♪ welcome to "kasie dc." i'm geoff bennett. breaking news as president trump announces american special forces kill a top isis leader. he goes into extraordinary detail in front of the public while leaving congress in the dark. plus, groundhog day on capitol hill. the stage is set for another week of government officials taking us inside president trump's efforts to muscle ukraine to investigate the

bidens. as the white house tries to shut down some of the testimony. i am joined live by homeland security benny thompson. with another week of intense testimony expected behind closed doors on impeachment, an unexpected milestone in the fight against terrorism. the announcement from president trump that a top isis leader is now dead. according to the president, an apparently verified by dna evidence taken at the scene, american special forces killed abu bakr al-baghdadi last night in a raid in syria. the president savored the moment and opted to take questions at length going into granular operational detail far beyond what his predecessors initially said about the deaths of figures like osama bin ladder or zarkawi. and the president said he wanted al-baghdadi taken down since the beginning of his presidency. >> i would say where's al-baghdadi, i want al-baghdadi.

and we would kill terrorist leaders. but there were names i never heard of. they were names that weren't recognizable and they weren't the big names. some good ones, some important ones but they weren't the big names. i kept saying where's al-baghdadi. you know, these people are very smart, they are not into the use of cell phones anymore. they are very technically brilliant. they use the internet better than almost anybody in the world, perhaps other than donald trump. but they use the internet incredibly well. what they've done with the internet through recruiting and everything. and that's why he died like a dog, he died like a coward. he was whimpering, screaming, and crying. and frankly i think it's something that should be brought out so that his followers and all of these young kids that want to leave various countries including the united states, they should see how he died. >> then there is the political reality. tomorrow morning it's back to impeachment headlines with new hearings added for this coming

week. and key congressional leaders are wrankled that russia, turkey, iraq, and syrian kurds were looped in on the al-baghdadi raid. but they weren't. and keep in mind it was just days ago the president infuriated many loyalists in his own party over his handling of turkey and the kurds in syria and the perception the strategy could help accelerate the resurgence of isis. we start off tonight with richard engel to put in context the death of the once powerful islamic state leader. >> he was the world's most wanted terrorist. he is often compared to osama bin laden. but they were very different kinds of people. on sami bin laden, saudi, rich, well educated, controlled al qaeda. its most infamous operation the attacks of 9/11. and after that al qaeda more or less went into hiding. it had some small cells around the world. but it was a typical what you would describe as a terrorist

organization. abu bakr al-baghdadi did something totally different. he had a terrorist organization that had tens of thousands, millions of people who were part of it. and he established a state. he established an open safe haven here in the middle east that he called his empire, he called it the caliphate. then his empire, hez caliphate was destroyed over the last five years there has been a concerted war. >> it was launched under president obama. >> it was finished under president trump to destroy this islamic state. and since march, the islamic state has been more or less vanished. there was a small pocket of it in this corner of syria where baghdadi was found. and even in that corner of syria, the idlib province was controlled by isis and al qaeda groups and a variety of other extremist factions. and there he was, the leader of the so-called islamic empire was

in a farm house right on the turkish border. and that's where he was killed by elite special operations forces. will isis be able to rebuild again? probably not to the stage where it was before that it had an empire. there were a whole variety of events that led to its ability to capture so much territory. it's more likely that it becomes more like al qaeda used to be, a small secretive group that looks for opportunities and looks for opportunities to attack. and now that baghdadi is dead, you can imagine the new leader is going to emerge, and a new leader is going to emerge who now is going to have to try and prove himself. >> joining me now is nbc news correspondent covering national security and intelligence ken dilanian and former spokesman of operation inherent resolve and former spokesman of the u.s. anti-isis coalition. welcome to both of you. i want to pick up where richard engel left off.

