for joy reid, who is under the weather today. we hope to have her back soon. up next, alex witt has the latest. >> we sure do. we of course want joy back and healthy soon. so thank you, ayman. by the way, i'll be waking up with you early for "morning joe" this week. >> i'll bring the coffee. >> thank you! that's what i'm going to need. thank you for that. welcome to all of you. a very good day from here at msnbc headquarters in new york, high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. in the west. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." a new name took the stage in the impeachment drama. why donald trump and mike pompepompeo may not like what he has to say. event diary, words that could end a presidency. "washington post" columnist dana milbank joins me. a $10 billion deal raising lots of questions. did the president play a role in microsoft winning a pentagon contract? would have a hard time with

a fraud case because he didn't do due diligence. tomorrow i've got to get you to get on bahrain. you've got to call. >> butt dial. a call from rudy giuliani to an nbc reporter. but we begin with breaking news from capitol hill. house impeachment investigators right now interviewing top state department official philip rieker behind closed doors, and you're looking at the pictures of his arrival. it happened about an hour ago for this very rare weekend deposition. nbc's leigh ann caldwell is there with the latest. leigh ann, with a very good welcome on this saturday, what's happening in this room? >> reporter: alex, we just got news that philip rieker is appearing under subpoena. this is what's happening with a lot of the officials, the state department or administration trying to block these officials from coming to testify, so the committees have to issue a friendly subpoena so they can, in fact, appear. so, philip rieker is occurring under a subpoena. we also know that there's a

number of lawmakers who have showed up on this saturday. we have the chairman of the three committees who are overseeing this impeachment inquiry, but there's only one republican here so far, representative mark meadows. now, who is philip reeker? reeker is a career state department official whose job it is to oversea ukraine policy. and what we know about him is he raised concerns up the chain at the state department about the smear campaign that was being run against the ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. we've heard her name over and over again in this entire scandal. we now know that smear campaign was run by rudy giuliani and it was spread through conservative media. and so, what investigators are hoping to find out today is if mike pompeo, the secretary of state, if he knew about this, what he knew, and what he did about it. they've been talking for about an hour now. we expect this to go for several more hours, but we do know that philip reeker is going to be

just one more puzzle piece to this gigantic puzzle that democrats are trying to put together. >> it's a heck of a puzzle. thank you so much, leigh ann caldwell, for that. all right, let's go to the white house from there. nbc's hans nichols is standing by. all right, hans, how is the white house adapting its message, refining its strategy, if you will, in light of what has come out so far? >> reporter: well, there's been nothing formal yet. we know that there's some conversations taking place. whether or not the president will admit to those conversations, it's not clear. we'll get to that in a second. this morning he's doing what he likes to do, and that is, respond on twitter. so, he's challenging this "washington post" report that says that there's turmoil inside the white house and concern about these new impeachment developments, and he's also questioning the original whistle-blower. he's saying, where is the whistle-blower? you'll recall last night, the attorneys for the original whistle-blowers said that it's no longer relevant, his actual testimony, because so much of what he said has already been corroborated. so, the president trying to go

back to the original whistle-blower, maybe point out why we haven't heard from that whistle-blower just yet, although i should note, his attorneys say that he's more than willing to testify. and as this idea of bringing in a broader team, the president made it clear before departing yesterday that he is calling the shots. >> i don't have teams. everyone's talking about teams. i'm the team. i did nothing wrong. >> i think intent matters. so, let's take a deep breath and stop pretending we know what's in somebody else's heart, mind, or soul, and just wait to see where the facts take us. >> so, what kellyanne is referring to is the idea that the probe into the origins of the mueller investigation is now a criminal probe. that was disclosed on thursday. she was speaking friday morning. friday afternoon in south carolina, the president of the united states, when he was speaking to eric bowling there, a conservative broadcaster, on the sidelines of his visit, the president saying that he wasn't involved in that decision to turn that probe criminal. he doesn't have anything to do with it, but he said when he

read about the news, he certainly was happy. alex? >> okay, hans nichols from the white house. hans, thank you for that. joining me right now, betsy woodruff swann with "the daily beast" and msnbc contributor, and john harwood, cnbc's editor at large. big welcome to you both. john, first up to you. i want to follow with what kellyanne conway said right there, what we heard. is this what the white house's defense is reduced to? is it the president's mind and soul? is it not the facts? >> reporter: they don't really have a defense, alex, legally, politically, on the facts here. what we've seen from the white house, that is one iteration of a broad attempt to throw a bunch of stuff against the wall, mostly involving outright resistance from trying to defy congressional subpoenas to making arguments in court that the president can't even be investigated for a crime, from sending a bunch of house

republicans down to physically obstruct the house impeachment inquiry. this is a case where the facts in question are plain and unequivocal, and they keep rolling out to the detriment of the white house. and so, every day, they have to sort of come up with something to say. and kellyanne was evidence of that, you know, acting as if you have to be a mind-reader to figure out what the president's intention was? it's the opposite of that. the president makes his intentions abundantly clear, both privately and publicly, and we can all see it. >> yeah. okay. so, on the heels of what you just said there, betsy, the "washington post" is reporting the president's strategy as it's shifting the efforts to try to stymie this whole inquiry fail, and it's writing in part, "president trump and his closest advisers now recognize that the snowballing probe poses a serious threat to the president and that they have little power to block it, according to multiple aides and advisers." so, assess, betsy, the

president's level of concern at this point. we know he's tweeted that he's not at all concerned, but what do you think it really is? >> the key problem for the white house is one phrase in that "post" story, which is the fact that they have little power to block the congressional inquiry from moving forward. we have now seen a host of administration officials and people quite close to the president march into that underground scif in the capitol building to talk with the inquiry that's currently being helmed by the president's arch-nemesis, adam schiff. and it's expected that tim morrison, who held the europe and eurasia policy on the president's only security council as of today is going to appear before that same inquiry a couple days later this week. that's a huge deal. morrison is a senior white house official. i believe he'll be the first white house official to testify before the impeachment inquiry. he was the source for much of the concerns that ambassador bill taylor raised last week.

taylor's testimony, of course, was viewed by democrats as something of a game-changer. the fact that the white house, at least as of now, hasn't been able to dissuade or block morrison from testifying just crystallizes the extent to which the willingness of trump world to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry is causing a ton of anxiety there. >> yeah, but what about, betsy, the heightened concern? is that reflected in the actions by the president's closest allies? i mean, look at senator lindsey graham's resolution, condemning the impeachment inquiry. is that an expression of alarm, in a sense? >> you know, the interesting thing about that resolution, if memory serves, is that it focused on the process of the inquiry -- >> exactly. >> -- rather than the substance itse itself. so, the only way that graham, you know, by all apparent evidence, was able to get a significant number of senate republicans to sign on to that resolution was by sort of going on offense, targeting the process that schiff is using, rather than defending on the

substance the nature of the way the president has tried to craft ukraine policy. one thing that concerns the white house is the fact that when it comes to whether or not the president's substantive actions were defensible, there is a lot of division among republicans on capitol hill. >> oh, yeah. it seems like there was some sort of a conference call to republicans that said, use the word process, process, process. i mean, i think it was uttered like 33 times in all of the q&a with reporters yesterday from republicans. only the word process, nothing about the substance. >> that's right. >> but anyway, guys, i want to turn to rudy giuliani now and the voice mails that he accidentally left an nbc news reporter. here's a part of one voice mail from the october 16th phone call. here it is. >> would have a hard time with a fraud case 'cause he didn't do any due diligence. tomorrow i've got to get you to get on bahrain. you've got to call -- [ inaudible ] got to call robert again tomorrow. is robert around? >> rob, he's in turkey. >> problem is we need some

money, a few hundred thousand. >> seems like this is another thing from the gang who couldn't shoot straight. we've all made inadvertent phone calls, but to the president's lawyer it a nbc news reporter? >> alex, the level of incompetence and ridiculousny is overwhelming. the idea that the president's lawyer would be talking this way and would be consorting with these two accused criminals, lev parnas and egor thurman, to try to dig up dirt on biden -- those people are also working for the legal team of this ukrainian oligarch tied to the russian mob -- this is -- it's like a bad movie. and rudy giuliani, i don't know what happened to rudy giuliani since he was the mayor of new york city, but he has so embarrassed himself in the way he has acted, the things that he

said to reporters deliberately and the things he said by accident. it's astounding. >> hmm. do we know about the context of these remarks, betsy? do we know why giuliani needs money? >> we can only surmise. there have been some indications from his divorce proceedings that his wife was frustrated he was willing to represent president trump proceed bono. that's sort of the time he was putting into that, that he wasn't getting paid for, caused some frustrations about finances for his relationship. another tidbit from this call that's interesting is the reference to turkey. giuliani and former u.s. attorney michael mukasey were the criminal defense lawyers for an iranian turkish national named reza zarrab. he was arrested and charged in the southern district for new york for facilitating a multibillion dollar sanctions dodging scheme on behalf of the iranian government. there's been a lot of reporting that rudy worked hard to try to get those charges dropped so that zarrab could be sent back

