we're out of time for this hour of "msnbc live." i'm frances rivera, now it's time for "up" with david gura. ♪ this is "up," i'm david gura and on this saturday morning lawmakers are preparing for a rare day of testimony on the weekend. a deposition from another career diplomate who raised concerns about the administration's ukraine policy, that is scheduled to start in just a few hours and it's happening as another would be witness sues to find out if he is obligated to testify. the white house has said he should not be obligated to testify and a federal judge says the impeachment inquiry is legitimate and she allows the release of grand jury testimony that underpins the mueller report. mean while, the gop struggles to respond, rudy giuliani butt dials one of my colleagues here at nbc news not once but twice.

and as many of the democrats running for president are in south carolina today, the iowa caucuses are now just 100 days away. new polling this morning, insight into how the campaign's calculus is changing 100 days out. someone who called himself an outsider in president trump's inner circle will join us, david shulkin the former veterans' affairs secretary. in a new book he describes how the president's pals influenced policy from the very beginning. basil michael, the former executive director of the new york democratic party, emily suskin hosts the podcast your primary play list, michael waldman the chief speech writer for president bill clinton, now the president of the brennan center for justice and joining us this morning from washington is annie carney, a white house reporter for "the new york times." i want to start with nbc news confirming that charles can you

please cupperman has filed a lawsuit. the white house has attempted to block him from testifying and the outcome of this suit could affect what other would be witnesses do, including former national security adviser john bolton who nbc news has reported has been in touch with committee staff on capitol hill. another court case to flag this morning, republicans have said the impeachment inquiry is not legitimate because it has not been put up for a vote. a federal judge says in a new 75-page ruling that it is legitimate and that decision was handed down just hours before testimony today from ambassador philip reeker. he is a career state department official who is expected to field questions from lawmakers this morning on capitol hill. the gop continuing to hit democrats with procedural complaints about how this is unfolding. the recreational marijua jim jordan writing to ambassador reeker directly to accuse democrats of restricting information about the impeachment inquiry and asking the ambassador to postpone his

deposition because it is taking place on a saturday. earlier this week a group of congressmen jordan's colleagues, many with cell phones in hand stormed a secure facility on capitol hill where lawmakers were hearing testimony from a pentagon official. andy carney, let me start with you and this latest news about charles cupperman, we've been talking about career officials in the state department, in the department of defense, this is somebody who worked this trump's inner circle, worked for the national security council. help us understand the ramifications of this. he was scheduled to testify i think on monday on capitol hill. >> that's right. he was basically john bolton's right-hand man in the west wing, he is a critical witness, he would have been in meetings with trump and had direct dealings with bolton and trump and notably his lawyer is also john bolton's lawyer. so the fact that his lawyer filed this suit trying to find out is cupperman -- is he part of the executive branch and

should follow their orders and should he follow the orders of the legislative branch who has asked him to come in. the answer will likely be how this lawyer will also deal with john bolton who would be a critical voice in this entire impeachment process, who would lead us closer to direct conversations with president trump. so the outcome of this will be really interesting and critical for how the impeachment probe marches forward, but it is also notable that it could -- if the judge rules that they should not appear, that it's not just cupperman we are talking, it's john bolton as well. >> the argument that the president has made is one of constitutional immunity. in the "new york times" today there is a reference to that as executive privilege on steroids. help us understand what the white house is wielding here, how novel this is and what this is likely to hinge on. >> this is what the lawyers in the technical term called making stuff up. >> okay. >> executive privilege is the

idea that there are certain communications from a president to a president that a president can shield from public view. it's only been upheld by the supreme court one time in the case of the watergate tapes and in that case they said, no, you still have to turn over the tapes. the idea that there is beyond executive privilege some other kind of constitutional privilege has never been tested in the courts and has never been defined by the courts and it really goes to the question of what is an impeachment. when you look back at when they began talking about executive privilege it was in george washington's administration when congress requested some documents and all the founders, they were writing memos to each other saying, of course, if this were an impeachment, we would have to turn it over, that's in the constitution. the problem is the courts don't like to get in the middle of this kind of stuff. they say congress is a co-equal branch to the president, this is its power, but we the courts are not necessarily going to be the ones to enforce it for them. >> annie carney, i'm holding the

75 pages from the judge of the u.s. district court for the district of columbia. one thing we want to seize on is what it says about the legitimacy of this inquiry. a lot of republicans over these last many weeks have said if the house hasn't voted on this this is not a legitimate inquiry. how important is this decision? i imagine this is headed for an appeals court. >> it's important because the entire republican argument against it is based on process and not on substance. you have not seen a single republican lawmaker on capitol hill defending what president trump has done here in terms of the outlined quid pro quo between aide to ukraine and digging up political dirt on his rivals. so the fact set is really bad for trump, republicans know this, and the only argument they have to make is to delegitimize the process that the house democrats are going through. so if this is declared in the court to be a legitimate probe, that takes away the one big

argument that they have been making. >> something else they've been making, an argument they've been making is about this happening behind closed doors. let me read from david graham who writes for the atlantic. thus far the inn kwee has taken place behind closed doors with only opening statements and secondhand accounts of interviews reaching the public. it would be a miss carriage of justice for democrats to vote to impeach without public proceedings. the trick is democrats have said all along they intend to have a public process. the republicans are making this complaint, it's not happening in public but it's going to. we know where this is leading and it's the public hearing. >> it absolutely is going to. democrats would try to limit the circus around it to the extent that is possible, which is very low, but they are giving equal time to democrats and republicans, holding the hearings in a scif, a secure location wris the intel committee gathers testimony, that is normal process.

all of that makes sense. the fact that republicans stormed in this week to have this big hoopla, i mean, talk about circus, but, i mean, it was led by a member who was not on one of the three committees that is involved with the impeachment inquiry. that actually is ridiculous. one of the best comments that i saw looking at that picture, i mean, look, it's almost a quarter of the republican quack can you say that is actually in one of these impeachment inquiries. including mccarthy who is the minority leader. one of the best comments was seeing the picture of all of the members storming out was what is this an abortion hearing when we looked at the picture of all the white men storming out. >> you look at how the president is reacting to all of this. this morning we see tweets about nancy pelosi and san francisco, kind of along the lines of what we saw about the late congressman elijah cummings in baltimore, you have it there, talking about the des tugs of san francisco, homelessness, et cetera, et cetera. the effort so far, basil, seems to be distract.

