback on syria. last night lindsey graham on fox news pushing back on the impeachment process saying it's happening in the darkness and secrecy of the basement of the capitol. on the question of syria where lindsey graham has spoken, showed what happened if we pulled out, you wrote a piece yesterday for the "times" titled for trump the deal maker troop pullouts without much in return, we've seen the pictures of retreating american military vehicles with syrians and kurds throwing vegetables and rocks at them as if they were abandoning them. what do you think president trump is thinking this morning as he watches vladimir putin and president erdogan of turkey signing in sochi, russia, this joint deal to fill the void very quickly left by the americans? >> well, i think you're seeing the consequences obviously for the president's decision, and maybe it's the right decision. look, this is something that should not surprise anybody and

he did tell us in the campaign his goal was to pull back from overseas wars. there's a great national fatigue with 18 years of international military operations that to many americans and certainly to president trump have not been worth the effort, worth the money, worth the bloodshed. what i think people are talking about here though is the way it's being done. it's not just that there's a desire to pull out. it's the way it's being done has provided an opening for russia that doesn't seem to concern the president very much. then you put that together with what we learned or we heard yesterday from bill taylor in terms of the pullback in security aid to ukraine and what you see in both instances are allies who are being, you know, undercut in their struggles to keep russia from, you know, dominating their territory and occupying this space both politically as well as physically. and i think that's something that does challenge republicans because it has been an orthodoxy for republicans for decades to stand up to russian aggression all around the world, and the

question that republicans like lindsey graham are going to be asked is how do you square these two things about russia filling the vacuum in northern syria, what about ukraine where you criticized understandably president obama for not going far enough and now your own president, president trump has pulled the rug out from under the ukrainians for his political interests. >> and jeremy, on the question of how this was done by president trump, the phone call with president erdogan making a unilateral decision, you had yesterday the u.s. special envoy to syria on capitol hill testifying in sworn testimony that he was not consulted about the decision. he is the special envoy responsible for syria. he did not get a phone call before that decision was made to pull back american troops in northeast syria. >> yeah, jim jeffrey another career diplomat, a widely respected leader in our diplomatic core, blind sided completely by this effort, and he's been look out for american interests in that region talking to all the regional players, and

he had no idea that president trump had given that green light to president erdogan on that sunday evening phone call. again, i think there's consistency between these two stories, willie. here the president is saying i never gave a green light. that's exactly what he did, begi. in the ukraine matter he's saying i never gave a quid pro quo. >> therefore pull out racism as a distraction to this, that's what came out yesterday. jeremy bash, peter baker, thank you, both, and coming up, democratic congressman eric swalwell joins the conversation on the heels of ambassador bill taylor's testimony, he was in the room for that. we'll be talking to him next on "morning joe." fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely.

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question for you. claire. >> eric, welcome, my question to you -- >> hi senator. >> -- is you were in the room yesterday, right, when taylor testified? >> yes, i was. >> how many republicans were there? >> so there were a lot when we started. i counted about 75 people in this very small room, you know, about two-thirds of them were members. now, at the end of the day after all of the complaints about the process, after all of the attacks on the chairman, it was about, you know, a ten to one ratio of democrats to republicans. >> so at the beginning -- >> we take this seriously. >> at the beginning, how many republican members were in the room when -- >> dozens, dozens. >> and when he gave his opening statement, they were all there, correct? >> yes. >> and they had an opportunity to ask any questions they wanted to ask, correct? >> it's a great question, senator, yes, they get equal time, equal amount of staff, equal amount of members. >> and the reason it's in the basement is because that's where the skiff is. would you explain to everyone what the skiff is and why

everyone in congress takes briefings and has hearings in the basement whether they're senators or members of the house because of where this particular hearing room is located? >> yeah, it's three floors below the capital, no cameras inside, no phones allowed inside. any classified notes stay inside, classified conversations stay inside. it's to protect the information, and in this case there was no special counsel. there was no special prosecutor. the attorney general refused to even take up this case, so we have to do this in a closed environment because we know that if witnesses know what other witnesses will say, they will tailor their testimony and cook up alibis and we have reason to believe that may be going on. we're trying to protect that information to the degree that we can. >> i think people don't understand that this is a bipartisan effort in terms of the republicans being there, hearing everything, and questioning witnesses, and i really hope that that's