to turkey. at the time, getting zarrab returned to turkey was a top priority of president erdogan's administration in turkey. however, giuliani failed, and instead of zarrab being sent back to ankara, he turned state's witness, he flipped. and in a new york courtroom, he basically laid out sanctions evasion 101, providing really valuable evidence and explanation to u.s. law enforcement and national security officials. so, giuliani's connections to turkey are super interesting, and fact that he's bringing them up in that call might be indicative of potential work he's doing that would be of interest. >> yeah. well, certainly, we're going to if you can more about rudy giuliani and all of the extended issues there, but can i ask you, john, quickly, about the pentagon's decision to award microsoft that $10 billion contract for the defense cloud system? so, we know that amazon was the loser in this after months of competition. of course, we also know the president has an ongoing feud with amazon chief jeff bezos. so, do we connect some dots

here? did microsoft simply make a better pitch? >> such a big coincidence, alex. yes, we connect the dots. we know by the memoir from john snodgrass, former speech writer to john mattis, that the president instructed mattis to screw amazon in this process. now, jim mattis said we weren't going to do that, we're going to do it above board, but jim mattis isn't there anymore. and one of the things that we've seen, the iterations of this presidency, have been people willing to restrain his impulses, removed, and to be replaced by people who are weaker and who allow his impulses to proceed unimpeded. >> yeah. >> and you know, this reminds me of the incredible story in the "washington post" today about the decision on the oil, the president leaving troops in a certain part of northern syria because of the oil. and there's a quote from a u.s. official who was saying, well, we knew he's obsessed with the oil, so we brought that up so he'd keep troops in. it's like feeding a baby his

medicine in yogurt or apple sauce. that is an extraordinary thing to say about the president of the united states. >> i cannot believe that analogy either. extraordinary in so many ways, guys, our conversation. betsy and john, thank you so much. we'll see you again. let's go now to 2020 and the second step criminal justice forum now under way in south carolina. that's where several democratic candidates are taking the stage this weekend. and among those in attendance, senator cory booker, of course, 2020 democratic presidential candidate, and the senator joins us right now. senator booker, awfully about g to see you. thanks for joining us. >> i wish i could see you, but it's good to be here. >> okay, well, i promise you i'm right here. i'm looking at you and you look great. but let's get to your reaction to some of this news today. the federal judge ruling that the impeachment inquiry is legal, having dismissed all those claims from the white house that the inquiry is illegitimate because it hasn't been authorized in any sort of formal house vote. what are your thoughts on that? >> well, you said it earlier, this is a lot of folks trying to trip up the process, but not

speaking towards the outrageous substance of what's going on. we are seeing the more people that come and testify in the house scif, the more outrageous information that's coming forward about a president who has betrayed his office in order to pursue his own political agenda and compromised, as people said, have already said, the lives of our allies, the lives of ukrainians, withholding american security aid, and this is unacceptable. it's unacceptable of republicans. that's why they're not talking about it. they're trying to make this about process when the substance is so damning. >> what is the most outrageous thing that you've heard? >> i think that the most outrageous thing that i've heard is these incredible career professionals, people that have decades, often working for republican and democratic presidents, who are being threatened, or worse, being put in situations where they're having to come out of their

pocket for legal counsel and come before and testify before committees and tell what they believe is a betrayal of their nation. this is not a partisan process, as much as republicans are trying to make it so. these are people who are coming forward and testifying, many of them appointed by republican presidents. in one case, at least, or two cases at least, donald trump appointees, coming forward and telling the truth about this situation in a way that paints a really damning picture of this president's conduct. >> and when you say threatened by whom do you believe they are being threatened? >> well, i'm talking about the letters telling them not to testify. >> okay. >> and then them having taken the courageous step to testify anyway when they're subpoenaed. >> okay. >> we shouldn't have to go through that. we should not have a president that says i am not accountable to the congress. that is a violation of our constitutional ideals of checks and balances of power. this president is trying to undermine this investigation actively, which was one of the

articles of impeachment during the nixon administration. >> all right, lots of outrage, as i know you heard from republicans this week in congress regarding the impeachment hearings being held behind closed doors. house democrats are reportedly now preparing to make these hearings more public as soon as next month. what's your take on this back-and-forth? >> my take is that this is manufactured outrage. this is people who know better. and this is folks who, if this was reversed, if obama -- heck, they were ready to go crazy when obama wore a tan suit. if president obama had done any of these things, from the mueller report with the ten instances where mueller said it could be obstruction of justice all the way to with trump withholding critical aid for ukrainians -- they would be acting in ways far beyond the honorable way that nancy pelosi is conducting these investigations. and so, i have little -- i'm not in any way affected by the

manufactured outrage and theatrics that we're seeing. every one of us swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution. and while their short-term political ambitions may be obscuring their ability to see the larger picture, that history will look back and judge this moment about what did we do when a president violated his constitutional oath, violated national security concerns. when a president behaved like this, what did we do? do we do our job and hold him accountable, or did we fall to partisanship and basically destroy any essence of patriotism and loyalty to country in the process? and so, this process is going to continue. i believe that there will be more and more republicans -- it's my hope, at least -- who will show profiles in courage and be more about what's right and be more about what's best for the country than allowing this president to continue to do things that i say are moral vandalism, but really, are

undermining the norms of institutions and very law of our land. >> moral vandalism. i haven't heard that, and it seems appropriate there. as far as a timeline for impeachment goes, are you at all concerned about this inquiry potentially extending into the 2020 election cycle? i mean, would you prefer that the investigation wrapped up sooner rather than later? do you think it has the potential to be open-ended and go on to the inflection cycle? >> let me tell you, i don't care. let politics be politics. this is such a sobered endeavor on which we're on. we are talking about the removal of a sitting president. whatever amount of time it takes to do a thoughtful, thorough, honorable investigation in which we do it in a way that builds more consensus and doesn't rip our country apart, that's what we should do. politics be damned. i mean, really. i don't care. i don't care what impact it has in the future. this is too -- the gravity of

this is so significant. it should be done right. it should be done thoroughly. it should be done honorably. it should be done with a sense of gravity for what we're engaged in right now and stop letting political considerations in any way enter or obscure the mission that we all should have, which is to defend our constitution, to uphold our laws and our values, to provide oversight, checks and balances to this president, because he is not above the law. >> look, amen to that, but are you hearing that reflected by those that you speak with around the country as you campaign for the presidency? >> i'm at a criminal justice forum right now. what i'm hearing about today is the fact that we have -- we're the land of the free and we incarcerate a quarter of the planet's incarcerated people are here in this country, that it's a profoundly racially biased system, that there's no difference between blacks and whites for using drugs or dealing drugs, but black men are

four times more likely to be incarcerated for it. i'm hearing about women who are incarcerated and we still shackle pregnant women, we put children in solitary confinem t confinement, what other nations consider torture. there are so many other pressing concerns going on in this country that are worthy of talking about in forums like this that people rarely bring up to me the issue of impeachment. this is a process going on, and i know it's concerning and sucking a lot of oxygen from the news, but folks in the field, they're definitely keeping an eye on that, but they understand that this coming election is not about impeachment. this coming election is about all of the other issues. this is a referendum not on the president, it's really a referendum on us. do we want a nation that steps up to the crisis of climate change? do we want a nation that's not taking away health care from people like this president is, but believes health care is a right? do we want to have a nation where we do something about the

gun violence and not just cow down to the nra? these are the issues and more that americans are concerned about in this presidential election, their economic well-being, their family's safety and security, their hopes for the future. that's what i'm talking about every single day out here and engaging on issues that really, really matter for the 2020 elections. and on a whole parallel process, this impeachment stuff is going on, which i think, again, getting some questions about it, but really, people are fired up about this election because they know it is a nationally defining moment, that this is a referendum on who our country is, what's our character of this country. this is a moral moment in america, and i think that's why you're seeing a lot more activism, a lot more engagement, and i'm really excited to, god willing, being the person that stands toe to toe with donald trump, should he still be in office, toe to toe and shows him what a righteous fight is all about. >> you know, you anticipated the next question, which was about your being there at the criminal

justice forum. i do want to ask you about senator kamala harris pulling out of the forum yesterday after the president was given this bipartisan award. now, i will admit that there is some back-and-forth as to whether or not she will return to the forum. that said, has it crossed your mind at any point to pull out of the forum because of that award that he was given? >> look, this is an hbcu. i am here. i had two parents, one graduated from fisk, one from north carolina central. i'm not walking away from an hbcu. if we have problems in our family, we come and talk about them, and i stood on that stage today and talked about my proble problems. the president last night took control and talked about this forum. this is a black college that has an incredible history. there are incredible students here. today i got a chance to engage with some of them. every candidate should make their own choice governed by their own values. i have love for other candidates, but when there's something going down on an hbcu and i've been invited and the

president is using this college in a way that's exploiting them, wouldn't even let the community really come in when he spoke, but was just using them as window dressing, and there's a lot of controversiy flaring up,i want to be on that campus standing up for this institution, the students here and for everybody. so, it was very important for me to be here today. but again, i honor all of the people running, but i'm very glad that i had this moment to engage with this incredible, historic college that serves predominantly african-americans and has a tradition of producing black school teachers, black lawyers, black doctors, in a way that we all should be proud of and we all should be supporting them. >> i'll tell you, senator cory booker, standing up for an awful lot in this conversation. thank you for making the time here. i really appreciate it. and good luck today. >> thank you. it'd be malpractice if i didn't encourage your listeners to go to corybooker.com. and if while you're there and you leave $2 or $3, i won't be upset. >> understood. thank you so much.

all right, impeachment diary, the words that could end a presidency. my conversation with "washington post" columnist dana milbank, a little later on. ist dana milban little later on.