to what extent is that working as we wake up and see more tweets. >> distract and delegitimize. the whole republican argument which trump is trying to put on steroids is to delegitimize the process. the more you have antics like these republicans trying to get into the room like petulant children undermines their whole argument. trey gowdy had similar hearings with benghazi, they were closed door hearings as well. so -- and i think -- i think voters are much more aware of the antics than they had been previously. i go back to an earlier fox poll that said that, what is it, 51% of voters think that this president is more corrupt than previous. >> wasn't happy. >> he wasn't happy, but that shows me what voters are doing is connecting the dots and that is incredibly important not just for what democrats are doing by initiating this process, which allows them to get more information in a way they couldn't before, but it seems like it's pushed the president and a lot of these other

republicans on their heels. that's important to get them off balance and make them make stupid decisions. >> annie, i have remarked time and time again how eagerly rudy giuliani is to text, he does a lot of texting with reporters, talks to them on the phone and as my colleague at nbc news reported last night he has butt dialed him a couple times, leaving these three minute long voicemail messages one of which had to do about bahrain and turkey. let me play a bit of that tape from a voicemail message that rudy giuliani left. >> we would have a heart time with a fraud case because he didn't do any due diligence. tomorrow i got ta get you to get on bahrain. you got to call -- [ inaudible ]. >> got to call robert again tomorrow. is robert around? [ inaudible ]. >> the problem is we need some money. we need a few hundred thousand. >> what does this say to you about the president's defense? there was a tweet about the president about how he perhaps should have his lawyers sue adam schiff, rudy giuliani is still

proclaimed by this president to be his personal attorney. how should we view that? how should we listen to that tape in light of the role he's playing in this administration today? >> i mean, with great humor that even when giuliani is side lined from television and not supposed to be speaking for the president and a reporter doesn't pick up the phone because he's sleeping you still get a three hin voicemail from giuliani talking about how he needs money. it's almost farcical. but the truth is that rudy giuliani is so entangled in various parts of the world, bahrain here is interesting, we have a story in the "times" today about his work in romania, so he's -- he's wearing a lot of different hats, he is the president's lawyer, he's also functioning at some points as a shadow secretary of state, at some points he's doing his own business dealings. so giuliani is a walking conflict himself and what's interesting is that the justice department has distanced themselves -- itself from

giuliani, white house aides have long disliked his television appearances that only get trump in more trouble, but we see trump continuing, again, on friday to stand by him and say he was one of the greatest mayors of all time and he is still my lawyer and he roots out -- looks for corruption wherever he goes was the trump quote from yesterday. it's just interesting to see how trump is still standing by him when so often when aides have legal problems of their own the president is the quickest to distance himself and say, i barely know this person, we have seen that pattern play out so often, but so far rudy giuliani still has one very loyal backer and that's donald trump. >> annie, thank you so much. lovely to see you on this early saturday morning. that piece i mentioned worth checking out again about the butt dials he got from rudy giuliani. there are two, not just one. up ahead, a federal judge hands a major victory to democrats as their impeachment inquiry continues in ernest this morning. y continues in ernest ts morning. when you shop with wayfair,

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this is "up," i'm david gura. a federal judge has given house democrats a victory by giving them access to grand jury material referenced in robert mueller's report. the justice department has to do that by wednesday as the doj intensifies its review of the russia investigation that led to the mueller report, that review is now a criminal investigation which would give the man in charge of it, u.s. attorney john durham more power to convene a grand jury and subpoena

witnesses. the story has not changed, it is fact that russia interfered in the 2016 election, still president trump continues to insist his campaign was spied on. >> they spied on me. they spied on our campaign. >> ken delaney joins us now, nbc's national security and intelligence correspondent. i want to get a sense of how this changes the contours of this investigation. i want to note that the president seems very enthusiast i can about it, tweeted it this morning, last night he tweeted quotations from sydney powell, a lawyer for michael flynn. safe to say there is not much of a fire wall here at all, is there? >> exactly, david. that's what's got people so deeply concerned about this. whatever else this did, it has given the president a kud ul to use against his opponents, exactly what he wanted to be able to say. these shenanigans are under investigation, yesterday he said

terrible things happened at the origins of this russia investigation. of course, there is no evidence that terrible things happened. here is what we know legally what this means is that some prosecutor or fbi agent found reasonable indications that a crime has been committed here. this began as an administrative review, it's now a criminal investigation and as you said that means that john durham the u.s. attorney could use a grand jury to compel testimony and subpoena documents. we have no idea, no one has been able to confirm, no journalistic organization what the crime alleged s so it could be as simple as a false statements case. so one of the witnesses that durham has been interviewing over the last few months they think may have lied to them, it could be a leaks case, it could have nothing whatsoever to do with the origins of this investigation and, by the way, there remains no evidence and julia ainsley and i have tried to climb into this inquiry, talked to lawyers for witnesses, potential witnesses. no one who is involved in this

can understand what the misconduct is that durham may be investigating that goes to how this investigation began and procedurally if there were mistakes by the fbi, there's also an inspector general review we will be seeing soon, there may have been mistakes, there tend to be mistakes in any human endeavor, it has nothing to do with what robert mueller found which is not only did the russians interfere with the election but that the trump campaign had dozens if not more than 100 contacts with russians that were deeply suspicious and concerned members of the intelligence community and merited an investigation, david. >> ken, putting up those tweets i mentioned just a moment ago, these quotes from sydney powell michael flynn is invoked here. what are the targets of this. michael flynn invoked, james clapper, brennan invoked in one of these tweets as well. >> so what we know is that john brennan former cia director has

told us he has been told that they will want to talk to him and james clapper. durham has not interviewed rod rosenstein, former fbi director james comey, andrew mccabe who made donald trump the subject of a counterintelligence investigation. we have reported that he has interviewed lower level fbi personnel and he appears to be going after how the fbi handled some of their sources and some of the ways that they open this investigation, the ways they developed information to get national security warrants, fisa warrants to surveil members of the trump campaign. he also has asked to interview cia analysts who created that assessment that russians had interfered and putin wanted trump to win. those people have had to go out and hire lawyers. thankfully for them the taxpayers pay for that. but they are very concerned. these are mid-level bureaucrats who have never dealt with the

public eye and they find themselves in this highly politically charged investigation and there is a lot of angst across the fbi and the cia because there's concern that this will chill future intelligence analysis and criminal inquiries. >> "the new york times" puts it succinct testify, the move we're seeing hear also creates an unusual situation in which the justice department is conducting the criminal investigation into itself. so we look at this unfolding in a vacuum of sorts looking at this particular investigation, but the ramifications of this are huge. >> until we know more this has the stench of an outrageous abuse of power in my view. it's straight from the authoritarian playbook. the president demanding that the organs of criminal investigation be directed at people he perceives to be his political enemies and in this case to try to absolve russia from having tried to hack the election in 2016. it's a big deal and while i don't know much about the gentleman who is the prosecutor in connecticut who is doing

this, i do know that bill barr has taken the office of attorney general to new lows in terms of his willingness to run interference for trump as though he is another nutty lawyer like rudy giuliani, as opposed to an independent voice for law enforcement. this is the person who ran rings, i hate to say, around robert mueller, another respectable prosecutor, fbi type, by playing it loose and making up what the report said and pre spinning it. it's very alarming. maybe there's something there, but there's certainly no reason to think it's anything other than a real problem for our country. >> emily, lastly to you and this is clearly aggravating the ranking member of the senate intelligence committee, they are conducting their own investigation into russia's interference in the investigation. he said intel is wrapping up a three year bipartisan investigation. we found nothing remotely justifying this. mr. barnes investigation has

jeopardized key international relationships. he has to come before congress and explain himself. what recourse do his colleagues have in light of what mike waldman was describing. >> feels reasonable for barr to testify in front of the intelligence committee. i think warner is trying to figure out what the criminal conduct is that they are investigating. there are reports that part of the questions that barr is asking mid-level fbi agents are to anti-trump bias, which is something the administration has been pushing a lot, to go to this, quote, deep state conspiracy theory the president has been pushing for a long time. the other thing they could be doing this this is trying to lemt mize the ukraine narrative that actually wasn't russia, it was ukraine that was interfering and they have continued to do so. and that creates a both sidesism that the president has done pretty successfully on a lot of different issues. as republicans are grasping straws around defending the

president, as the president is grasping straws around defending himself it's a both sidesism. >> ken delaney, thank you for joining us. days after he analogized the impeachment inquiry to a lynching president trump delivering a speech at a historically black college in south carolina. what democrats are saying about that appearance on the morning after as the fight for south carolina heats up. after as the fight for south carolina heats up. there's a power in listening;