what does the death of al-baghdadi represent for the future of isis? >> well, the death of al-baghdadi represents several things. the first thing it represents really is an operational victory. it puts points on the board for the good guys in this case. and i think what that tells us is that, you know, their so-called caliphate, it's been shrinking and it's been under tremendous pressure really for the next five years. but now that the leadership is beginning to shatter, you know, there was some follow on operations immediately after this al-baghdadi strike killing other senior isil leaders. so what we are going to see i think in the very short term is confusion inside of isis. but let's not for one moment believe that they're done. you are not going to kill an idea with bombs. and we've been saying that for years. we have to continue to keep the pressure on him. we have to continue to work the information side of this war, the idea side of this war so

they can finally vanquish him. killing the man does not kill the threat. isis and what al-baghdadi built, it really was more of a philosophy, an idea, on what they thought how this group of people felt the world was going to change in their favor. so by killing him, we haven't killed the idea. and that idea is really what we need to target. >> got it. ken, the extended q&a portion of today's presidential announcement, president trump said that watching this raid play out was like watching a movie. let's hear him in his own words. >> we've had him under surveillance for a couple of weeks. we had very good information that he was going to another location, he didn't go. two or three efforts were canceled because he decided to change his mind, constantly changing his mind. and finally we saw that he was here held up here. the we knew something about the compound. we knew it had tunnels.

the tunnels were a dead end for the most part. there was one we think that wasn't. but we had that covered too just in case. when we landed with eight helicopters, a large crew of brilliant fighters ran out of those helicopters and blew holes into the side of the building, not wanting to go through the main door because that was boobie-trapped. and it was something really amazing to see. as though you were watching a movie. a big part of the trip that was of great danger was the -- it was approximately an hour and ten-minute flight and we were flying over very, very dangerous territory. >> so can you have reporting on how that raid played out? take us inside the timeline. >> so what's so interesting about donald trump the reality television star is he really told the story well.

a tick-tock, kind of a narrative on what happened. normally that's really hard. after the bin laden operation it took months for a good sort of comprehensive story, a narrative to develop from that operation. we had it today because donald trump presented so many interesting details. now he gave some of my special operator sources heartburn with some of the things that he said. but what we learned from donald trump is that as many as a few weeks ago they pinpointed the location of baghdadi. it was clear that they either had a human source or they were monitoring his communications or both. because trump said they knew when he intended to go somewhere and then canceled at the last minute. he said there were two or three aborted attempts to launch this raid. and then finally they launched and we learned from other sources that donald trump was presented with options on thursday, made the decision on friday, and then sat down to watch it in the swash room at 5:00 p.m. saturday.

he talked about the quality of the feed. he talked about the number of helicopters. just that detail of them dismounting from the helicopters. that's like a movie "zero dark 30." >> and just by way of comparison, let's look at how then president obama handled the announcement of osama bin laden's killing. take a look at this. >> today at my direction the united states launched a targeted operation against that compound in abadabad, pakistan. a small team of americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. no americans were harmed. they took care to avoid civilian casualties. after a fire fight, they killed osama bin laden and took custody of his body. >> any u.s. president can declassify whatever he wants. did president trump give away

any key operational details as he went into specifics about how the raid was carried out? >> he certainly talked a lot and with great color about the details. there is no question about it. what do we say, maybe he got a little chalk on his cleats. there is no question about that. but i want to go back to this idea of how the narrative was and was it a movie. that type of language gets me a little nervous. i was pleased, frankly, with the president's language at the beginning because i think strong language against this enemy is important. but i get nervous when we start thinking about this as a movie because these are real men and women with real bullets and real guns. and we have been blessed as a nation. our special operators are extraordinarily well trained and they are very good but it's not a given. so if we start to think of their operation s in a movie like terms, i think we get close to

things that will take some risk maybe that we shouldn't take. >> how do you weigh the death of al-baghdadi in terms of president trump's previous policy decision to take troops out of northern syria? >> so, you know, again, i said at the very beginning i think al-baghdadi is an operational victory. but you have to view that operational victory in terms of the larger strategy. what's our strategic position in syria. and i think as we see this operation wouldn't have happened without the intelligence and the partnership of the iraqis, without the partnership, you know, of our allies in the region, without the partnership frankly of the kurds who gave, as we know, we heard who gave us some of the information that we needed to execute this operation. so, as we put that relationship at risk, we put at risk our ability to do future operations like this. so it has to be taken as a whole. the operational victory is unquestionable. we should sit back and be proud of that. but we have to keep our eye on the larger strategic picture. final thoughts. >> steve is being very polite.