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juul. no on big tobacco. no on prop c. 28 past the hour with breaking news. two massive wildfires are making their way through northern and southern california, burning thousands of acres. california's largest energy provider, pg&e, is preparing to potentially cut power for as many as 2 million residents. nbc's sam brock is on the ground

in geyserville. that's in northern california. what a mess there behind you. what's the latest, sam? >> reporter: total mess here, alex. and you hate to use the words unprecedented, because that gets bandied about so often, but this here really is unprecedented. i talked with pg&e yesterday about how widespread these outages are going to be. they have nine geographic zones in their coverage area, which is a huge expanse of land. eight out of the nine are under high watch right now with large chunks of those areas possibly getting shut down today. so we are talking about just so many people, and they are trying to prevent a scene that looks like this, utterly destructive. this is 1 of 21 homes so far that's been destroyed by the kinkade fire, and you can see the level of that destruction. people's furniture in front yards turned into rubble, cars that no longer look like any semblance of what they were a second ago, and just the overall destructive nature of this. what we know right now, alex, this morning is that there's been some improvement in terms

of both the acreage -- stabilized at 25,000 -- and the containment, which is currently at 10%, up from 5% yesterday. but the thing i've got to stress right now which is extremely unnerving -- when i spoke with cal fire -- there are two things they're worried about, the intensity and the duration of the winds. it's going to be stronger than it was during the last event, maybe 80 or 90-mile-an-hour winds, which would classify it as a category 1 hurricane, and then the duration of those winds, it could go on for 12, 15 hours, which would be two or three times as long as the last event. so, it is extremely, extremely harrowing, unnerving. everyone here gearing up to see what's going to happen. >> i've got to tell you, sam, and i just saw an alert from the "l.a. times" that talks about the sheer terror that people are experiencing as they try to flee flames with no lights, no power at all, and what they're getting the light from are the flames. i mean, the whole thing is just absolutely horrific there in geyserville, southern california as well. but we thank you for keeping an

eye on things from where you are and we'll speak to you again. thank you, sam brock for that. a double legal victory for house democrats, a federal judge ruling the house judiciary committee can have access to robert mueller's redacted grand jury material while also ruling that democrats are legally engaged in an impeachment inquiry. two notable points there. joining me now, massachusetts representative katherine clark, vice chair of the house democratic caucus. welcome back to the broadcast. good to see you, congresswoman. i know that your colleagues in the judiciary, you now have access to mueller's grand jury evidence. so, what do you hope or expect to get from all of this? and does any of this connect to the current impeachment inquiry? i mean, could you -- could what you get from the mueller evidence, could that expand the avenues of impeachment inquiry right now? >> well, i think we could, but the important thing here is that we will finally have access to the unredacted report and to the grand jury material, and we're going to let, as we have through

this entire process, let the facts set the agenda. so, we are looking forward to getting that material. this is a huge victory. and as you mentioned, it is also important to note that the judge in her ruling also said that the process of this impeachment inquiry is constitutional, it is in accordance with house rules, and it is being done properly. >> so, does that put to rest the republicans' argument about the process? i mean, does that just say, okay, it's over, don't talk about it anymore? >> it certainly should. their argument has always been a red herring. and really, their actions this week, storming the scif to have pizza ordered in would just be farcical if the stakes weren't so high for our democracy and for our national security. so, the democrats are going to continue to legislate.

we will investigate, but we're going to do it with the deliberation and the fairness that is required when taking on an impeachment inquiry, something so serious to our constitution and to our government. >> senate judiciary chair lindsey graham formally condemning the house democrats' impeachment inquiry this week. let's listen to that. >> they've created a process in the intel committee that's behind closed doors, doesn't provide access to to the president's accuser, shuts republicans out for all practical purposes, and an unworthy substitute for the way you need to do it, is at its core un-american. i think if we were doing this, you would be beating the [ bleep ] out of us. >> charming. what's your response, though, to senator's resolution? >> it's based on complete fiction. and the senator knows this.

he knows that this is a process, again, that's just been backed up by the courts if it wasn't clear enough already, that is open to republicans. there are 40 republicans who sit on the five committees of jurisdiction in the impeachment inquiry. all of them are allowed to be part of this. i do not sit on one of those committees. i don't go to this part of this inquiry. they also have a house republican counsel who is part of all of these depositions, part of all of this testimony, and is asking questions on their behalf for the republicans of these witnesses. this is a red herring. when you cannot argue with the substance, when they understand the betrayal of our national security, the threats of the president's actions to the integrity of the election in

2020, all they can do is point to process, and the process is constitutional. it is exactly how we should be conducting this. there will be a public phase, and the republicans know this, but they're so afraid of what is being revealed about this administration and this president. they're trying to hide behind the fiction that there's a problem with the process. >> so, this public phase, when does that begin? >> you know, we are going to continue to interview witnesses and collect information. we will see how long that takes. a lot of the timing here going to be set by two factors. one is cooperation from this administration, who has been trying to obstruct and stonewall this investigation, and whtwo, facts. the facts are going to let us set the timeline, and nothing else really matters.

we have to do this fairly, and we have to make the case and put the truth before the american people. >> from the testimonies, from the evidence that's been gathered so far, is there enough, in your mind, right now to draw up articles of impeachment against president trump? >> you know, i think that we have to make sure that we are following a process that puts the information in front of the american people. if and when we decide to draw up articles of impeachment, that will be after this is able, you know, that we're able to put that forward. right now we are in this part of the investigation where witnesses are coming in, they are being questioned by bipartisan members of the committees of jurisdiction, and then we will move forward with the evidence. this investigation is being driven by fact. and if you want a point of

contrast, just this week we passed the shield act, which would codify preventing foreign interference into our elections. and not a single republican in the house of representatives voted to support it. >> why not? >> it has nothing to do -- >> why is that? why was there not bipartisan support? >> it is mind-boggling to me why there isn't. and i am the wrong person to ask, because it seems to me, when we take our oath of office it is, one, to uphold the laws and make sure that when we hold something as important as a vote in this country, that it is free from foreign interference, it is free from voter intimidation, and it is about the american people voting for their candidate of choice. that's full stop. why republicans refuse to join in on protecting the sacred right to vote is one i simply

don't understand. >> well, listen, i'm going to beg to differ. i think you are exactly the person to ask of these questions. massachusetts representative katherine clark, thank you so much for answering them. good to see you. >> thanks, alex. so, when it comes to defending the president against impeachment, some are saying the strategy republicans are using is a sign they must really be in trouble. i'll look at the telltale sign that the gop could be in dire straits. ire straits. i can't believe it. what? that our new house is haunted by casper the friendly ghost? hey jill! hey kurt! movies? i'll get snacks! no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on our car insurance with geico. i got snacks! ohhh, i got popcorn, i got caramel corn, i got kettle corn. am i chewing too loud? believe it! geico could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

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here's the thing, i don't have teams. everyone's talking about teams. i'm the team. i did nothing wrong. >> okay! well, the president there on his impeachment defense, despite a different story taking shape behind the scenes, according to the "washington post." the "post" report says, "in a sign of the growing realization of his potential jeopardy, trump has brought back jane and marty raskin, criminal defense attorneys who were part of his legal team during the mueller investigation, this to help him navigate the impeachment inquiry along with his attorney, jay sekulow and white house lawyers." the president in a new tweet denying that he's concerned, saying "i am not because i did nothing wrong." joining me now is chris lu, former senior aide to president obama and a dnc superdelegate, and republican strategist rick tyler and msnbc political analyst. hey, guys! welcome to the show. thanks for joining me. >> hi, alex. >> rick, you first here. how do you make sense of the president's pushback against this idea of a team for impeachment response? >> he wants to make it look like everything's going just along

swimmingly and that he's strong. frankly, i hope he takes his own counsel here. you know, he's taken his own counsel and gotten the country into many a mess, including in syria. and if he can take his own counsel on impeachment, that would be just amazing to watch, because he's in way over his head here and he doesn't -- he doesn't -- you know, the wrecking ball has taken a swing, and it's now coming toward him. we don't have to wonder if it's going to hit him. it's going to hit him. >> what about democrats, chris? so many now, witnesses on record, plus the president's public statements. can the white house do very much to change how this is playing out at this point? i mean, rick just said that wrecking ball is going right at him and it's going to hit him. >> it's remarkable that we're a month into this investigation and they're only now starting to bring on outside lawyers. so, what's essentially filled the void is a pr strategy of the president's daily rants on twitter and a strategy of obstruction. and the problem with obstruction