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the democratic policies have let african-americans down and taken them for granted and they have, they've taken african-american communities for granted and i promise you that republicans will never ever do that. we're going to keep fighting for you and we're fighting hard and we're really having an impact. >> that's president trump delivering the keynote address last night at the second step presidential justice forum at benedict college. the event's organizers gave the president a bipartisan justice award and according to reports the crowd in attendance for that event was largely made up of invited guests, fewer than ten students from benedict were in the room for that speech from the president. today many of the democratic candidates are supposed to speak at that same place. kamala harris decided she would not participation, something the president is lamb basting senator harris for this morning. calling her a badly failing presidential candidate and reiterating what he said about

his policies on twitter. saying she plans to hold a round table on criminal justice elsewhere in the state of south carolina. she told nbc news in a statement when it became clear donald trump would receive an award a after decades of celebrating mass incarceration, pushing the death penalty for innocent plaque americans, rolling back racist behavior that puts people's lives at risk k i cannot be complicit in papering over his record. help us understand the atmospherics of this. this was a hell of a week when it came to issues of race in this country, we had the death of elijah cummings, the president's comments on lynching. he goes to this historically black college to receive this award. take us to this campus and how it felt last night and how it feels today as this event continues. >> reporter: sure. all eyes now are going to be on the democrats who i'm sure will be responding to what president trump said yesterday as they always tend to do when the

president is tweeting something. we saw them all come out and condemn the president's use of the word lynching earlier this week when he was comparing and equating the impeachment investigation toss that horrible act, that horrible historic act in the past. but here really the mood and the sense is and something that i actually do want to point out is the importance of the african-american vote. you saw that even yesterday with president trump just coming to a wooip cattle call event, he doesn't -- he gets invited to many of them, many of the times, and we see democrats on stage at these different kinds of events not just on criminal justice reform which we will hear them speak about today, but climate and other events and trump has not shown up. this shows him coming here that this is something that republicans and democrats really want to try and actually puncture the lead that you see that joe biden the former vice president has in this state just in the most recent posts and

courier poll in south carolina you saw biden leading, he continues to lead with a very big gap, 30% of support goes to him in this state followed by senator elizabeth warren with 19%. two people who are now considered the front runners who in many states you see that gap much tighter, much closer. you will be seeing them of course talking about their criminal justice reform plans, you will likely see senator elizabeth warren tomorrow speaking about her plan which actually goes against the 1994 crime bill that joe biden has been defending and also proposing changes to. >> with each passing day south carolina looms larger as perhaps joe biden's last line of defense if he hopes to secure the nomination. you have what the president said last night.

what do you make of his appearance talk about this first step act, it is something that he continues to rely upon, there was this bipartisan piece of legislation he proudly signed in the oval office encouraged by his son-in-law jared kushner to do. your reaction to this moment, what it says. >> my first reaction is this is a sham. this is the same man who put an ad in the "new york times" calling for the death penalty for the central park five. it comes and you mentioned elijah cummings. the first thought i had about elijah cummings' death is how heroic it was that he was doing his job in his dying days, but also how tragic is that, that he has to defend his city and nation against donald trump and to see him get this award, i can't tell you how disturbing that is, particularly on the campus of an hbcu. having said that i do think that

for south carolina voters they are particularly older voters they are paying a lot of attention to what the democratic candidates are going to do in response and i think as you mentioned with the joe biden and the crime bill, you have a much more woke electorate than we have ever had and i hope that even as a democrat i hope that voters particularly in south carolina will hold every democrat accountable for criminal justice reform because this is not something that we can just sweep under the rug and even celebrate when a president comes to visit an hbcu. we have to be more lidge plant. >> mike waldman, we have a minute left. we've talked about criminal justice in the campaign before. we are a few more months in since we last spoke about this. have we advanced beyond that binary '94 crime bill or not? how nuanced is the conversation taking place? >> it's a very different conversation than we have had in decades on this issue in campaigns. this was the wedge issue, the

racial not so code word wedge issue in the past. now you've got both parties competing on criminal justice rye form saying explicitly mass incarceration is a crisis in so many ways, a civil rights crisis for the country and there are ideas now what's the second step? a number of people including biden have endorsed the idea that one of the worst things in the '94 crime bill which had some good and a lot of bad was that it paid states to incarcerate more people. why can't the federal government sunday its funds to states reducing their prison populations. that's the next step idea that could make a big difference and, you know, that's the kind of thing i hope we hear about. >> we will see if we hear about it today. thank you very much for the time. i appreciate it. as carl samberg once said if the law is against you argue the facts, if the law and facts are against you pound the table and yell like hell. how house republicans are struggling to defend the president of the united states next. nd the president of the united states next ng.

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we demand open proceedings. the american people deserve nothing less. >> the american people, as i said before, they understand fairness and they instinctively know that what is happening here is not fair. >> this is "up," i'm david gura. this week republicans in congress as we were discussing rallied against house democrats calling for more transparency. they claim to have been shut out of the process and they argue closed-door hearings like the one scheduled to take place this

morning with a career state department official are a violation of the president's right to due process. that is simply not the case. in reality 47 republicans as emily pointed out a little while ago sit on the three committees conducting the investigation and they have had full access to each and every one of these depositions. like their democratic colleagues, they are able to ask questions of the witnesses who have been called. so far eight witnesses have provided over 65 hours of testimony, five more depositions have been scheduled including today's. democrats have not been shy about saying that once this part of the inquiry is over with they intend to have public hearings with many of the same officials they've questioned. basil smikle, i will turn to you first. the process has played out in this same way before. >> yes. >> democrats argue that past i'm peechlts have included a closed doing investigative phase before findings are presented to the public. it is necessary to preserve the integrity of the help. yes, we know what's happening from opening statements we've

seen from reporting from out of those depositions, but there is a need when you are conducting an investigation like this to keep things discrete so that, what, witnesses aren't parroting what others have said or changing their stories. >> that and to reduce the political theater around it. to the extent that you can that you get unvarnished testimony so when you do get into the public sphere you have already gotten hopefully some of the meat of what you're trying to get at. one of the things that i think is important about this process, remember there was a period of time when it looked like democrats were doing nothing on impeachment? all of a sudden the activity that has ramped up over the subpoenas and getting folks to testify has been incredibly important to this process because going to your earlier question get all of this information right now, get it all on paper, get it on record so that in a very short period of time you can turn it around and make the case. >> emily, you see the republicans upset with this, upset with how all of this is unfolding and a number of pieces this week talk about how there

is no cohesive response to this, no coordinated strategy among themselves or with the white house. that event outside the scif, what did that tell you about what they're thinking and where they go from here? dan balz in the "washington post" had a piece about how the ball is squarely in their court now, this he have to figure out how to respond to what is as we've seen reported pretty damning evidence about what took place. >> honestly i've been surprised they don't have any response. they are truly grasping at straws. i actually checked in with speaker pelosi's office because i was like i must be missing something, this makes no sense that they are totally focused on minor process points that don't add up to anything. i must be missing something. no. no. they are just grasping at straws. press conferences that's going straight to what the president likes, going straight to fox news, straight to where the president responds, but everything that we're seeing that amounts to a minor amount of strategy either coming out of the white house or coming from congressional republicans, the president basically then tweets the exact opposite the next day.