the reality is we have walked away from the kurds right at the time where they were giving us intelligence that was apparently key to this operational victory according to them. and that takes the counterterrorism pressure oritis and that risks an isis resurgence. so this may be -- strategically, donald trump has set the fight against isis back significantly. >> thanks to the both of you. we are just getting started on "kasie dc." when we come back, breaking news. a top freshman congresswoman resigns under scandal and an ethics investigation. plus, i am joined by congresswoman pramila jayapal over closed door testimony about the impeachment of president trump. but first i will speak with congressman and former presidential candidate seth moulton who joined the marine corps in 2001 just months before 9/11. he was among the first to deploy to iraq.

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the raid that killed isis leader abu bakr al-baghdadi in northern syria is being laude as an important step in the fight against global terrorism. but the president's rhetoric about the operation doesn't sit well with some. >> abu bakr al-baghdadi is dead. he died after running into a dead-end tunnel whimpering and crying and screaming all the way. he died like a dog.

he died like a coward. the world is now a much safer place. >> it probably makes me a little uncomfortable to hear a president talking that way. but, again, baghdadi was the inspirational leader for isis network across the world from africa to southeast asia. if you can take a little of the glamour off him, if you can make him less inspirational, then there is a value to that. >> democrat congress man seth moulton wrote today on twitter much of president trump's language and his comments this morning were crude, partisan or inaccurate. even after this security success for our country. joining me now is massachusetts congressman and iraq war veteran seth moulton who serves on the armed services committee. i want to start with your reaction to the raid against baghdadi and what you think this represents in the larger fight against isis and why you think

president trump's rhetoric was so off base. >> well, look. there is no question that this is a good thing. and it shows that every single day there are amazing professionals in our military and intelligence agencies who are working hard, totally behind the scenes to keep us safe. but it's one step. and if you look at the last week, the last two weeks, it's been unquestionably a strategic victory for isis, not the united states. the fact that the president has empowered isis by pulling us out of syria, by abandoning our allies in the fight against isis, the kurds, and literally releasing as a consequence of these results of these decisions several dozen isis prisoners. look, isis is coming out ahead here, and that's not good for america's safety. >> and yet president trump says the need to bring our troops home is one of the main reasons why he is pulling out of syria. but yesterday we learned that u.s. forces are moving into northern syria to protect oil

fields. so as a retired marine, what do you make of that, this notion that u.s. forces are there to protect the oil, as president trump says? >> so just to be clear, not retired. but there is no strategy here. there is no strategy whatsoever. when we on the armed services committee met with the secretary of defense recently, that was very apparent. there is no clear strategy. this is leadership by chaos from the oval office. i think the president's decision caught everybody off guard. we have heard from troops on the ground who feel betrayed by their own commander in chief. so don't mistake this for a plan. we are trying to figure things out as we go now on the ground. and it is dangerous. and the fact that the president has talked a lot about putting in troops in syria now to protect oil fields show that this really wasn't about bringing the troops home in the first place. this is about what he thinks he needs for his domestic politics. and that's bad for our troops. >> we also heard from the

president of iraq today. he talked about having to trust the u.s. as an ally during the trump era. let's take a listen to this and we will get your respond on "the other side." >> to what extent can you trust america as an ally in the era of president trump? >> the staying power of the united states has been questioned in a very, very serious way. allies of the united states are worried about the dependability of the united states. >> so he tells jonathan swan of axios that the staying power of the united states is being tested in a very serious way. what do you make of that? >> he's absolutely right. and the president of iraq said that our allies around the globe are questioning our commitment. that's absolutely right. our enemies are questioning our commitment as well. when i served in iraq in the