emphasized because their on defense now is process. that's all they've got, and even that argument is so fundamentally flawed. >> senator, you're right, and they use a lot of their time in the beginning of each of these hearings to attack the process. they have access to be there, but then you see them all get up and leave and you're sitting there wondering if you're so interested in the process why don't you participate and listen for these ten-hour sessions. most cases most of the democrats stay and very few republicans stay. if they did stay and if they heard what these witnesses are saying, i hope that just like i that they would be moved and very concerned about what it means for our country and constitution. >> congressman, yesterday with the republicans in attendance in the basement, did you hear any of them ask a question? did you hear any of the questions? if so, what kinds of questions did they ask? >> cockamamie conspiracy questions. >> of ambassador bill taylor? >> yes.

or 2016 hillary server, what about her e-mails, that type of nonsense. >> wow. >> hey, congressman, devin nunes came out and gave an interview after the hearing and said that congressman ratcliffe, i believe the term he used destroyed the witness and established that there was no quid pro quo. can you shed any light on that? did you see that? >> that did not happen. if you read the post opening statement, i think what you see is, one, that there was, in fact, a connection between having a white house meeting and getting security assistance only if the ukrainians would investigate the bidens and investigate and exonerate russia for the 2016 role, but also that you saw two sharp straight lines, not just donald trump to rudy giuliani because the defense, i think, has been well, this is rogue rudy. now, you have a sharp straight line between the president and his lawyer, and the president and ambassador sondland who says

in this "washington post" opening statement that was leaked that the president is saying to connect investigations to aid. >> so congressman, how did you assess your witness yesterday, ambassador taylor? he obviously took very detailed notes, a career diplomat, an experienced diplomat who knew he needed to get some of this down in writing. he had dates and times and everything else. the white house came out yesterday and referred sort of indirectly to him as a radical unelected bureaucrat. how did you assess his credibility in the room over those nine and a half hours? >> well, i saw this radical unelected bureaucrat walk into a room of about 75 people, a very small room, with a commanding courageous presence take a seat and for 40 minutes lay out what he saw starting with his own credentials of serving in vietnam after west point in the 101st airborne division, working in the senate, working for nato, working at the state department,

coming out of retirement to take a job that he didn't need to take to serve his country. he had unimpeachable credibility and a detailed recall of the efferents th events that had happened. >> we've been discussing a lot this morning about the real world consequences here, that ukraini ukrainian's lives were in jeopardy. ed he discusses at length the need for ukraine to be an important american ally, the threat that they face every day from russia, so particularly with that, how stark this is, this isn't about politics. this is about real lives here, real world consequences. is what you heard yesterday, very simply, is what you heard yesterday an impeachable offense? >> we're going o'to give the president a fairer trial than he deserves. if this was donald trump justice, he would be impeached by now. but in america even people who confess to crimes get due process. if you're an american at home who has been just outraged by what's been going on with the

slaughters of the kurds and the green light that the president has given them, you should be very concerned that this president was withholding aid that is your taxpayer dollars that was supposed to help the ukrainians and while that aid has been withheld, every second that goes by, that has led to dead ukrainians, aid that would have helped them defend themselves and as you saw in that "washington post" statement from ambassador taylor, 13,000 ukrainians have died. they very much could have had more lives saved if the aid had come through rather than been held over the head to only benefit donald trump's re-election campaign. >> congressman swalwell, i want to clear one thing up. knows, a during the question-and-answer session that ensued, an unnamed republican actually asked ambassador taylor about hillary clinton's e-mails? >> no, you saw the line of questioning was about this cockamamie theory that the ukrainians were involved and interfered in the 2016 election,

this server theory that donald trump continues to spin, that's the theme that we're seeing here is really to go back and look at, you know, 2016 just as donald trump wants. no one -- no member on their side, i think, has let the gravity of this sing in and wk t it means for our national security and what it means for our constitution. that's what's so frustrating. those who have looks of disgust on their face, we would really like them to start asking questions and have the courage to show that they are concerned because i know they're concerned, and they know it's not right. >> congressman, you're not going to change the mind of devin nunes or some of the republicans who have decided it's their life work to protect president trump, but do you in your private conversations talk to any republican members who have read the summary of the phone call with the president of the united states and ukraine or seen the whistle-blower report or now heard this incredible testimony for ambassador taylor and have said to you, boy, there is

something here? >> one member said to me he's very concerned and he wants us to not rush this, and i took that to heart, but i told him we will be fair, but if we, you know, go on a protracted investigation here, donald trump is just going to, you know, try and tie us up in court, give himself moral equivalence, and give everyone a nickname and confuse the american people, so we want to move fairly but also swiftly. >> so congressman, i just want to clarify something you touched on earlier, a fear that the administration might be doing something to coordinate testimony. what do you mean by that? >> yeah, so what we have seen -- and i'm not going to go into it -- but we have seen evidence that witnesses have talked to other witnesses, and the reason we're having these hearings in this fashion is so that when witnesses testify, the information is held closely.