so they have -- they have no strategy and no republican on the hill has been able to answer any reporter in the very simple question going to the underlying of the impeachment inquiry which is do you believe it is improper for foreign governments to interfere in american politics and elections? nobody can answer that simple question which feels like would have been the clearest response for them. >> "washington post" editorial page looking at how democrats are not reaching out to republicans in all of this. i will read a bit from that. democrats are making no effort to win over republicans much less make an impeachment vote difficult and they will have a hard time getting buy in from the american people. that's a republican who worked for the george w. bush administration. that's the republican argument, there needs to be some outreach here. as you watch all of this play out, should there be more outreach to get republicans to join ranks? >> what we don't know is what outreach is going on behind closed doors in these committee hearings. >> sure. >> a lot of the committee members who are republicans who are asking these questions, they are not the ones marching around

demonstrati demonstrating. >> those who are in them you hear from a handful. >> they've been pretty quiet. it is true that for this to be fully effective the democrats have to do more of what they've been pretty good at so far, which is to give this some sense of gravity, some sense of seriousness that this isn't a political circus. right now having private depositions is the way to do that. it will be harder when the hearings are public when you have people doing stunts and yelling and screaming in the room. if you look back at the nixon impeachment, what's really striking is that as much as those democrats did want to do that, the seriousness the choked voices, people like barbara jordan and peter rodino and that conveyed to the country how big a deal it was. so i think the next phase for the democrats is to find a way to kind of be the serious people while everyone is like going nuts around them. >> that's why the timing is so

important because we've seen the american people become more and more in favor of impeachment, but if that number plateaus, then there is a very finite amount of time for the democrats to actually make their case before some of the republican talking points start to sink in a little bit more, certainly before we get much deeper into the presidential cycle. so, again, with all the flurry of activity it's trying to get the american public focused on what they're doing at a very critical point in time before they start losing support for the process. >> putting up the most recent polling we have here, nbc news 49% of all voters think president trump should be impeached and removed from office, 89% of democrats think that as well. how much do you pay attention to that as you talk to people in washington on the hill, how much does that public opinion matter on a day to day basis, how the public feels about where things are? >> i actually think it matters quite a bit because it's helped to dictate how lawmakers are thinking about the political --

the political pitfalls of moving into an impeachment. it shouldn't be everything. the argument has always been like the two sides of the arguments have always been, oh, but this would push trump into a reelection versus it's the right thing to do and we should be upholding the constitution. i do think to your point about the seriousness of democrats moving forward with the investigation, they've been quite serious about it and i think that actually has really helped the public perception about this. nobody can say that speaker pelosi jumped into an impeachment inquiry. and the fact that they have done this with a very serious manner i think actually has really helped that public perception of the majority of americans who are in the middle and not those who are firmly aligned on each side. >> mike, who are you watching among the senate? i know that mitt romney was out with a statement that could be interpreted as slightly critical. are there folks that you are watching as all of this unfolds on the republican side of the aisle? >> you know, there were eight senators, republican senators, who did not sign lindsey graham's -- >> this is like a toothless bill that mcconnell and graham have

put forward and the house should do something differently. >> even so eight of their colleagues didn't sign on. somebody like mitt romney who staked out a bit of an independent stance, has unlocked the door where his conscious is. >> okay. it's within reach. >> but some of them were people who are not running for reelection and of course sooner or later it becomes very hard and emily is exactly right, the core answer -- the core question that these members are going to have to answer in a trial, should it get to that, is do you think that the president putting pressure on foreign governments to smear your domestic opponents is okay or it is an abuse of power. there is this idea that mitch mcconnell will be able to jam this thing through and do it in one day. he is not in charge. the constitution gives the chief justice, john roberts, the explicit authority to run the trial, to run the questions of evidence and everything else.

the rules of the senate say that as soon as the house votes, roberts is sworn in as the presiding officer and these chief justices take this quite seriously. he has shown he cares about the institution of the court, the institution of the chief justice. his predecessor, rehnquist, in the clinton impeachment, he had a special robe. >> dressed for the part. >> literally came from a production of gilbert and sullivan, it's actually true. they take this very seriously and they're going to sooner or later have to put themselves on the record on this. >> basil let me ask you about where we are. we had this smoking gun testimony from bill taylor, things seem to have accelerated, there is talk when this might take place, around thanksgiving or after. your sense of that. we will talk to harry litman in the next hour about what the articles of impeachment might look like, give us your sense of the timetable.

>> i think that timetable is right, do it well before we get deeper into the holidays, again, do it while the public is focused on it, the support for it is high, and i think, again, with the flurry of the subpoenas get out as much information as you possibly could. i do think all that has to happen within the next month. >> thank you all for being here. i appreciate it, on this saturday. "up" with me tomorrow, hays brown, phillip bump and jackie alemany. up ahead the nation's leaders including past presidents come together to remember the trail blazing life of elijah cummings and his funeral. of elijah cummings and his funeral. >> 200 years to 300 years from now he would say people will look back at this moment and they will ask the question what did you do? and hearing him we would be reminded that it falls upon each of us to give voice to the voiceless. e voice to the

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this is "up." a busy week on capitol hill continues. a career state department official is preparing to testify this morning as democrats call more witnesses to come before congress including the acting director of the omb. this week house republicans struggled with how to respond to what they heard so far. several members of congress storming a secure facility on capitol hill as a pentagon official prepared to answer questions inside. it's worth reminder, nine of those that were there employprog are members that were part of the impeachment committee and they were eligible to join the sessions. this is what they said outside that meeting on capitol hill. >> they're trying to impeach the

president in secret behind closed doors. >> this is a soviet style impeachment process. >> as the good book says, those things done in secret are from darkness. >> by golly, if they're going to do it, do it in public! >> you need to be scared. you need to be very scared. >> just sample of what we heard from the gang there on capitol hill despite the attempt to defend the president, republicans seem to be struggling to respond and the lack of a coherent and coordinated white house strategy is making matters worse for them. perhaps in an effort to turn the focus away from impeachment, president trump tweeting this morning, taking aim at nancy pelosi writing i can't believe that nancy pelosi's district in san francisco is in such horrible shape that city itself is in it violation of any sanitary environmental orders causing it to owe the federal government billions of dollars and all she works on is impeachment. up with me is a fellow of new america and writer for "the new

york times." david jolly, former republican congressman from florida, no longer affiliated with the gop and now an msnbc political contributor. and with us from washington this morning is robert costa, national political reporter for "the washington post." he's also an msnbc political analyst. robert, let me start with you. what are your colleagues reporting in the paper this morning? that is there is a recognition in the building that we see behind you there, the white house, that this is snowballing. there is some danger for the president and they're become ago ware of the fact they need to have a coordinated spo ns to wh response to what is going on. >> based on my report as well, reporting on my newspaper, you have to block testimony by trump administration officials and white house counsel has written a letter advising many officials to reject requests from congress. yet at the same time, so many of these officials are deciding on their own to go to capitol hill, put their hand in the air and testify. and this whole effort and this