is the dam is sort of broken on there. you have both former and current diplomats willing to come forward, provide information in testimony and documents as well. and the challenge really for the president's defenders on the hill is that they really don't know what the underlying facts are, and it's not even clear that the white house knows what the underlying facts are, which is why we're left -- their only reports right now is to argue about process. i will point out one thing, alex, i served for eight years on the house oversight committee. i took dozens of depositions. in none of those depositions was a non committee member allowed. so, the process that's happening right now is completely consistent with previous investigations. >> yeah, okay, except for all of the theatrics of that, because rick, as you know, the deposition today, yes, it began without a lot of fanfare, but however, what happened a couple days ago when republicans stormed the secure area, delaying the testimony from a pentagon official for what, five hours or so? republicans at the time raising objections over the process. are they just betting that

republicans aren't going to notice they're not defending the president on any of the facts and they're just focusing on the process? i mean, how many times that day in q&a did we hear the word process uttered? >> this is all they're left to, alex. i mean, look, we're beyond the point of what the president did. you know, he traded -- he wanted to trade arms for dirt with the president of ukraine, and that's been well established, not only by the white house, but by the whistle-blower and by witnesses and people who have now heard the phone call. and by the way, it was part of a much larger scheme. but let's back up a moment on this process. first of all, as chris lu points out, depositions -- you know, this was like the pizzagate scandal of the person who showed up with the ak-47 in the pizza partical you are to look for a child trafficking ring. what he found was, oh, my god, pizza was being made, and these guys bust into a scif, which is a secure room that's supposed to keep listening devices out,

right, and they bust in there and they find out, what? oh, my goodness, testimony is going on, right? which is just par for the course. and by the way, this is all happening because we don't have an independent counsel law who would normally be doing this type of investigation out of the public view. and guess who wrote the rules for this process? john boehner and the republicans. so they're following exactly the rules that the republicans laid out. so, the whole thing -- they hope that the viewers aren't paying attention or voters aren't paying attention, but the process that the democrats are following are the ones the republicans wrote! >> i swear to god, no small amount of irony right there. but chris, politico meanwhile is putting out a report saying "wow of impeachment silence sprez in senate," talking about how republican senators like lamar alexander and susan collins, that they're pointing in their potential roles as jurors when asked about their views on impeachment. should democrats interpret that silence as meaning that their votes are up for grabs or not?

>> you know, look, in this trump era, it's hard to find many examples of republicans exercising political courage and standing up against the president. i would say what the president really should be concerned about, probably susan collins, but really, lamar alexander and other republicans that are retiring, not only in the senate and the house, because for them, they don't have to fear the wrath of trump and his base. and as you see this increasing number of house republicans, most recently congressman francis rooney, who's been critical of president trump as well, saying he's not running -- this is kind of a wild card group of people who both either in the house or the senate could potentially vote on impeachment charges, but again, the past record of republicans defying the president hasn't been great. >> hey, rick, there's the "washington post" jennifer reuben, who's writing about this vow of silence with the headline "trump should be very worried about senate republicans." do you agree with that? >> i do, and actually, i think there is some merit to the argument of not weighing in if

you're a potential juror, and that should worry the president because they're going to be hard to count, so we'll see. but my prediction is we are going to get an impeachment, and then if the polling numbers keep moving in the direction they are -- because everything the president has tried, remember, it was all a pr, as chris pointed out, it was all a pr effort. by the way, central to that pr effort was rudy colludy, rudy giuliani, who just tried to open the front against hunter biden in a case he was defending in romania, and it turns out that rudy colludy, the lawyer, was on the same case with hunter biden, on the same team. so, that guy's a clown, and that clown show is over. and now the president has run out of plan "a." plan "b" is done. and now we'll see what he has left with plan "c." >> all right, guys. i preer appreciate your candor, chris lu and rick tyler. >> thanks, alex. it was blockbuster testimony, according to democrats. and while republicans have downplayed it, my next guest says it contained words that

could end a presidency. i'll talk with "washington post" columnist dana milbank. ost" columnist dana milbank 've seen a, so we know how to cover almost anything. (bert) even an accident brought to you by the number one! (count) i know i left it in here somewhere...ah ha! my monocle. ah, that's one. one lens! ah, ah, ah! [thunder crashing] oo! my mower! hm, well thatone chore i can cross off my list! ah, ah, ah! (burke) seen it, covered it. at farmers insurance, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. (bert) mmm. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ gimme one minute... and i'll tell you some important things to know about medicare. first, it doesn't pay for everything. say this pizza is your part b medical expenses. this much - about 80% - medicare will pay for. what's left is on you. that's where an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company comes in.

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that could end a presidency. joining me is dana milbank, political columnist with the "washington post." good to see you, dana. >> hi, alex. >> let's get into it. what were the words you think could end a presidency and why was taylor's testimony so crucial to this inquiry? >> well, i emphasize a couple things. i used the word could because we don't know. and there's a lot in this whole situation that we don't know, but it fundamentally changed the dynamic this week in a way that we'll begin to see as this becomes public. because before, it was all about the credibility of the whistle-blower. who's the whistle-blower? what's the whistle-blower's motives? and then there is a question of, you know, interpretation of a transcript. do you believe that's a quid pro quo? do you not believe it's a quid pro quo? and now we have bill taylor, trump's hand-picked ambassador to ukraine, installed there after giuliani got trump to remove his predecessor, a guy who's from west point, served in combat in vietnam, highly

regarded by -- >> yeah, all the creds, yeah. >> -- both sides. you're not going to be able to knock this guy down. and here he is laying out in detail exactly how the quid pro quo happened, and it appears that there's a whole lot of other corroborating. so, the whole notion is you can take it out of the realm of speculation. it doesn't matter who the whistle-blower is and it doesn't really matter, you know, how you want to interpret that phone call. >> yeah. you know, dana, as i look at your latest impeachment diary column here, you ask, could lindsey graham be any more obsequious? he said he called the pullout irresponsible and now condemning the impeachment probe. what is his about-face all about? >> it's the biggest mystery since george and kellyanne conway in this town. we used to think of lindsey graham as a sort of maverick, buts i think he probably wasn't,

he was just riding on john mccain's coattails. john mccain died, and the way i put it is he found himself a new father figure in trump, and he's now doing the same thing, but trump is the leader of this. so, i think we have to banish the notion that lindsey graham is some sort of a maverick or a truth-teller, and he's really just beating the drum in defense of donald trump now. occasionally, he may lapse or not be able to go as far as the president wants him to, but it seems like virtually every time he's wound up right there with donald trump. >> mm-hmm. if you look at the house republicans who stormed this closed deposition this week, trying to demonstrate against the impeachment inquiry -- you point out in your column how this happened after the president said republicans have to get tougher and fight. but stunts like this, you know, dana, are they effective, or do they ultimately backfire? >> well, i mean, i'm all for stunts, as somebody who writes about political theater. there's a real problem with this approach of whining about the process, though, because as you

pointed out earlier in this hour, a couple of weeks from now, this whole thing goes public and all of the whining about the process doesn't matter anymore. so, yeah, you can argue this is roughly the same thing that was done with benghazi, with the clinton impeachment, with watergate, but forget about the process because it's going to be about the substance. so, you know, what they did is they basically wanted to have this sort of riot where the capitol police were frog marching them out of there, and the democrats, quite truly, said, right, you can have this to yourself, sit here, hang out without your telephones, because now they've been taken away, order in pizza, but you're just going to sit here looking at yourselves. and sure enough, the republicans after a few hours got bored and left. >> you know, you mentioned kellyanne conway and you write that she's now given the president a perfect impeachment defense. what is that? >> well, i really thought it was -- she's come up with 20 or 30 different ones, but the notion that she said it's not a quid pro quo because we don't know what was really in donald trump's heart and soul.

and if he didn't think in his heart and soul that it was a quid pro quo, then it wasn't, which is really a brilliant defense, because you could apply it to shooting somebody on fifth avenue. and if in his heart and his soul, we don't know where he intended that bullet to go, then he couldn't have shot those people. so, i think it would get him off the hook for anything. >> hey, what is next in your impeachment diary? because i just love reading them. what's coming? >> thank you, alex. the mystery is i don't even know. it's just whatever the next day brings, but it's guaranteed to be some sort of bizarre scene. who would have thought we'd be talking about pizza deliveries to a scif this week? >> all right. in other words, stay tuned to dana milbank. we appreciate that. thanks, dana. >> thanks, alex. >> good to see you. next hour, details on the mueller report previously kept secret are ruled fair game for democrats' eyes, and at the same time, an impeachment inquiry is granted legitimacy. we dig into what kind of information house democrats could be getting their hands on now. d be getting their hands on now. ♪ limu emu & doug