if the information is getting out in the public, then they're able to work together and try and get their stories, you know, together and aligned, especially if they're not necessarily innocent actors in this scheme. all right, so congressman eric swalwell, we have a trump tweet. is it applicable to this? >> the president just tweeted about the taylor testimony. he's quoting john ratcliffe who willie said allegedly destroyed the witness yesterday saying that neither he, taylor or any witnesses provided testimony that ukrainians were aware the military aid was being withheld. you can't have a quid pro quo with no quo, and he goes on to say where is the wrihistle-blow, the do nothing case is dead. let me ask you your response. does that line up with what you heard in the hearing yesterday? >> no, because actually as "the washington post" statement reported ambassador sondland said that meeting with getting the security assistance and the white house meeting is dependent

on investigations and looking back on the 2016 election. he said everything is on the line. it's not just the security assistance. it's the white mouse meeting that they were seeking to get and also the ukrainians, you know, once congress passes and authorizes this aid, every day that goes by that they don't have it, they don't have the aid. now, yes, they did learn about it, you know, that there may have been a hold later in the summer, but there was still a period of time where they didn't get it, and most importantly -- and i think my republican colleagues don't want to acknowledge this -- the aid came through on september 11, that was two days after the whistle-blower complaint became public, so they had no choice but to put the aid through, otherwise it was completely oven that they were running this quid pro quo scheme. >> yeah, congressman eric sq swalwell, thank you very much. his tweet is confusing, most of them are, but especially so. >> he seems to be quoting

congressman ratcliffe who appears to be on another morning show at this moment. it seems to suggest the ukrainians were aware -- he says that taylor is not saying ukraine was aware the military aid was being withheld. >> it's the homer simpson presidency. >> taylor talked about yesterday about the officials in the ukrainian government that were informed by sondland realtime, notes, i mean. this is ludicrous, of course they knew. of course they knew. >> and a demand the ukrainian president appear on camera to discuss this investigation. >> claire, how would you like to be representing gordon sondland? how quickly would you want him to get back to clean up his testimony. >> clean up his stuff. it was interesting to me that he would make -- i wonder if he has a lawyer now and if that lawyer has malpractice coverage because it is really bizarre that he would go in and, you know, do you get to perjury? i don't know. clearly he misled the committee,

frankly unbelievable. coming up, outrage continues to ripple through washington this morning after president trump compared the impeachment probe to a, quote, lynching. not going to be distracted by that red meat he tossed out for his base. eddie glaude will put an important point on the matter though, next. ♪ ♪ (dramatic orchestra) 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.

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this is a lynching in every sense. this is un-american. what does lynching mean, that a mob grabs you. they don't give you a chance to defend yourself. they don't tell you what happened to you. they just destroy you. that's exactly what's going on in the united states house of representatives right now. >> republican senator lindsey graham of south carolina yesterday defending president trump's use of the word lynching to characterize house democrats

handling of the impeachment inquiry process. eddie glaude is back with some thoughts on that, and also joining us is politics and journalism professor at morgan , you're teaching a class looking at the historical -- >> today i'm teaching the classic by the southern historian c. ban woodward published in 1955, the strange career of jim crow. what woodward argues in the text is jim crow society didn't just emerge immediately after reconstruction. it was the result of choices, choices made, choices to embrace and double down on white supremacy, but it was enforced by violence, and the epidemic of lynching, which has been such a sustain on american history and particularly a part of the tradition out of which i come. so i understand what donald trump is doing. i understand what lindsey graham is doing. i understand the politics, they're trying to get us -- they're trying to distract and the fog of lies they've put forward, but out of the tradition i come, lynching