first marine division under general james mattis at the time who of course later resigned when the president first decided to withdraw from syria because he disagreed so strongly with that decision. general mattis' motto for us was no better friend, no worse enemy of the united states marines. that means that our allies trust us but that our enemies trust our resolve. both are called into question under president trump. that's dangerous because it means that our allies can't necessarily trust that we are going to live up to our commitments. when our troops are on the ground trying to form partnerships and work with foreign militaries, they don't know if they can trust the commitment of the united states. and china, north korea, and iran are watching what the president is doing in syria, and really, really evaluating what america's commitments are. and again this is all dangerous for ou national security in the long run. so great tactical victory taking

out al-baghdadi today. but a terrible week for american national security under this commander in chief. >> let's turn to the impeachment inquiry against president trump while we have you because on wednesdays, you had a group of republican members of congress, they stormed a closed-door hearing in a secure area to protest the impeachment proceedings. you said on twitter that the republicans are attacking the process because the substance is indefensible. unpack that for us. not just the criticism of republicans, but their point that at some point all of this has to become public that if impeachment is going to be a political process it has to be a public process. what do you make of that argument? >> well, hey, we are getting there. there will be a time and a place for that. what we don't need right now is a circus on tv. we need to get the facts. and republicans are in these hearings. so don't buy the line that the republicans need to storm a classified hearing which is against the law, by the way. they came in there with their cell phones, grossly inappropriate. anybody in the united states

military would be immediately discharged for doing something like that, probably dishonorably. but they don't need to do that because there are republicans in these hearings. in fact there are about 103 members of congress in the three committees that are conducting the inquiry so far. and i think 48 of them, so just about half, are republicans. so the bottom line is that you don't hear republicans trying to defend what the president did with ukraine. you don't hear republicans try to defend the fact that the white house is ignoring subpoenas and basically breaking the law just in the course of this investigation because those things are indefensible. so all they can do is complain about the process. it's hypocritical, it's not going to go very far. but right now that's all the republicans have got. >> all right, congressman seth moulton, thanks for your time this evening. we are following breaking news tonight. consider. april congressman katie hill has resigned amid allegations an inappropriate relationship with a capitol hill staffer. the ethics committee opened up

an investigation last week into whether she had a sexual relationship with one of her aides. and hill had denied the allegation. she did admit to having a sexual relationship with a woman on her campaign staff after nude pictures of hill and the staffer circulated online this past week. in a statement today, hill wrote that she has a, quote, broken heart announcing her resignation. she added, quote, this is what needs to happen so that the good people who supported me will no longer be subjected to the pain inflicted by my abusive husband and the brutality of hateful political operatives who seem to happily provide a platform to a monster who is driving a smear campaign built around cyber exploitation. having private photos of personal moments weaponized against me has been an appalling invasion against my privacy. hill also says she is also pursuing legal options. hill was seen as a rising star in the democratic party. she was the vice-chair of the powerful house oversight committee, one of the committees

leading the impeachment inquiry. all right. when we come back, new revolutions from behind closed doors saturday as the impeachment investigation intensifies. plus, brand-new reporting from natasha bertrand about ukrainian officials left wondering who they can trust in washington. we'll be right back. uh oh!

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revelations out of the impeachment inquiry continue to pour in even throughout the weekend. assistant secretary of state spent all day yesterday answering questions under subpoena. tonight nbc news has learned from a source with direct knowledge of that testimony that he offered details about the ousting of former u.s. ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch. yovanovitch has said she was fired by president trump at the recommendation of rudy giuliani. and reeker said that after that happened he and his colleagues attempted to put out a statement in support of yovanovitch but were told by under secretary of state david hale that a statement would not be released. reeker also testified that he became aware that nearly $400 million of military aid was being withheld from ukraine in july. but he never knew why. he also said he was aware that a white house meeting between presidents trump and zelensky was delayed but he didn't know

why that happened either. meanwhile this week national security council official tim morrison who was on the july 25th phone call between trump and zelensky intends to go behind closed doors despite attempts by the administration to block his appearance. and acting u.s. ambassador to ukraine bill taylor said it was morrison who first alerted him to the idea that security assistance money wouldn't flow unless ukraine's president committed to the burisma investigation. here with me to break it all down and it is a lot, national security correspondent for politico and msnbc contributor natasha bertrand, and former aid to jeb bush and mitt romney, and don calloway. and former counsel for the senate judiciary committee. my thanks to all of you. and, that thnatasha, i want to with you. >> obviously the ukrainians have a major existential adversary.