dynamic has stymied the white house as they try to prevent the case from being built against president trump. >> david jolly, you look at that document that he just referred to, that letter from the white house counsel, i've seen it characterizeded more as a political document than a legal document. you look at that in compliment with what we've seen overnight. that is dr. charles filing suit and trying to figure out whether or not he has to defy what the white house and testify on capitol hill. that deposition is scheduled to take place on monday. how much closer are we clarity now that we have this suit? >> there was a debate around the clinton impeachment. ken starr tried to make the case that the clinton white house by delaying cooperation, by not wanting to testify, that in and of itself was an obstruction of the united states congress. the congress ultimately when it came down to it, there was a lot of argument about this. but when it came down to it, most members of congress said, you no he what snt white house is allowed to have whatever defenses they're afforded legally and constitutionally. it's not an impeachable offense

to claim certain privileges. let those be litigated and processed out. that's what we're seeing. we should be seeing a white house cooperating particularly if the president said he is exonerated. he did nothing wrong. then why are you not cooperating? what we're seeing from house republicans is this childish behavior. they're displaying an arrogance, anger, immaturity. they look like fools. the i'm surprised they can go home and look at their spouses and their kids in the eye with any sense of self respect. what republicans should be doing, david, and i struggle with even saying this because they're on the wrong side of history. i hate to give them counsel that i think is accurate. stop arguing about the process. stop doing the sit ins. stop doing the stupid stuff that is not believable. the american people don't care about the process. the conversation the american people are having is should the president be impeached for asking ukraine to investigate joe biden? that's the question. and a lot of people say, yes. a lot of people say no. a lot of people are not sure. republicans need to come out with a clear narrative and say,

this is not impeachable conduct. but the president did may be wrong. he may deserve censure. maybe it's not wrong. but it's not impeachable conduct. from lindsey graham's stupidity to matt gates' stupidity, say to the american people, yeah, the president shouldn't have done it and it's no the impeachable and spend the next 60 days on that message. at least you have a shot of convincing the american people you're in the right. >> how much closer are we to having that conversation given the decision we got from the judge in washington, d.c., this inquiry is a legitimate inquiry? no, there has not been a vote in the house. that doesn't matter. looking at precedent that, hasn't been the case in the past. because of that, are we closer to having the kind of substantive conversations among lawmakers and as a country of the david jolly was justscribing? >> republicans are not interested in substantive conversations. nor are they interested in the facts which is why they're arguing on process. when you dig into the facts of this, the facts are not on donald trump's side. but what we know about donald trump is that he doesn't care

about facts either. so they're going to keep doing these distractive high school drama performances so that they get the attention. so that they try to change the narrative. they try to change the xorveg conversation. one of the bullet points is 47 republicans are aveiled to be a part of the depositions. to ask questions. like they are not being locked out. they literally chose to be on the other side of the door this week. they chose to remove themselves from a process that they are aveiled to. 47 republicans. pt so my question to matt gates is do you not trust your fellow republicans? do you not trust them to share the process, to go through it, to be able to ask the questions? like, do you think they're that inept? or do you not understand the constitution? that's the other thing they showed this week as well. >> robert costa, i read everything your chief correspondent writes. he had a good piece about what the republicans might be thinking, what they might need to do in the coming weeks.

he said it is no longer a question w question of whether this happened, it's how republicans choose to respond to it. how is a republican in the house going to react to what he or she sees from the president this morning? i put the tweets up there at the beginning. probably read too much of the content, focusing on nancy pelosi and her district. this is not a coordinated or coherent or streamline message from the white house. it's an effort to distract, to make a political point, score a political point here on the house speaker. what are the conversations you've had? >> i was at the capitol all week with notebook in hand. they censor more freedom from those retiring or in suburban districts to speak their mind as this process unfolds. over at the senate, almost every republican senator i spoke with tried to duck the questions about impeachment. unless they were staunch trump ally, they kept saying to me, well, bob, i'm a juror.

if it there's a trial here, it's better if i don't say anything. do you want to talk about another issue? they're on negligent the senate on edge in the senate about their careers and that could be on the line. manufactu many of the house republicans are watching to see if they can frame this has a partisan exercise? is it a party line vote or will they be pressured because of the president's conduct and behavior across the board, tweets, foreign policy, will they be compelled to vote against him? >> bob, is there a element of plausible deniability what you're describing? is we're in the pool waiting to be em panelled. is there a weariness? do you get a sense from talking to the lawmakers that they're growing tired of how this is proceeding? had. >> not only tired, and that is the exhaustion is palpable. but they're also confused about the facts. they feel this white house doesn't just not have a war room, but it also does not have a guide book for them about how to explain the substance of what

people are testifying. and ambassador after ambassador testifying about the president's conduct, interactions with ukraine and rudy giuliani. and they don't really know what is coming out day to day. because of that, they're trying to cast this all as a partisan process. but when you're mired in process talk, you're not engaging the facts. the facts continue to be troubling even to republicans. >> bob costa, i'm going to play this tape. i can't resist doing it. he butt dialing a colleague of mine twice. one of those overheard conversations, one of those recorded by the voice mail recording was that of him talking about turkey and bahrain. let's take a listen what he had to say not in that message, not to that reporter but in the background.

>> the problem is we need money. bob costa talking about the response that we've seen, the facility with the legal aspect of this as well. this is a man that the president describes most of the time as his personal attorney and there have been lawyers who quibbled with that. what legal work is he doing? how much of this is public relations and all of that? what is your take way from listening to that recording? here he is, the president's personal attorney work ong a portfolio of other things. perhaps the administration, perhaps not. >> there was a guest in the last hour that referred to rudy giuliani as a walking conflict of interest. and that's the problem. rudy giuliani should never have been doing state department business overseas while he is conducting personal business while he's also representing the president. any lawyer with, you know, even a marge iinal ethical come pass

would realize this is inappropriate. i'm not the right person to do all of these things at once. that said, giuliani is in the trump model. trump is doing personal business and also supposed to be a public servant and serving donald trump. rudy giuliani is serving rudy giuliani and i'd be very surprised if at the end of all of this we don't see rudy facing serious criminal charges. >> david jolly, i asked how a republican might react to the tweets about nancy pelosi. how is she reacting to that this morning, do you think? this is a badge of honor, perhaps? she's emerging throughout this. the. >> this is what is being thrown at her by the president. >> listen, i was very critical around the mueller report. i thought nancy pelosi should have been more aggressive. i think there was impeachable conduct in there. they lost the narrative in the first ten days. i will say whether they are drawing lessons from the mueller report or just the wisdom of nancy pelosi, they're handling this chapter masterfully.

and this is going to roll right off nancy pelosi. she's not going to care one bit. they're following the constitution. the president is guilty. the reason bob is reporting that senators are so disconcerted is because they know the president's guilty. they haven't figured out how to handle it. nancy pelosi, adam schiff, house democrats are simply going through the process and they're going to present to the house judiciary committee what they believe constitute articles of impeachment and there is nothing donald trump can do about it. there is no tweet that will save him. nancy pelosi is above it all right now. i was critical of her over mueller. i commend her on how she is handling this now. >> i have seen some of the visit yoez fr videos of adam schiff and his colleagues. what are you hearing about the messaging going forward to david jolly's last point there, that there is awareness of what happened here. what took place in and with ukraine, how they make this different from what happened with the mueller report in terms of presenting that information to the american public as they continue to make their case?