represents a particular kind of horr horror, and whether it's democrats or whether it's republicans, to reference lynching is to play fast and loose with our dead. it's not to be -- it's not to be respectful of folk who in some ways have had to endure the enduring presence of that horrific act. so you go to legal justice initiative project, they'll tell you over 4,000 lynchings between the end of the 19th century and 1950 or the end of the century to 1968, over 4,000 lynchings as well. these are folks who are still alive, so to invoke it for a kind of crude political move is to play fast and loose with our -- let me give you a crude example, a crude analogy. i can give you a definition of the gas chamber. say this is what it is, but to invoke it as a political move is

just simply out of bounds. to invoke lynching in this country is out of bounds. democrat or republican. period. >> so -- and this is an opportunity to look at the history and explain this, explain why it's so unbelievably inappropriate, but jason johnson, as a journalism professor, i wonder if we can now talk about the challenge of covering this when we look at the patterns of this presidency and whenever it appears that he's being challenged on one side or being challenged on capitol hill, the president appears to always turn to racism to deflect, to distract, so while we see that pattern playing out, you know, how then do you not get caught in the trap of spinning around in circles and then looking at everyone else who used the term, and then getting completely distractd a ed and plooiaying i

that pattern. >> the best way to do that is to always contextualize the president's behavior. it was less than two months ago that a bipartisan group of congress, right, four republicans and the rest of the democratic party all voted to say that this president was a racist. and so if congress, if an entire house of congress has said this president does not view all men and all women equally, this president has racial animus towards particular groups of people, any and everything he does should be viewed in that context, and that's how we don't allow him to distract us. but i also think it's important as a journalism professor and american citizen that we always are careful with our language. it's not just the conversations about the president's a racist, the president's a liar but even our fast and loose materials about violence, right? it's when someone says i was raped by the irs or i was crucified by that exam, we use violent terms to describe what are inconveniences in life, and

in that same way we sort of degrade the amount of violence and death that occurs in this concerned, whether it's lynching or rape or crucifixion these are terms that should be used to describe those specific acts not a metaphor. >> joe biden used the same term during the 1998 clinton impeachment process. he said it was a partisan lifrmging. he apologized for that yesterday. he said it wasn't the right word to use ask said i'm sorry about that. i want to go back to that soundbite where lindsey graham of south carolina said this is a lynching in every sense, i mean, in other words it's not just the metaphor. he said this is a lynching thin every sense. you don't have to be from south carolina to understand the history. it certainly is more front and center. >> i wonder which side of the lynching is he talking about, that's what i'm thinking about since he's from south carolina, who was doing what and who was receiving what? and look, in the context of this, just a few days ago the state of mississippi had to put up a bullet proof memorial of

emmett till who was lynched because the memorial was being shot up every day. john cheney's memorial, constantly, grave site constantly defamed, constantly attacked, graffitied and the like. our country is wn we see politicians, whether deliberately or not i that history for political ends and political purposes, it deepens our illness. it fundamentally deepens our sickness. so we need to dismiss it. we need to decry it. we need to denounce it, and understand donald trump for who he is. >> it's also a gauge. the worst racism that he projects, the worst things must be for him. >> mika, the last thing i would say is that at a deep personal level, i am sick and tired of the country playing fast and loose with our dead. we have to do more, and so i invite everybody to go down to

montgomery and visit the lynching memorial to see what we have done. >> coming up, we'll get claire's take on the new q poll from this morning showing a record high in support for the impeachment probe. plus, our next guest says as long as trump is in power, he will keep defying subpoenas. well, talk about we'll talk about a possible solution to that next on "morning joe." ♪ i get it all the time. "have you lost weight?" of course i have- ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter... ...and choose any car in the aisle. and i don't wait when i return, thanks to drop & go. at national, i can lose the wait...and keep it off. looking good, patrick.

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50 past the hour, joining us now, executive chairman of the online gaming column, he has

been exploring the notion of rebalancing our government in a series of pieces he has discussed on our show. he talked about how to rebalance the supreme court. this morning, he is looking at rebalancing the system of checks and balances. his latest piece for newsweek magazine is entitled let's face it, trump will keep defying subpoenas. heres how we can make presidents obey. as a lawyer and former senior counsel to a congressional committee i am dumbfounded by what is going on with the trump administration's defiance of congressional subpoenas. the trump administration strategy today is to use the court process to delay, delay, delay. making it conceivable that many of the subpoenas that have been issued despite the strength of the house's position will not be resolved for a number of months to come and potentially not