and that is russia. and they are fighting a war. so with all that's happened in the last few months, it's become really difficult for them to lean on the united states for the kind of support they have leaned on the u.s. for in past years. they lost the u.s. ambassador to ukraine, which was marie yovanovitch. they lost kurt volker, who, despite his role in the ongoing saga of the quid pro quo, they really did trust to kind of lead negotiations into the war between the ukrainian separatists and being supported by the russians and kiev. and, you know, they have also -- a lot of the key interlocutors including bill taylor who was the acting u.s. ambassador to ukraine after yovanovitch was ousted have been significantly weakened by their, you know, participation in the impeachment inquiry. they obviously have to deal with hiring lawyers. they have a lot on their plate right now in dealing with congressional subpoenas and testimony. and of course on top of that the administration doesn't seem

particularly interested in reverting back to the default policy of supporting ukraine. so the ukrainians are really concerned right now about whether, you know, for example, the money that was just passed in the cr that trump signed a month ago is actually going to move forward without a hitch, whether they are going to get more weapons sales in the future, and who exactly are the people that they can talk to and trust in washington right now. >> got it. and help us remember why bill taylor's testimony was so damning this past week. >> yeah. he basically laid out the most detailed timeline to date of all of these, you know, these interactions that gordon sondland the u.s. ambassador to the e.u., and kurt volker, the special envoy to ukraine, and rick perry, the energy secretary, how all of these people kind of came together in order to pressure the ukrainians to launch these political investigations at the request of the president in exchange for giving them the military assistance aid that they of course rely on to fight the russians. on top of that he also laid out how there was a quid pro quo in order to get the ukrainians the

white house summit that they wanted. they had to commit publicly to opening these investigations into the bidens, into ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, whatever that means. and he basically laid it out in such detail and with notes to back it up that it became a turning point for democrats. they saw for one of the first times that this is something that they can really rely on and that it's going to be really hard for the republicans to push back on. >> and to that point, matt, my sources tell me that president trump this past week told his republican defenders on the hill to step their game up. and that's one of the reasons why we saw the group of republicans try to storm the skiff. but interestingly enough let's take a listen to how president trump talked about bill taylor. i have a question for on the other side of it. >> well, the problem is -- here's the problem. he's a never-trumper.

and his lawyers are never-trumper. and the other problem is -- hey, everybody makes mistakes. mike pompeo, everybody makes mistakes. he's a never-trumper. his lawyer's the head of the never-trumpers. they're a dying breed, but they are still there. >> so president trump says, hey, this guy is a never-trumper. on twitter he used some pejoratives that i won't repeat. but you don't hear republicans echoing president trump on that. they attack the process, but they don't attack the witnesses and they don't defend president trump on the substance of the underlying claim. >> no. certainly the process is much more favorable ground. they don't want to relitigate or talk about the calls. they want to fight on what the ground is they feel is more favorable to them. i think the white house has been a little slow with this. but they are starting to get their sea legs on this having a little bit more of a coordinated strategy in how they can really rebut this. it's really not a legal fight.