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good day, everyone, from right here at msnbc world headquarters in new york. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." it is day 33 of the impeachment inquiry, and in the last 24 hours, there have been some critical and rapid developments from the white house, to the capitol, to the courts. here is a snapshot of what has transpired right here on msnbc as we bring you the very latest. >> i've got some breaking news right now. again, a big piece of news. the chief judge for the d.c. district court has just issued

an opinion, ordering the release of, quote, all portions of the mueller report that were redacted and any underlying transcripts or exhibits referenced in the portions of the mueller report that were redacted. >> rudy giuliani butt-dials nbc reporter, heard discussing need for cash and trashing bidens. >> the problem is, we need some money. we need several hundred thousand. >> senator lindsey graham's resolution condemning the impeachment inquiry has the support of 50 republicans. three gop senators still have not endorsed this resolution -- mitt romney of utah, lisa murkowski and susan collins of maine. >> a federal judge saying the impeachment inquiry is legal and saying it hasn't been authorized in a house vote. >> the judge's decision rejecting these arguments as frivolous by the department of justice i thought and believe is a victory not just for the

congress, and of course, for the house judiciary committee, but ultimately for the american people and rule of law. >> breaking news from capitol hill, house impeachment investigators right now interviewing state department official philip reeker. that's behind closed doors. so there's a lot going on this hour on the impeachment inquiry front. we'll break it down for you with our team of reporters and analysts. first to the breaking news this hour. another key witness in the impeachment inquiry being deposed in a closed-door hearing right now on capitol hill. nbc's leigh ann caldwell is there with the very latest on that. another welcome to you, leigh ann. what are you hearing? >> reporter: so, alex, philip reeker, he is appearing under subpoena, which is big news, meaning that the state department tried to block him from coming today. what is he saying behind closed doors? we know that philip reeker months ago -- this was way back in march -- he raised objections to what rudy giuliani and this shadow state department were doing in ukraine.

he told his bosses and his bosses' bosses, including those who were very close with mike pompeo, that there was a fake and false narrative being put out there in conservative media about the then ukraine ambassador, marie yovanovitch. we've heard about yovanovitch over and over throughout this. she was later ousted by the direction of the president back in may, she was recalled from that position. so, reeker is going to tell these investigators from mike pompeo knew, if anything. so, we spoke with representative jamie raskin coming out of this deposition right now. he wouldn't talk specifically about what was going on behind closed doors, but we were able to ask him about this big court case that was decided just last night that was a big win for democrats because the judge decided that the house democrats are, in fact, in an impeachment inquiry. here's what he had to say. can you explain to us, to the

american public, why yesterday's court case and how that will in fact impact this ongoing inquiry? >> yeah. yesterday's court case was a tremendous legal victory for the house of representatives. and you know, understand that trump's party controls the presidency, they control the senate, and they control the bureaucracy. they've tried to make the argument that there's something illegitimate about the impeachment inquiry, and the united states district court emphatically rejected that. >> reporter: democrats are ecstatic at this court decision, of course. there will probably be an appeal, but they do know now that it undercuts the republican argument that this is a sham impeachment inquiry, alex. >> okay. leigh ann, thank you for that. and of course, to reiterate what leigh ann just said, the other big headline of the day, a judge handing democrats a big victory in court, declaring that

impeachment inquiry legal. let's discuss that with josh letterman, national political reporter with nbc news. josh, welcome to you. give me your assessment of this ruling and how this could play out on capitol hill. >> yes, this is a big deal. let's start first, alex, with the immediate. now the investigators on the hill will have access to some of that grand jury material from the bob mueller process. now, that's not directly related to the ukraine matters from the last few months that house investigators are looking at, so it's not really going to play into the quid pro quo argument of right now, but what it does do is legitimize the whole broader impeachment inquery that's under way, because remember, president trump and his allies, their main way of pushing back on all this has not been on the content, it's been process, that this is all a sham, it's not a legitimate thing, and that, therefore, they don't have to comply with it. now you have a federal judge saying this is a legitimate inquiry. they're going to have to turn over documents to it. that will make it much harder for the president and his allies to continue to say they don't have to cooperate. >> can i ask you, though, josh,

is there any expectation that viewing this unredacted testimony by the grand jury there in the mueller situation might open up another avenue to pursue of impeachment? >> absolutely. and this is somewhere where the democratic caucus is somewhat divided, because you have a lot of democrats who say, look, the president has done a lot of things before ukraine that were impeachable, including things that bob mueller was looking at, and they want to add on additional articles of impeachment to what would be something related to this ukraine matter. then other democrats in leadership in particular who say guys, this is going to get away from us. look at what happened with the mueller report where people couldn't understand it, it was so complicated. we have to just focus on the issue ahead of us, that that is their best chance. so you'll see democrats continue to wrangle over whether to broaden it to include the mueller issues. >> as i look at your new article, you write that some 60 hours of impeachment hearings depict a quid pro quo that evolved over time. how so? can you break down what investigators have learned so far? >> yeah.

so, the president and some of his allies have tried to say, look, there couldn't have been a quid pro quo over this military assistance because it's unclear if the ukrainians, when they ever learned that the military aid had been suspended, and if they learned that it was related to the president's political demands, but what all of these hours of testimony have shown is that there was a very clear tit for tat arrangement for a zelensky meeting. when the president of ukraine wanted to come to the white house. we've had now three or four current or former officials who have testified that it was explicitly clear that there would be no visit for him, unless and until he committed publicly to investigate burrism, the company tied to hunter biden, and the 2016 election. and now what our new reporting shows is that ambassador sondland, the ambassador to the eu, when he testified, he said that was the case, that there was this condition, and he was specifically asked, hey, isn't that a quid pro quo? and he did not object to that characterization of what had happened, alex. >> okay.

thank you so much to both of you, nbc's leigh ann caldwell and josh lederman. tessa bereson is with "time" magazine and peter baker with "the new york times" and msnbc political analyst, also sarah ferris, congressional reporter for politico. welcome all three of you. peter, you first here. as i ask for your reaction on this court ruling, the key part of the decision made by the judge really affirms this impeachment process, but explain the thinking here. >> well, right. so, the last two impeachments, the one against president nixon that he short-circuited by resigning and the one that went against president clinton all the way to a house vote, were started by full votes on the floor, in other words, the full house voted on whether to authorize the inquiry. now, the white house has made the case that that means that they have to do that this time as well, but there's nothing in the constitution that says that, just because that was done in the previous two cases doesn't mean that that's required by the constitution. and what that means, therefore, is the argument that the white house has made that they don't have to provide testimony, they don't have to provide documents

because this is an illegitimate and unconstitutional impeachment inquiry now is undermined dramatically by that ruling. now, they could appeal that. it's just one judge at this point. this could go higher, it could go all the way to the supreme court, if they choose to appeal it that high. but for the moment, anyway, it's a validation that the house gets to decide for itself what it wants to do and how it chooses to run any kind of an impeachment process. >> so, sarah, what might there be in terms of anything outstanding that people could look for in the secret grand jury testimony, that which has been redacted, now it will be unredacted and all the evidence? >> so, the vast majority of the mueller report was not redacted and democrats did glean a lot of information from that, but there are still questions about former campaign manager paul manafort's extensive ties to ukraine. of course, that nation is at the center of a very separate impeachment inquiry right now. there's also some information the democrats want about what the trump campaign had knowledge of, if at all, regarding

wikileaks, and their attempt to get some of this damaging information out there about democrats in 2016. but what we're really going to be looking at is how democrats decide whether to use the information from the mueller report and what they learned from this secret grand jury documents, if they are able to get that eventually, and how it will factor into this existing impeachment inquiry. there are a lot of democrats on capitol hill, particularly these moderates who are in swing districts. they don't want it see this inquiry go beyond ukraine. they want to focus it very narrowly. they want to see this done in the next couple of weeks. they don't want this dragging into 2020. so, if they do delve into the mueller report, if this becomes a huge focus of democrats, that could really put their vulnerable democrats in a squeeze. >> what do you think, tess, in terms of the white house? does it appeal this ruling? >> oh, i think it's probably very likely that they will appeal. the justice department has said that they're looking at it, especially because this ruling really undercuts sort of the key argument that the white house was making and their primary

justification for not cooperating, or as the white house counsel said in a letter, quote, a total halt on cooperation was this idea that because the house didn't hold a full vote, the whole thing was illegitimate. so, they had been hanging a lot on this, so i would not be surprised if they appealed. and one thing that i thought was particularly interesting is the judge in her decision said that letter from the white house counsel where he said that it would be a total halt on cooperation actually factored into her choice, and she thought made it even more necessary to be able to provide this information to the house. >> okay. all three of you, please stay with me as we go to the white house right now and the other big headline today -- white house strategy pretty much summed up by the president this way -- "i am the team." nbc's kelly o'donnell is at the white house for us. kelly, with a welcome to you on this saturday, the president sending out a flurry of tweets today -- actually, he does that often on a saturday -- but one in particular railing against a report about white house concern over impeachment. what's that one all about? >> reporter: well, certainly,