before the 2020 elections. we need a statute that could give congress a speedy path to subpoena enforcement against the executive branch. we're witnessing right now how even in an impeachment process an administration can shield itself from legitimate requests for information and argue that an investigation is illegitimate because congress is rushing to judgment without determining the facts. a circular claim. and let's hope whoever wins the election remembers the importance of our system of check and balances from his or her new perspective and that this reform box is checked away right after the 2020 elections. i couldn't agree with you more. we have a situation where subpoenas are being issued and questions are being asked and the white house unlike anything we've ever seen before is just

going no. what is the resource? the question i get is well it's in the courts. well it's a long process. this seems like a real problem. >> it is a real problem and it's not too early to think about the post-trump reforms we need so this never happens again. congress is basically being treated like it's any other party bringing a lawsuit. even though the court of appeals basically upheld the right to subpoena in that case the trump administrations are going to continue to appeal and you can appeal and appeal and chew up time and that's their game plan. the ways and means committee subpoena was issued five months ago. still in district court in front of a judge appointed by trump and i'm amazed after 45 years since the nixon subpoena ruling by the supreme court that there is no process here and we need a statute that changes it and

something can be done that's pretty simple. it's kind of amazing that nothing is in place. >> so the white house has been completely open about this. they wrote a letter, in fact and released it to congress and the public. we're not going to comply. we're not going to help you with this impeachment inquiry. nbc learned that bill taylor had to be subpoenaed as the state department tried to block him from testifying there. so in the here and now what resource does congress have if they say i'm not showing up despite the subpoena that you put in front of me? >> well, the kind of things that are talked about by way of resource really don't provide resource. there's the inherent contempt power that basically says send capital police down to arrest somebody. that isn't going to happen. you have criminal contempt but that requires the administration to bring a criminal case against itself and that's not going to happen. so you're left to civil contempt in the court which is the way

they're pursuing it and then you're left to the same court process that any other litigant has that takes forever. so it's a pretty simple reform that we need. basically say a case like this, not any committee subpoena but one backed by the full house or backed by the full senate so you don't end up with an abuse like you did in the clinton administration where a single committee chairman issued about 1,000 subpoenas but fully backed subpoenas by one house or the other. if the president is going to challenge them, they go to the court of appeals, a three judge panel the way any other appeals case would and they have 30 days to decide it and if it's appealed, not the supreme court doesn't have to take every appeal but if it does they have 30 days to resolve it and we could have a process that restores checks and balances. what we need here is a democratic president obviously. what we don't have to have, i don't think is a democratic senate. some of the other rebalancing you mentioned required both

houses. here if we had a democratic president and republican senate they're going to want this kind of enforcement capability also. >> i think once that trump is gone, you would get bipartisan support for a reform like this. the senate approved a civil contempt proceeding. and that took it all the way to the supreme court and you're right. it took almost a year for us to force them to comply with the oversite function of the united states congress. a rocket docket which is what you're talking about just goes straight to the top of the docket. it's decided by the courts very quickly. it only makes sense in this situation and i do think that it would be bipartisan support for this once we get beyond the trump years. now this would be seen as a threat to pack on the guy that they're clearly willing to go to bat for. >> no doubt this is a post-trump

reform. what it does assume though is that a judicial order is going to be obeyed by the president. we have a president here who has byicly said i'm immune from judicial process including subpoenas. that's what the white house letter you mentioned says. and that's a tougher one to solve for. what if a president defies a court order and what is an enforcement procedure then. our democracy depends on people obeying the courts. >> we thought we would need to. >> before we go, final thought on this. >> look, we have inherent contempt. if we had members of congress that were willing to use all the resources at their disposal there's things that we can do. you don't have to drag everybody in with the capitol hill police but you do with the one person and i bet you get a lot more people that would consider jail time and trump administration and they would testify. >> thank you as well. we'll be reading your regular

piece in newsweek. great to see you. still ahead, much more ahead on testimony that democrats are calling disturbing and explosive. the top u.s. diplomat to ukraine provided the most clear evidence yet of a quid pro quo when it comes to the president's dealings with ukraine. we'll be right back. sident's dealings with ukraine. we'll be right back. (contemplative synth music) - [narrator] forget about vacuuming for up to a month. shark iq robot deep-cleans and empties itself into a base you can empty once a month. and unlike standard robots that bounce around, it cleans row by row.

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