you have to change poll numbers hopefully at least really galvanize this and make it a partisan fight. so if you go back to even the clinton impeachment as the house dems were kind of strategizing makes its way through the judiciary committee, then democratic representative chuck schumer got his folks together with john conor and others and said we need to make everything a fight. we need to fight every motion, every subpoena. if we go and try and make this bipartisan, it legitimizes it and we need to make this a brawl. at least it seems like republicans are owning up to that same playbook a little bit. >> help us understand sort of the closed door argument if this process is on the up and up the public should be invited in to see it and the substance of it. why these closed-door testimonies are so important to this fact-finding process. >> it's certainly as a threshold matter it seems like a powerful argument that the republicans have that there is something nefarious about a closed-door investigation. but people should know that closed-door depositions and interviews by bipartisan staff,

which is what is happening now, are absolutely routine in congressional investigations. i have played a role in them myself. so this is normal. it helps congress put together a factual record with the cameras out of the room before the politics take over. and that's what they are trying to do here. i think republicans do have some legitimate process arguments. i think the speaker should have put a resolution on the floor to begin this process. she didn't need to lawfully, and it's a question of politics and legitimacy. but i think she should've done that. there's a couple of other arguments they have on process. but ultimately they're wrong to suggest there is something nefarious or illegitimate about what's being done here. it's normal operating procedure and a record is being built. >> don calloway, democratic strategist, how's your team doing? they say they want this process to be fast and focused. i must've ticked off about eight or nine names. for an american voter who is sort of following this, this becomes like the russia

investigation. it's dense, it's hard to follow. but the underlying issue here, democrats say, is straightforward, clear as day. >> it's very straightforward. frankly i think that chirm chairman and the speaker are doing a pretty good job handling this. you've have pretty substantial testimony come out from people who know. this isn't just a bunch of talking heads. these are the serious like senior diplomats on ukraine who know this thing. and that's why we saw the dunce capriot where people know, damning. bill taylor's testimony was damning. he was a serious guy who knows what's happening, who was in on the text. we saw the text between him and sondland. and yovanovitch's testimony was equally damning. and the other diplomats who we don't even know what they said because as doing a good job of keeping this information secure. i just have a really difficult time with, as you said,

republicans are attacking way to suppress the substance. and that should be very clear. who have access to everything that's happening here. so, you know, there is no universe in which republicans are being shut out here or if you consider them to represent 50% of americans this is happening behind closed doors and it's happening in a way that we understand this information is secure and sensitive, but republicans are very much being included in the process. so any process argument is just a way to get at substance. >> let's talk about the process because i think the house impeachment process, all of that is now inevitable. at some point there will be a senate trial. and, greg, question to you. you have all but three senate republicans now backing this resolution that lindsey graham introduced all but condemning the impeachment process. and yet these senators are supposed to be neutral jurists. so how does that affect what

will likely be a senate trial perhaps in january or february or maybe in december depending on how it goes. >> it's a senate resolution. it's not a binding sort of thing. the way these resolutions are structured, there are several paragraphs of background and then a couple of real points that close it out as a resolution. they do make some strong arguments that kind of question the motives and the legitimacy of what the house is doing. but the ultimate conclusion, the three points at the end are pretty focused mild process claims. they would like the minority to be able to issue subpoenas in the house. they would like a vote to start the process in the house. at the end of the day it's not really going to matter. what's going to matter is what the house ultimately shows in the next chapter after these closed door meetings. will be public hearings. will be a debate and a vote. it will be on the democrats to make the case that the president ought to be impeached or removed. and that's obviously a high bar and we've got to see what they have and what they are going to

put up. and i think republicans and all senators will react to it at the appropriate time. if the house has run a shotty process, then not only will the president be acquitted. it might boil down to republicans' electoral benefit. but i think we should take our time, and see what the house comes up with. and i expect the senate will do that after the houseworks its process. >> take a breath, we don't do that in cable television, gregg. [ laughter ] up next the president's talking points on impeachment seem to be getting undercut one by one. "kasie dc's" coming back right after this. you just saved a bunch of money by switching your boat insurance to geico. it was easy. folks, can it get any better than this? is that what i think it is? that is an armada of tiny sushi boats. awesome! i forgot to pack lunch. you had one job... chopsticks wasabi and soy!