the president is in what i would call player-manager mode, alex, when we talk about world series fever here in washington, d.c., where he is, of course, a spectator to some degree on all of this and very much at the center of it, as he's watching these developments unfold. and so, the president is very agitated about what's been happening, and he's been giving a running commentary on twitter today, for sure. he's also at his virginia golf club today after spending the night at camp david for a family gathering in honor of his daughter, ivanka's tenth wedding anniversary. of course, her husband, jared kushner, and ivanka are both senior officials in the white house, and the president used twitter to point out that he'd be paying for the event himself while holding it at camp david. president trump is so carefully watching what democrats are doing and frustrated by his own republican party not doing enough, he thinks, to satisfy his desire to be defended publicly. we hear now from the president,

who is talking about his role in strategy behind the scenes as well as counselor kellyanne conway, who expresses the president's point of view. here's a clip from both of them. >> i don't have teams. everyone's talking about teams. i'm the team. i did nothing wrong. >> i think intent matters. so, let's take a deep breath and stop pretending we know what's in somebody else's heart, mind, or soul, and just wait to see where the facts take us. >> reporter: and so, she is arguing that even as people study the president's actions or the observations that come from the witnesses, including those we're seeing even on a saturday today, that knowing what the president was thinking and what his intention was should factor in to all of that. that's always one of the unknowable things in covering these events, trying to work backward from the outward examples of what is seen, the evidence that is being gathered by democrats, and then trying to know what the president's intent was with all of these matters. alex? >> okay, kelly o'donnell at the white house, many thanks, as

always, my friend. and let's go back to the panel right now, starting with you, peter. the question is, what do you make of kellyanne's argument on his intention? is this what the white house is left with? >> well, their defense has shifted many times over the last few weeks. first it was a perfect call. he still says it was a perfect call, but they then said there was no quid pro quo. then when bill taylor testified he did think there was a quid pro quo, said well, it couldn't be because the other guys didn't know it. now kellyanne's saying it's about intent. the truth is, congress can make any decision it wants. this is not something defined by statutory law. it's not defined by any kind of court precedent. as general ford once said, an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the house of representatives says it is. and you know, they can decide his intent matters or it doesn't matter. they can decide they know what his intent is, given all of the things that he has said out loud. the one thing about president trump that's interesting and different than most presidents is he's pretty transparent in

describing the things that matter to him and the priorities that matter to him. he's made very clear he thinks that other countries, including uukraine and china and others should investigate his democratic rivals. so, i think that's something they will take into account and i think that, you know, the white house is left scrambling to look for a defense on the substance, rather talk about process, because the process is a better argument for them. they can make the case that democrats are being unfair. they would rather rally around that. >> yeah, you make a good point. the president leaves little to nuance, that's for sure. tessa, the "washington post" is reporting that the president and his closest advisers now recognize that the snowballing probe poses a serious threat to the president. talk about the turning point there. at what point did they decide that's what's happening? >> right. i mean, we're a month into this inquiry now, and just now the white house is kind of realizing that it's on its back foot. you know, i think that court case that we were talking about early is a key moment. and i was speaking earlier this week to jay sekulow, who's on

the president's private legal team, and jay was saying, as he put it, they're just putting a team together to figure out the impeachment response. he said it would be led by the white house counsel's office, he and his private team would play a role, but they're really still trying to figure out how they're going to respond to this. and there had been initial resistance to setting up a war room like clinton had, and they felt that they could just respond to impeachment kind of the way they did to the mueller report, sort of as needed, without a bigger, more coordinated strategy. but as peter was just showing with kind of the shifting defenses here and now the judge saying that they have to cooperate, i think they're starting to realize that they're going to need a more unified response to this. so, they're searching for someone who can run the communications strategy, and they're figuring out how the lawyers are going to work together on this, but they are now realizing that they can't keep going forward with just a complete shutdown on any cooperation and no coordinated messaging strategy. >> to even further on that, sarah, you write in a recent

piece that there is a growing recognition within the democratic caucus that they need to start figuring out the public aspect of their impeachment inquiry soon or else the republican stunts, decrying the closed-door process, that could dominate the narrative. do you think there's a timeline to when the public portion of the impeachment probe is going to happen? >> so, there is definitely a time crunch right now. i mean, lawmakers only have a couple of weeks before they leave for thanksgiving, a couple of weeks after that, and then they're into christmas. after that, they're really quickly facing the iowa caucuses, which for a lot of democrats, that's the deadline. they don't want this spilling out into the 2020 presidential campaign. they don't want anything that risks their political chances of beating donald trump in 2020. so, right now, democrats are trying to balance this -- they have so many testimonies going on capitol hill. they have five more people coming in the next seven days, and they keep getting more information. the yarn keeps unraveling, and yet, they have this pressure to

finish things as quickly as possible, so democrats are acknowledging that the timeline has slipped a little bit, but they're also realizing that they're getting much more information than they ever expected, and a lot of democrats have told me, you know, we're okay waiting a little bit of time, even these democrats who were in very vulnerable districts. they realize that, you know, the information they're getting behind closed doors -- it could be so damaging to the president that they're willing to wait and let republicans kind of have this air time until they're ready to go public with these hearings. >> yeah. peter, i want to ask about the anonymous senior trump administration official who wrote that mysterious "the new york times" op ed, who's now coming out with a book promising to expose private trump conversations. are there any clues as to whether anonymous is a current or a former trump administration official, and are you expecting anything of substance to come out in this book? >> yeah, it's a great question. let me start by saying i have no idea who anonymous is. i work for "the new york times," but we have a separate of church and state, if you will, between

the editorial pages and the news pages. we on the news pages don't know who anonymous is. it was published on the editorial pages. i didn't know about that article until i saw it on my computer screen like everybody else. but you know, i think that what's really interesting about it is we spent a lot of time a year ago, a relatively short article seeing what clues there could be to who this person might be. now this person is giving us 250 pages or whatever. this text is obviously going to provide much more evidence of who, narrowing the list of possible suspects. you have to assume therefore it's somebody who's already left or is planning to leave or knows this could expose him or herself, because if he or she reveals certain conversations on certain dates, you can narrow down and know who it could be, so i think there must be a larger and more extensive rollout here plan that goes beyond staying anonymous. i think we should know who this person is at some point. on the other hand, i thought we would know earlier than now, so

anything is possible. >> do you expect this to be unprecedented, though, that which comes out, peter? >> i can't think of an exact pal little. the only thing people recall is "primary colors" by paul klein in the clinton era, but he wasn't a clinton aide and didn't say anything to forestall his president. what's remarkable about this is not just that it's an aide saying we're trying to restrain the president we work for, but it's an aide basically saying we're thwarting a dramatically elected president. and i think people even who are critics of president trump find this troubling in some way, that if you don't approve of what the president is doing, you should resign and say so out loud and let the people know what's going on. but the idea that you're a sort of hidden saboteur within the groft strikes many people in both the democratic and republican party as problematic. >> tessa berenson, peter baker, sarah ferris, thanks for the conversation. much appreciated. the mixed messages on syria from the trump administration and why oil is part of the confusion. that's next. y oil is part of the confusion. that's next. 50 and older at average risk. honey, have you seen my glasses? i've always had a knack for finding things...

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back now with some breaking news from syria. this is new. nbc news is confirming a military convoy flying american flags has crossed the border from iraq into syria. it happened earlier today. and right here you're seeing the very first video that we're seeing as well of the u.s. troops that are on the move. they are heading south to the location where defense secretary mark esper said they are being redeployed to guard oil fields. joining me now, admiral james tev reeds, former allied

commander at nato and courtney kube, pentagon and national security correspondent joining me from erbil, the capital of kurdistan. courtney, what more can you tell us about this troop movement? >> reporter: so, these are u.s. american troops that were moving in in lightly armored vehicles, not the tanks we were talking about, but we saw video of them moving from iraq down towards derazor. a u.s. official is confirming that is where they are going, towards that region. we know that is where this protecting the oil field mission is going to be. secretary of defense mark esper acknowledged that in brussels yesterday, saying that they would be going to derizor to work with the syrian democratic forces -- that is the kurdish-led syrian opposition group -- to protect the oil fields. u.s. military officials you speak with insists that this will continue to be a to defeat or counter isis. in this case, they're going

after isis' potential revenue source. they don't want these oil fields to fall into the hands of isis and then provide them some sort of a money stream that they could then use to attack americans or the west. but what's interesting is a statement from a u.s. defense official about this deployment today said it was to keep the oil fields from falling into isis' hands, but also other potential destabilizing actors. now, what we know about this area, derizor, is there are actually russian and syrian regime fors that border that area. the fact that the u.s. is sending tanks and armored vehicles in there may be a sign that the u.s. military is concerned that they could be receiving fighting against more heavily armed people, including the regime or the russians, alex. >> that is a huge concern, courtney. i'm going to pose this question to you, admiral. you have the russian minister of defense who says, look, all this oil in syria belongs to the syrians, and the u.s. being there is an illegitimate process.