>> when i talk about democrats, they know that there's a case that can be made against them right now about process, about this all being behind closed doors. but their point to me and other reporters is that, look, for now they're trying to figure out the facts. but eventually there will be a public phase of this testimony ambassadors, they can bring back ambassador sondland and maybe even national security adviser john bolton who recently left the white house to testify in public to talk about the president's conduct later this fall and in the early winter. when that happens, democrats feel confident that the american public will see not only news reports about what happened and president trump's foreign policy, but they'll see people on video, on camera talking for hours about just that. >> look into the crystal ball for us. there is john bolton testifying

as well. nbc news reporting he had conversations with the house committees about going and sitting for a deposition. how much more fact finding has to go forward? >> the white house is behind the eight ball. the fact that they are a month behind, they knew this was coming. the president had been talking about the possibility of impeachment for months. and now they're organizing a war room. it's very problematic. i have also been railing against nancy pelosi for the longest time. i think that, you know, i will say this, she was right. she said in an interview a couple months ago that donald trump was going to self impeach. that's what he has done with ukraine. she gave him enough rope to be able to hang himself on the south lawn when he said oh, china, ukraine, russia, whoever is listening, you know, i'm here and i'm open for business. he did do exactly what she predicted he would do. i think that the democrats learned a lot from the mueller investigation, learned a lot from that spectacle and they are ahead of the game.

>> all right. we'll come back in just a moment. still ahead, a new interview with joe biden and he addresses his polling numbers and i sit down with veterans affair secretary to talk about what washington's toxicity means for public service. first, the role attorney general bill barr is playing protecting the president as his department launches a criminal inquiry into the origins of the russia investigation. of the russia investigatn.io i am the twisting thundercloud. i am royalty of racing, i am alfa romeo. (thud) (crash) (grunting) (whistle) play it cool and escape heartburn fast with tums chewy bites cooling sensation. ♪ tum tu-tu-tum tums

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if we had confidence that the president deposit commit a crime, with he would have said so. the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. >> that was robert mueller then, five months later democrats will get their hands on more of the material that underpins his final report. federal judge ordered the justice department to turn over the grand jury evidence to the house judiciary committee. the doj with attorney general bill barr is expected to appeal that ruling. at the same time the justice department is ramping up the review of the russia investigation. it is now a criminal investigation. that change happening after barr personally asked foreign officials to help with the inquiry into cia and fbi activities in 2016. president trump was asked for his reaction to all of this at the white house yesterday. >> investigate the investigators. terrible things went on for our country. and we have a great attorney

general, highly prestigious man, a very honorable man. and they've been looking at it for a long time. >> robert, help me understand how i should process that. this is not a president that writes internal memos but seemed like clear messaging that he is well in favor of what is proceeding here under the guidance of john durham. >> and we're still trying to figure out what the scope of of this criminal investigation is at the department of justice could be. had the grand jury been impanelled. who is being called as witnesses? but at this point, it means it's a serious investigation looking into the origins of the 2016 probe done about the trump campaign. and there are already sharp questions being asked by members of congress, democrats especially, who wonder if if the integrity and independence of the department of justice is at risk. because you have an attorney general in william barr who is close to the president, who is mentioneded

mentioned in some of these phone conversations about ukraine in his -- he' the u.s. but abroad. and so the doj right now is not just an island out there floating and investigating. but it's something that many democrats say is politically in line with this white house. >> looking athe that memorandum of record from that phone call with the president of ukraine, i think bill barr came up five times during the course of that conversation. talking about the concern about the department becoming political, i think many people say the horse is out of the barn on this. >> i mean, the appointment of bill barr was egregious in the first place. this is a man who has an incredibly expansive view of executive power. who trump appointed because he knows that. he knows -- >> this unsolicited letter he wrote. >> exactly. this was not a secret, right, these were bill barr's views. he thinks the president has unlimited power to do whatever he wants. works very well in trump's favor. not necessarily what the framers had in mind or what our constitution says.

we know that bill barr is a religious extremist who doesn't seem particularly interested in defending first amendment, for example. he's mb who is just unfit for that office. we've now seen him using doj as a political cudgle. they're busy with the trump impeachment. they should be casting their eye on barr as well and not just in terms of involvement with ukraine and with trump's dealings with the ukrainian president. although, they should certainly be looking into that too. i think this is a real moment of reckonning for democrats to ask how did someone who is such an idealoge and predicted would have done this ended up out there without mass outcry. >> react to that if you would. i don't want to describe any haplessness to bill barr. he seemed like a guy that served in the add manition a lot, checked in a lot of boxes. he was a known entity and known as a, perhaps we thought we into you him as a person that knew his way around the justice department in washington.

how much has he surprised in terms of how he's approached this job. >> he is willing to do a president's bidding. question look at the first time around when he got involved in iran-contra and pardon of officials there. this is a vindication exercise by donald trump and a complicit attorney general willing to go along with it. the and what this leads to is the president getting criminal charges against leaders of our intelligence activities who are serving the public by investigating russian interference. that's what the president ultimately wants. he wants hits. he wants people to have criminal charges against them because they brought to light the president's culpability. but very importantly, this also feeds into what is going on in the united states senate facing impeachment trial. here's how. donald trump asked for two things from ukraine -- cooperation in investigating 2016 election interference and cooperation in investigating the bidens. if this gets to the united states senate and one of the allegations is asking the

ukraine to investigate a dnc server, the trump defense, they're able to say, look, there's an active doj investigation into all of the origins of election interference and it gives republican senators just enough to say of course the president should have asked for international cooperation in what is now an active criminal investigation into election interference. what it does not address is the bidens. this is a house political decision. i know you're going to talk about this. do they isolate just the request around the bidens? or do they include the bidens and the dnc server? >> harry litman joining us in a little bit. the president out at camp david last night, celebrating the anniversary of his daughter and son-in-law. he is tweeting off a lot. viewers, forgive me. i read a lot of the tweets. the last hour i read some tweets about michael flynn. old names are resurfacing against as a direct result of

this investigation. it's clear the president feels this unbride willing him in sh way to trot out or bring back a lot of the figures that faded into the periphery. >> it's important to understand how republicans on capitol hill see this investigation. because the president's behavior is part of how they're all responding in the gop. they see these investigations at doj not as a direct counter weight to what is happening in the house but as something that is a cross current, they can seize attention on and really talk about in the coming weeks as the house impeachment process builds. look for the republicans based on my reporting to keep talking about durham, keep talking about barr and the investigators of the investigation in 2016. and that's their political strategy because they don't want to talk too much about the substance of what happened with the president's phone calls. >> indeed, the president retweeting an article about.

that a subscription which he canceled this week. bob costa, thank you very much. we appreciate you joining us. up ahead, on "up," today marks 100 days until the iowa caucuses. how the democratic contenders are ramping up their campaigns next. igns next most people think of verizon as a reliable phone company. (woman) but to businesses, we're a reliable partner. we keep companies ready for what's next. (man) we weave security into their business. virtualize their operations. (woman) and build ai customer experiences. we also keep them ready for the next big opportunity. like 5g. almost all the fortune 500 partner with us. (woman) when it comes to digital transformation... verizon keeps business ready. ♪