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say there was pressure. i haven't heard one ukrainian, not one say that there was pressure of any kind. >> but the "associated press" reports that the newly elected president of ukraine was worried about what he may be pressured to do by the president regarding elections even before he took office. meanwhile president trump has also defended the ukraine conversation by saying it wasn't about politics at all, it was about corruption. >> we are looking at corruption. we are not looking at politics. this doesn't pertain to anything but corruption, and that has to do with me. i don't care about politics. i don't care about anything. but i do care about corruption. i never thought biden was going to win. i don't care about politics. but i do care about corruption. and this whole thing is about corruption. >> that defense was undercut this week as well when "the washington post" reported that the trump administration has sought recentedly to cut foreign aid programs tasked with

combating corruption in ukraine. the president and his allies have also made the argument that there was no quid pro quo because the ukrainians didn't even know military aid had been blocked. >> neither he or any other witness has provided testimony that the ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. you can't have a quid pro quo with no quo. >> but now the "new york times" cites interviews and documents that show the word that the aid had been frozen had gotten to the highest level among ukrainian officials by august. well before the now infamous phone call. and then there is the talking point that the impeachment inquiry isn't legitimate until the households a formal vote. >> give president trump these rights that every other president, nixon, clinton, have had, and take a vote to allow the house to be on record authorizing this. this is a rogue action by single committee of the house that has never done impeachment inquiries

before. >> a rogue action. well, a federal judge ruled on friday that the house resolution has never, in fact, been required to begin an impeachment inquiry. the panel is back with me. and, matt, one of the reasons republicans have said to me why you don't hear more of a vociferous defense. >> even when i was at the nrc with the republicans, that was always the most frustrating part. they have been defending him on certain things since 2015. i think sometimes what would get them nervous was they will go out and they will, you know, praise him or praise a decision for a little while. then he'll kind of walk it back. also with the health care bill that passed the house, went to the senate and died in 2017, after the house voted on it, he called it mean. and a lot of house members are really angry over that. the but as i said before, it speaks to the need for a broader strategy. i saw axios reported they are

doing more of a rapid response thing, the right call in theory. but when you have a president who is essentially his own communications director, for better or worse, it can be a little tough to plan in advance on certain things. so i think that's one of the key points that certainly might've gotten him elected the fact that he can talk right to people. but in something like this, it might harm him in the long run. >> and we heard the president say this was all about corruption. the democratic theory of the case that president trump was sporting corruption to ukraine and sending his personal lawyer to manufacture dirt. >> joe biden held no office. perhaps it's not a good look for hunter biden to have been involved with this energy company during the time that his dad was running for president. but he was not holding office during the time that -- you know, he was looking for corruption on joe biden who is not an office holder. this is ultimately about political help. he was not calling to have, you know, wayne messam investigate

it. you don't even know who messam is. [ laughter ] he was not calling to have cory booker investigated. he was calling to have the democratic frontrunner investigated. so it holds no weight that it's not purely political and it's not directed at joe biden. but ultimately what worries me the most here is that we have reached the life cycle of this president politically speaking in d.c. where reasonable republicans, patriots would say we are just going to fall back a little bit here, so i'm going to ask all my good republican friends is why is this the hill you are willing to die on? it is so objectively unethical, it is so objectively smelly. why are you just willing to die on this hill? is that 35% that represents his base that scary? and i think that that's what these current crop of republicans are going to have to answer historically. >> and, gnat asha, one of the things we heard from president trump and lindsey graham this

week was the call was perfect. but the case that democrats are making is it's not about the call, it's what happened before this july 25th call and what happened after it. and so far what democrats have pieced together appears to be a pretty damaging tapestry of evidence. >> right. it's exactly exactly like the p remaining fixa fixated when the whistle-blower blew the whistle-blower, raised the alarm and got the ball rolling but so much evidence after the call that the whistle-blower's evidence doesn't matter anymore. it might be nice for the democrats to have that for more supporting evidence, but are you going to risk the whistle-blower's identity being leaked just to have one more person saying yes, this was a quid pro quo? the republicans and trump, obviously, have come to a realization it's not defensible on the substance. that's why we're seeing this is now a process attack. we're also seeing that the worm being convened every day at 10:00 a.m., that's after the morning shows, after the