are you concerned about that as well, potentially a clash between u.s. and russian troops? >> absolutely. and you know, this is the dark end to the spectrum, where u.s. and russian troops collide because of bashar al assad, the war criminal dictator of syria. he desperately wants those oil fields back. why? they generate $50 million a day, not a huge amount of money, but he needs it to rebuild his shattered country, which he more or less personally destroyed. he is aligned with russia, and therefore, it is absolutely not inconceivable that we could have a situation, alex, where the syrians and the russians come into the u.s. and say, we don't want you hear defending the oil fields, we'd like you to leave. you could see a collision. will that happen? let's hope not. certainly, russia will play this carefully, knowing these are u.s. troops there. and i want to draw a line under one thing. i think it is a good thing that we are sending our troops back in there. pulling all of them out by the president just a few days ago,

it makes all of our heads spin. he has made a better decision putting them back in, and ultimately, to protect them against the islamic state who at one time generated a lot of revenue from those fields. >> even though they potentially face military clashes. but you think it's incumbent upon the russians to have cooler heads prevail here? >> i do. and i think that secretary esper is in communication with his counterpart, the minister of defense of russia. i think it's highly unlikely we'll get to that dark end of the spectrum, but any time you have u.s. and russian troops in an extremely chaotic situation, you've got to be concerned for inadvertent activity on the battlefield that could escalate. let's hope it doesn't get to that. >> absolutely. courtney, to you now. today's deployment, how does that affect the president's statements he put out on twitter, that he's bringing home the troops? >> reporter: yeah, that's right. so, friday morning the president said that all troops were coming home. >> right. >> reporter: but he also tweeted

that the oil is secure and that isis is secure. well, then literally minutes later, his secretary of defense, mark esper at a press conference at nato in brussels said that the u.s. was sending troops to derizor. so, right now, this entire deployment remains a mystery. we don't know how many u.s. troops have left syria as part of the withdrawal that admiral stavridis mentioned. we don't know how many may be there and staying as part of this new mission or how many new troops may go in. there is talk of several hundred that may actually be deployed in potentially from here within the region. that would be with those tanks, those lightly armored vehicles that we saw today, but we have no idea what this footprint is ultimately going it look like. we also don't know if there's a timeline for how long u.s. troops could be there, or if maybe these tweets from president trump that troops are coming home is looking just a bit into the future and that this oil deployment is actually just a short-term one that we just haven't heard that yet, alex. >> look, admiral, i want to go through sort of the situation, the environment for the men and

women of the military that are staying on the ground here. they've been forced to abandon their allies, right? bombing their own base. they're ordered to stand down as the kurds were attacked, killed, and captured. they have been stoned as they drove out. they are now driving back in. we know they are professionals, but you used the word head-spinning. how are the military men and women there on the ground seeing all of this? >> they are frustrated. they're frustrated by the withdrawal of support for their kurdish allies above everything else. that looks like a betrayal, looks disloyal. bringing the troops back in now is better than a complete withdrawal, but we haven't reversed course on supporting our kurdish allies. by the way, i want to make a point about courtney and her reporting, which is terrific, as well as richard engel. our forward team at nbc is taking great risk to bring all of this to us. here is an idea, we should be looking at internationalizing this, particularly these border

patrols between turkey and syria. currently, they're going to be conducted by turkey and russia. this is peeling a nato ally away from the alliance. we would be looking to internationalize that as a nato mission, as a united nations mission or potentially, alex, as a russia/nato mission. we did that before in the balkans. it's an idea that i think would help create stability, because we don't want to be in a situation, a, where turkey's being peeled away from the alliance, or bve, as we've discussed, where u.s. and russia end up in a confrontational situation. >> always out sustained your assessment. also you, courtney, and richard engel as well. the timeline for impeachment and fears it could drag on too long. new reaction from a member of the house judiciary committee next. from a member of the house judiciary committee next

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new today, the ranking member of the judiciary committee criticizing a federal judge for ordering the department of justice to hand over robert mueller's secret grand jury evidence. republican congressman doug collins writes -- "this ruling is dangerous for every american. the grand jury secrecy rules

exist to protect innocent people against public disclosure of information and hearsay that could unfairly harm them." but the federal judge actually referenced collins in the ruling, writing that his contentions are, quote, at worst red herrings and at best incorrect. joining me now, congresswoman debbie mckarasel powell, a democrat from florida and member of the judiciary committee. congresswoman, welcome to you. why do you and your colleagues need to see the grand jury evidence in the mueller report, and are you hoping to learn something that could contribute to the impeachment inquiry? >> thank you. good afternoon, alex. thank you for having me on. i think that we requested this information when we received the mueller report, and if you recall, so many parts of that report were redacted. we did not receive all of the underlying evidence, and it is extremely important for us to understand, if there was any previous information to the president before the release of the wikileaks -- that's part of

what we need to understand. i think it's also very important that before we move into any sort of impeachment vote or drafting any articles of impeachment, it's very important that we conduct full investigation with all the underlying evidence. i have to say that it's interesting to hear what representative collins is saying, because this ruling by the courts actually validates our juris dictidiction to obtai of that evidence and it's all based on the constitution. >> given the accumulation of evidence against the president right now, is there already enough for articles of impeachment? and are you at all concerned that this inquiry could drag on too long and just get muddied and lose momentum? >> no, not at all. i think that it is very important that in this time in the history of our country that we proceed carefully, judiciously, that we obtain all the underlying facts, all of the underlying evidence, which is why it's so important for us to

receive that grand jury material. i think that justice has its own timeline and we need to be very careful how we proceed. it is a very serious moment for our country. and i do think that we have seen a pattern of behavior by this president that is extremely dangerous for our national security. part of that was the ukraine call, also just obstructing our investigation in the judiciary committee. there is a pattern, and that pattern could ultimately be an impeachable offense. >> i know that you narrowly defeated republican carlos cabello in your district there in south florida, so i'm very curious what your constituents are telling you about this inquiry, about potentially removing the president from office. do you see an appetite for that? >> i think that many people are still trying to understand what is happening. unfortunately, because we've been hearing from all of the different media outlets consistently 24-hour news cycle, they start to tune out. and i think that when they start

understanding the truth, when they understand that this president should never ask a foreign government to help him in his political campaign, he should never request help for a political election, they start becoming very concerned. i can tell you that when i speak with constituents, what they're mostly concerned about is improving their lives, right? and one of the things that we've been doing in the judiciary committee, which is interesting that i want to bring up, is legislating. when you saw that stunt pulled by representative getz on wednesday, he actually missed very important work in the judiciary committee. we were actually marking up hr-4, which is the voting amendment rights act. and this was very important to protect the security of our elections, to ensure that people like the people that live in my community have their votes being counted, and they don't encounter voter suppression, which we've seen time and time again in the elections here in florida but all over the country. >> can i ask you about the

latino vote as well, because there are some warning signs for democrats. there's that poll that found, certainly, most latino voters are really frustrated with president trump's rhetoric and his actions on immigration. however, that may not be enough to ensure they're going to vote for a democrat. you've got almost 60% that are not completely sold on either party, and then you've got the trump 2020 campaign hoping to win over enough latinos by capitalizing on the economy, capitalizing on conservative values. is there any concern that democrats are overly confident that latinos are going to vote for a democrat because they are inherently just repelled by this president's rhetoric and actions on immigration? >> look, i am not sure about that, because i can tell you what i saw in 2018 is a voter block bloc by the latino community in my district that was much more engaged, much more frustrated by this administration, and we saw a surge on our voting rolls of hispanic voters that came out to vote for me, someone that was

elected for the first time as a south american representative, someone that they could relate to, because for me, the most important thing was to protect the opportunities that brought me to where i am right now. and so, the issues that affect latino voters are the same issues that affect all americans all around the country, whether it's fighting for gun reform, lowering health care costs, protecting our environment. they're paying attention. and we have been a target of attacks by this administration from day one, and they have seen that. we saw the homestead detention facility holding close to 3,000 kids here in my district. they paid attention to that. they rejected that policy by this administration. i think that what you will see in 2020 is higher voter turnout by latino voters, and latino voters will be the largest ethnic bloc to vote in 2020. >> all right. well, we're glad to have you in congress and glad to have your voice here on the broadcast. thank you so much, congresswoman. much appreciated. >> thank you. thank you, alex. so, now it's a criminal investigation of the russia probe by the attorney general.