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we're 100 days away from the iowa caucuses. first votes will be cast to help determine who will be the next president of the united states. the last democratic nominee not to win it all was bill clinton in 1992. . in the latest polls, joe biden, elizabeth warren and bernie sanders at the top of the pack in the field of democratic candidates. most recent poll mayor pete buttigieg is making a move, passing sanders to take over the number three spot. joe biden spoke with cbs news about his chances in a general election face-off against president trump. take a listen. >> some democrats worry, wonder whether you'll be fast enough on your feet, quick enough to defend yourself against president trump. >> what they're really trying to make the case is about age. and with age comes experience and with experience comes wisdom and with wisdom comes judgement. >> i'm going to turn to my

friend and colleague who joins us from des moines, iowa. great to see you. i'm going to start from reading t"the washington post." let me read a little bit here. some years and some campaigns have minimized iowa's importance. this year is different. every campaign strategy starts with iowa with visits there far outpacing visits to other early voting states. here we are 100 days out. what changes? how do the campaigns change now that there is 100 days to go? >> sure. so we've already seen lots of candidates here very, very often, david. now that we're out, february 3rd is fast approaching. we'll see them even after last week's debate, six candidates came to iowa. that is the pace that we're going to be seeing going forward. i just want to note though, going to the events, talking to potential caucusgoers, people have not made up their minds yet. i know we're very excited to see what they're thinking. they won't make a decision until last minute. a recent poll found that only

one in five potential caucusgoers actually made up their minds. so that's what we're seeing when we're talking to voters on the ground. and so candidates will be coming here looking to cater to those voters to get them to commit to caucus for them. and while we'll see them here very, very often in high frequency, they have to visit the early states of new hampshire, south carolina. so it's really important when the candidates are not here and is their organization on the ground? we've seen joe biden, bernie sanders, tom stir, all over the iowa airwaves. voters see them that way. but what is really key is the organization, door knocking, canvassing, getting voters excited. so we've seen that the bernie sanders campaign, joe biden, kamala harris, pete buttigieg, elizabeth warren have 100 staffers on the ground and working to engage voters. remember, the iowa caucus isn't something where voters just go and check a box and vote. it's done. they have to commit hours and hours on a monday night in the middle of winter to convince

their friends, their peers to caucus for their candidate. so really the organizers are working full time to make sure these caucusgoers are engaged and ready to commit to a candidate and that's what the organizers are focusing on. >> democracy in a real sense there, david jolly, we played bate of that interview that joe biden and his wife did with norah o'donnell. how worried should he be as he looks at the polling numbers? he's a candidate that focused on larger big dollar fundraisers. he spent less time in iowa than many of the other candidates. is this an indictment of that as we look at the polling numbers? >> i think joe biden has a lot of reasons to be worried. if you look just at finances, he and his cash burn is remarkable. he doesn't have people to go back to. most of his donors are maxed out. i think iowa is shaping up right now where we sit today at least to be a race between warren and mayor pete. so if you're biden, you're now looking at new hampshire. elizabeth warren is also doing very strongly. and then to south carolina become your breaking point where

joe biden has to have a resurgence there. i think something that's going to be interesting about this caucus in particular, i went to iowa for the midterm caucus. there is a midterm caucus that nobody covers. the number of people i spoke to in iowa around the midterm caucus who are participating for their very first time simply because in the era of trump they felt like they had to do something. it's exactly right. organization in iowa is everything. and so these candidates are focusing on that. but how many of these new iowa caucusgoers are we going to see and what does that mean? i thought that means they're moving towards biden. it likely means they're moving to the alternatives to biden. >> you see candidates maybe placing less emphasis on iowa. a lot of democrats are in south carolina today. there is this criminal justice event. we're talking about how kamala harris decided not to participate in that. they bestowed an honor on the president last night. kamala harris tweeting back. my whole life i fought for justice and for the people. something you would know nothing about. the only part of criminal

justice can you claim credit for is the criminal part. she writes in her reply. >> the shade of it all. >> there you go. with that out of the way this is a state she is trying to play in as well and joe biden does enjoy a lead. >> yeah, he enjoys a lead there. i think that african-american voters know what is at risk, right? and so unfortunately, we have always been put into a position of wanting to understand like where white folks are going to vote so that we know who we're going to back. that's how it turned out for barack obama. that's how it's been in the past. joe biden doesn't offer african-americans much. like he doesn't really have a plan for anything. nor does he have a response to the decisions that he made with the 1994 crime bill. that dismantled much of the african-american community and locked a lot of people up. what is really interesting here to me is the fact that elizabeth warren has been on a steady rise since she announced her presidency. she has been doing the groundwork that unfortunately

hillary clinton did not do. right? she is taking nothing for granted which is why we're seeing her numbers rise. i think that when you talk to people about where she is and what she offers, they have a lot of good things to say. iowa is about excitement, right? it's about getting people excited on the ground. i have yet to talk to anyone on or off air that is excited about joe biden. that's the problem. it's the problem as it pertains to money and his inability to be able to raise money which is why he is flip-flopping on getting support from super pacs. the small dollar donors are just not there. to me, small dollar donors show that people are excited, that they're willing to put their money where their mouth is even if it's $10, $20, $25. i don't see people doing that for biden. he may have south carolina. when we go to iowa and then new hampshire, south carolina, i think, will change. >> all right. we're going to leave it there. thank you very much. great to see you. great reporting as well. up ahead, democrats get handed the biggest legal win yet in their impreecheachment probe.

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eliquis, the number one cardiologist-prescribed blood thinner. ask your doctor if eliquis is what's next for you. the house impeachment inquiry is legitimate is a victory for democrats who got an earful from the republican colleagues who are demanding a vote in the house. former u.s. attorney writes this about the democrats strategy from here on out.

he sees them zeroing in on a single abusive power impeachment count based on president trump's attempt so strong arm zelenskyy. another key witness is expected to appear this morning. just about two hours. a top state department official overseeing the impeachment. he is expected to corroborate testimony. harry litman joins us now. he hosts the podcast talking feds. harry, i look at your piece in "the washington post." democrats are playing it very smart. there is savvy to their strategy here. a debate throw all this is go wide or go narrow. what i read in your peace, do you think there should be a narrowly tailored article that they should pass out? there is contempt of congress for the whole inquiry. but, look, there is a number of reasons and there is an additional one that is just occurred to me which is i think from all indications, it's

really possible that the republicans are going to go kind of go in. gonzo here and shown themselves willing to make a circus of the proceedings. and if it that happens, the basic thrust of it is to try to create confusion. all the better to stay with the one clean line. the fact are really clear. if the republicans are going to stand up and say there is nothing impeachable here there is the public opinion if they stand up, they'll get a lot more. i think they're best to avoid it. give the clear narrative to the american people. it's pretty easy to understand. and it's really a kind of crystal and abuse of power on trump's part in several ways. so that is my thought of how to

proceed. >> i'll react to that h . the repetition of quid pro quo incessantly as harry points out in the piece this is a way to move beyond that. this is not something we have to hash out. these are the articles that the democrats choose. >> the this has been the republican strategy. just keep shifting the goal post. unfortunately, the media and democrats kind of keep falling for it. i mean, they're obviously first of all was a quid pro quo here. which is coming in to sharper focus. but even without a quid pro quo, asking a foreign leader to directly interfere in a u.s. election in the service of your own campaign to tar one of your political opponents is an egregious abuse of power. i think it's time for the democrats to follow this clean line toward impeachment. i think harry is right. the simple narrative is what is going to get us there. but really holding republicans feet to the fire on this.

emphasizing this is a moral moment. this is a moment where you decide are you playing this like it's a sports game? like, you know, the president is your team captain and so you have to follow him to the ends of the earth? or are you a public servant who has an obligation here to look around and say there are certain things that are right and there are certain things that are wrong. regardless of what side has done them. this is exactly what the founders had in mind when they were talking about impeachment and when they were constructing the mechanisms by which we may remove the president from office. and the fact that we're talking about, you know, whose strategy is what and how can you best kind of play the other side? i think really glosses over the fact that this is a crisis moment for the country. and if republicans are not forced to answer for that, if they're not forced to say it is right or wrong for a president to ask a foreign leader for help in an election, we're really missing the forest through the

trees. >> david jolly, she is laying it out there. i guess taking what harry litman is saying, make it the binary. >> yeah, i love this conversation. the last three years in the debate between right and wrong, republicans have chosen wrong. they chose the indefensible. i don't think the behavior will change. i do think there is two inflection points for house democrats. i'm interested in harry's thoughts on this. one political, one consequential. the political is if you look at the clinton impeachment, republicans actually brought forward four articles of impeachment. there was some political calculus in that because the fourth one only got about 80 votes. a lot of republicans got to vote no on that. they said i took a reasonable approach. but no to perjury here. and the other. the house only passed two of the four. it gave a political out for some members. the more consequential one is harry is right. the clear article of the house will move is abuse of power. the president asked ukraine to investigate joe biden.

the question is, do you include quid pro quo in that or not? and it's important. because it's the confession of donald trump that he asked ukraine to investigate joe biden. that's on the record confession corroborated by others. is that sufficient to impeach? or do you need to include quid pro quo. and if you do, does it give senators the opportunity to say quit pro quo wasn't proven so i'm going to vote no. >> we have a minute left. does that latin phrase need to be included? >> i think not. even though it's clear in the facts as david says and it's clear in the concept. about ut when you talk quid pro quo, you talk bribery. that's the sort of statutory term. and that's an impeachable offense. but you also allow the exact precise excuse that david and others have spoken about. when you phrase -- frame it in terms of abuse of power, you're really going to the bulls eye of what is wrong here. and in addition to everything that's been laid out, it was all

done with public money. i think that's the easiest to understand and avoids the possibility for distractions from the republicans. >> it's a great column. thank you for joining us, harry. i appreciate it. thanks to my panel in new york this hour. a parade of public servants have made their way to capitol hill in recent weeks. former va secretary david shulkin is going to join me next. me next cologuard:

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decisions. the new book is called it shouldn't be this hard to serve your country. our broken government and the plight of veterans. >> i read this, i was thinking about the conversations attorneys for the president doing it in tandem as i read about your recent biography that was very much the case for you as well. you were recruited by mar value comics and there is a presence throughout your tenure of him, guys like him, politicals as you call them on the book who are keeping tabs on you, curious about what you're doing. talk a bit about what that was like having to live with those dual tracks as i call them. >> this was very different than my experience in the obama administration but it's not

unusual for presidents to have people they reach out to. what i didn't realize at the time that people feeding the president information sort of a dual tract of information in this case about veterans turned out not to be so unique to me. we see this now repeatedly in different situations where you have both political and career officials trying to do their job, trying to fulfill their mission, but there's information being fed to the president that's different. >> the information is different. was there anything insidious about it in particular? i think at some point you perceive they're telling the president something. were they working against you did you feel during the course of this? >> well, in many situations i didn't feel that but when it ultimately came to the big issues and for that was -- i felt strongly that our veterans deserve a strong va. when somebody raising their hand to defend our country they have to know when they come back we're there for them should they

need us. so when it came to the issue of provization of the va i stood up and said i am not willing to go that far and that is not what they wanted to hear. that was the issue i had to stand on my principles. >> in hindsight what do you make of that push? you were working against that, where was that push coming from and do you think there were folks in the administration, perhaps the president who were rooting for you to fail and going the other way. they wanted you to go to that point where this system was privatized. >> i think in our society there are different ways of approaching problems. i think this was a different political ideology that government shouldn't be involved in services. when i came to the va i was open to that until i saw what the va did and saw that it can't be replaced by what the private sector does. i simply wasn't in favor of this

system going away. this is an agency that's been held by veterans aside from you. you look at your predecessor. he had worked in the corporate sector, wanted to make changes of his own. what did you learn about having a nontraditional background wanting to effect change, wanting to make changes to the way things operate from a different background? how hard is that to you as you talk to folk who is think maybe i would like to leave the private sector and get to the government. >> i had been in the private sector and when you come to government it's a completely different way of running systems. but what i tried to do was to bring those practices that i learned in the private sector and bring them to kovt and make government more efficient and i think bob mcdonald did the same thing and i think we were making a lot of progress. that's the irony. we were fixing the system and moving it quickly and unfortunately, when you have a constant turnover at the top,

when there's not consistency of leadership, that really sets an agency back. >> you write about how you had no point of contact in the white house. people were coming to see you or be around you, how big a deficit is that if you talk about that revolving door, people coming in and out of that cabinet. how problematic is that you have these asenlies working awe t autonomously. >> well, i was the only member of the cabinet that had been in government just previously because i had worked in the obama administration. so when the trump administration took office it was very loose and that actually worked to my advantage because i had a plan, i knew a formula that we were moving towards vicksing fixing the va and we got 11 bills done that first year. but when you have a revolving door of leadership, now 17 members of the cabinet having left, i don't think that's good

for government, because the employees want to know that they can count on somebody at the top for a con sis tsistency to supp them. >> phoenix is what we associated with the va. problems with patients waiting at the va there and that was emblem attic of the problems plaguing the system. how much better off is that system now? i think there are those still agitating for privatization, is it in better shape now do you dhi. >> there's no doubt it's in better shape than it was in 2014. today the va has shoert wait times and that's because of the hard work done at the va. but that doesn't mean the system we should say job done. there's a lot more that needs to be done. our men and women who served deserve the very best this country can offer and we have to continue to work toward that

goal. >> is it impossible to manage having done it. >> no, i think we can do it. the type of environment we're seeing in washington the work is getting really hard to do and think we need a reset of the way that we treat people in washington and we need to make public service more doable and it really shouldn't be this hard to serve your country. >> you write about that so well in the book. david shulkin joining me on set. >> coming up in the next hour, fresh reaction when a member of the house judiciary committee joins a.m. joy. ciary committee joins a.m. joy you know it's an ! your family is duckin' and rollin'... while we stowin' and goin' but that's cool, i know for a fact your suv does not suck. and why is that? it aint got that vacuum in the back, whoo! sucking stuff up! what else are we gonna find? we got to go. vacuum in the back, hallelujah! get 0% financing for 60 months plus $2,250

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thank you very much for watching. "a.m. joy" starts right now. >> i found mr. taylor to be highly credible. he doesn't have a dog in this fight. >> bill taylor gave the most sweeping and devastating pm about president trump's efforts to shake down the ukranian government. >> this is my most disturbing day in congress so far. very troubling. thanks. >> good morning, everyone and welcome to a.m. joy. i'm sitting in for my good friend joy reid. we have a lot to get to this morning starting with the very latest on the impeachment probe that's got donald trump on edge.