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(announcer) plus a free pixel 4 when you buy another. that's verizon. we are back with the race for 2020. kamala harris is now back on today's schedule at the second step criminal justice forum in south carolina. that's where several democratic presidential hopefuls are taking the stage this weekend. harris now rejoining the event just hours after she initially pulled out over president trump being given a bipartisan justice award. nbc's mike memoli is joining us now live from columbia, south carolina. so, can you just break down what all unfolded here around kamala harris today? i know there was a lot of back-and-forth on this. >> reporter: yeah, absolutely, alex. first, i just want to explain, i am not running for office. we're just standing backstage here where some of the candidates have been filing back and forth. >> you could! >> reporter: in between their events. mayor pete buttigieg is still on stage and we're hoping maybe to have a chance to speak with him as he walks through on the way out. as you mentioned, a lot of

whiplash about kamala harris' participation in this event. taking you back to the beginning, yesterday president trump spoke here at the event co-hosted by the bipartisan justice center, given an award for his work on criminal justice reform. what we saw was kamala harris responding to that, trying to make a statement by not appearing here. she issued a statement and i'm going to read part of it, which "president trump celebrated mass incarceration and pushed the death penalty for innocent black children. i won't be complicit in papering over his record." now, what happened just in the last hour, as a matter of fact, as mayor steve benjamin, the mayor of columbia, south carolina, who's been partnering with the university here hosting this event, benedict college -- they decided that the bipartisan justice center, which was partnering with them and gave them that award, would no longer be listed as an official partner of that event and that's why kamala harris will be appearing here just in the next hour. but i think what's interesting, alex -- and you heard some of this last hour -- is how some of the other candidates were reacting to president trump's participation in this.

kamala trying to make a statement by not appearing, but others welcoming the opportunity to use this very same forum where the president spoke to contrast that message. let's hear, remind our viewers of what cory booker told you just in the last hour. >> i have love for other candidates, but when there's something going down on an hbcu and i've been invited and the president is using this college in a way that's exploiting them, wouldn't even let the community really come in when he spoke, was just using them as window dressing, and there's a lot of controversy flaring up, i want to be on that campus standing up for this institution, for the students here and for everybody. so, it was very important for me to be here today. >> reporter: what's important to note here in south carolina, local relationships are everything, and kamala harris' decision to pull out was not received well by some of the local officials and organizers here, so i think that factored into her decision now to rejoin this event as much as what they announced in terms of the participation of one of the

sponsors, alex? >> okay. nbc's mike memoli. thank you so much for that. all of you can watch the presidential justice forum, in fact, while you're watching us, of course. just go to msnbc.com. you can click on the "watch live" banner and start streaming that event. we've got you covered there. house democrats are pushing back at attorney general barr amidst news the justice department has escalated its review into the origins of the russia probe to a full-fledged criminal investigation. joining me now to discuss it, cynthia oxny, msnbc legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. big welcome to you, cynthia. tell me about the significance of this becoming now a criminal inquiry. what kind of power does that give investigators that they didn't have before? >> well, it's pretty interesting. ordinarily, you would say it gives them a lot more power because it gives them the possibility of a grand jury, a possibility of subpoena power, but what we know about what's going on with this investigation now is the attorney general of the united states has been flying around the world asking questions. it's very odd. there's plenty of power in that,

probably more power than in the simple grand jury. it's very unusual. this attorney general has really never tried a criminal case, has never done grand jury work, and he seems to have sort of overtaken the person who he charged with the responsibility for doing the investigation, the united states attorney durham, who does know how to do an investigation. so, there are so many political layers on this, and you know, careful barr watchers have the good sense to be suspicious about everything that he does. >> yeah. so, look, it's important to note, and we should say that "the new york times" has pointed this out, it's not clear what crime is actually being investigated nor why this change in status even happened -- >> or when it happened. i mean, it could have happened a long time ago, we just didn't know about it. and now this week when some kind of a distraction is required, it's come out. so, there are a lot of questions about it. >> so, is there legal standing in the investigation or is this all political, potentially?

>> well, we just don't know. i mean, it could be that durham came across a leak that he thinks needs to be prosecuted. it could be that durham came across somebody who didn't tell the -- i mean, who knows? we just don't have enough information to make an accurate statement about exactly what the status is, but what we do know is that it's odd that the attorney general of the united states, who's never tried a criminal case to the best of my knowledge, and was never a prosecutor, the attorney general of the united states, a political act yorks has been doing interviews in different countries in this investigation. that's odd. it's a big red flag that it's political, and i'm very concerned about it. >> is there a red flag to this? because we have the doj investigating itself. what kind of a position does that put all of the people who work at the doj in? >> it puts everybody in a terrible position. you know, this attorney general has politicized the doj to the point it's sad for those of us who love the institution, but

it's been going on for a while now. for example, rod rosenstein, who was involved in the mueller administration, he was a fact witness in the mueller investigation and should have recused himself and didn't. so, a lot of the norms have been broken, and you know, when eventually trump is gone either because he's impeached, he's voted out, or he serves the end of his second term, we need to figure out how to re-establish the independence of the justice department and put some more rules in place in order to protect that. >> all right, cynthia alksne, thank you for joining me in the studio. appreciate that. president trump dismissing the need for a team to help defend him from impeachment as the evidence against him piles up, but he maintains that democrats have nothing on him. >> i think they want to impeach me because it's the only way they're going to win. they've got nothing. way they're going to win they've got nothing. i am royalty of racing, i am alfa romeo.

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strong new reaction from the democratic presidential candidate whether the impeachment probe to impact 2020. here's senator cory booker speak wig me in the last hour. >> we were talking about the removal of a sitting president. whatever amount of time it takes to do a thoughtful, thorough, honorable investigation in which we do it in a way that builds more consensus and doesn't rip

out of country apart. that's what we should do. politicking be damned. i mean, really. i don't care. i don't care what impact it has in the future. >> this has politico reports, the impeachment timeline is in flux with no sign of urgency from democrats to cut short a string of depositions. joining me now is communications director for the dnc and republican consultant joining us from politico in nashville. ladies first. i want to pick up where senator booker left off there. because president trump says democrats care a lot about the impact on 2020. take lachb a listen. >> i see this guy congressman al green say, we have to impeach him, otherwise he's going to win the election. what's that all about? but that's exactly when they' l saying. we have to impeach him otherwise he's going to win. win the election. i think they want to impeach me

because it's the only way they're go to win because they've got nothing. >> how does the dnc see the impeachment probe impacting 2020? i presume you might have a different position than senator booker saying, i don't care? >> actually i agree with senator booker. politics be damned. i agree with that. we need a thorough and full investigation however it takes so be it. the facts aren't on trump's side and why he's running scared. he said openly he wanted to inbest is. >> ray: ve-- investigate his political opponent. the facts aren't on his side. politics don't matter. what matters is that we have a full and thorough investigation and continue with that. >> we agree in terms of morality and legality. where it puts the country. the timeline, goes into january, and beyond, even, is there a point you want to see it wrapped

up to focus on the election jmpltsds aboelection? >> absolutely not. congress will move forward at what speed they're going to move forward and i think the voters and you're seeing scientistment. they believe donald trump did something wrong. as long as it needs to take we will be fine and election will continue and democrats can walk and chew gum. you'll hear the candidates go out, talk about health care, the economy and donald trump's abuse of power. this doesn't change anything. >> how do you make sense of the different arguments we hear about the impact of impeachment on 2020? people want to talk about unemployment where that stands, health care, education, the environment. anything but impeachment? >> alex in iowa, for example, only 7% of voters think the impeachment issue is important. look at polling data from most

battleground swing states it's not a top five issue. i do think democrats run the risk, if you will, damaging some of their democratic presidential candidates. keep in mind, february 3rd is when the first primary vote occurs in iowa. a week later the next primary process, and i can imagine those individuals working on those presidential campaigns, trying to win in iowa and new hampshire and beyond would rather talk about specific issues that they're hearing from people on the ground. not talking about impeachment. what you don't want to risk is turning off independent voters i predict will play a critical role determining who wins in 2020. >> if democrats strip republicans from the process argument that we've heard over and over and over and over and then some, and begin to take some of this whole impeachment inquiry public, how does that change the dynamic? >> well, i think it could change the dynamics a lot. bill taylor's testimony apparently even has some house

republicans extremely concerned. that's why you're beginning to see more and more, i think, republican senators saying, i want to see where this process is going to take me. donald trump has been his own worst enemy. the only time he's not lying is when his lips are closed. that's why republicans are say, wait and see. >> okay. i'd love to have more time with you both. come back and speak with me again. out of time for now. thank you for joining me. a new character testifying today on capitol hill in the impeachment drama. my colleague kendis gibson will take over top of the hour. stay with us. how do you make red lobster's

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approaching top of the hour. out of time. i'm alex witt. see are tomorrow at 7:00. i'm on time . >> i love you'll be up bright and early tomorrow morning. i'll tune in. good to see you, everybody. i'm kendis gibson at world

headquarters in new york. al new top diplomat speaking to lawmakers right now about trump's demands to ukraine. and a ruling from a federal judge finding the house inquiry is legal despite pushback from some republicans. and 2020 candidates are talking criminal justice reform in south carolina right now. the controversy over trump getting an award at this forum for kamala harris to initially pull out of the appearance there. the update from her campaign moments ago. an accidental phone call making headlines. the conversation that our own nbc reporter was privy to thanks to a butt dial from trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. and hello, everyone. we begin with breaking news on capitol hill. there is a lot happening at this hour. for the first time since's the launch of the