narrative has been set. the next day by they hold that war room again, there will be a whole new news cycle. it seems like they're really struggling to find a meaningful, actually significant way to push back on what the democrats are doing. >> natasha bertrand, matt calloway, in the michigan sweatshirt, appreciate it. two wildfires burn, causing nearly 200,000 people to evacuate. stay with us. ple to evacuate stay with us at liberty butchemel... cut. liberty mu... line? cut. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. cut. liberty m... am i allowed to riff? what if i come out of the water? liberty biberty... cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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an estimated 180,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in sonoma county, san francisco. the kinkade fire continues to be fueled by high winds in that area. joining us now is nbc news reporter sam brock. he is in seonoma county. >> reporter: very appropo as the winds began to pick up when you said that. battered homes, simmering hot

spots, which is a real concern. as the winds pick up, especially in the late evening, the worry is that an ember could get caught, carried and all of a sudden start a spot fire which could be quite large. what we saw earlier this morning, apocasm lyptic in a sense. power lines down, trees down, fires on both sides of the highway. very, very dangerous. crews have done an amazing job so far of trying to contain those flames and get people out safely. you mentioned 200,000 people displaced in this event. they all want to get back home and find out what their home looks like at this point. that cannot be done until the risks and dangers have been mitigated here. unfortunately, we're expecting a severe wind event coming up in a couple of days this week. we'll have to see how it plays out. jeff? >> our best to the for examples who are affected there tonight. sam brock in sonoma county. another hour of "kasie d.c." is coming up. i'll speak with brett mcguirk

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welcome back to "kasie d.c.." the parallels are striking, terrorist leader killed by u.s. forces in a daring weekend nighttime raid. no doubt that abu bakr al baghdadi and osama bin laden's deaths were important for american military and intelligence. there's little doubt that the white house is trying to frame this weekend's raid in northern syria as the president's bin laden moment. certainly on president trump's mind this morning when taking questions from the media. >> but this is the biggest there is. this is the worst ever. osama bin laden was very big, but osama bin laden became big with the world trade center. this is a man who built a whole, as he would like to call it, country, a caliphate zp. >> the imagery was also similar, with president trump surrounded by generals.

it seems to mirror president barack obama's. walking to the podium in the middle of the night to inform the nation that the master mind hiepd the 9/11 attack was dead. stark difference to sunday morning announcement and extended news conference and shows the white house may have an uphill climb as the president tries to convince the american public that this moment is, in fact, bigger than bin laden. joining me now from stanford, brett mcguirk, presidential envoy for the global coalition to defeat isis in an nbc news senior foreign affairs analyst. i want to start with you giving us context here. how important was al baghdadi to isis' overall operations? >> thanks for having me. bottom line, it's a landmark day for so many that made this happen. and i've worked very closely and put on a lot of hours and days and weeks out in iraq and syria,

working with the men and women who helped do these sorts of things. so really all my thoughts today are with them and with the victims of isis. tens of thousands of iraqis and syrians, americans. diane foley i sent her a note today, think iing about james a her entire family. kayla mueller, who this operation was named after. it's a hugely significant development. it is very positive. it cannot have been done without years of painstaking work. and i think that's really the most important thing to remember right now. >> and yet does killing the man kill the threat? help us understand the fight that comes next. >> so, isis was a unique terrorist organization because it kind of split from al qaeda and rather than hiding under ground in networks and sales it decided to establish what it called a caliphate, effectively a state with 8 million people

under its domain. and baghdad falsely claimed to have a unique religious credentials and declared himself the caliph of this state. that declaration in 2014 led to so many people, foreign fighters flowing into syria from over 100 countries around the world. 40,000 of them, which swelled the ranks of this terrorist organization. and then those foreign fighters would carry out attacks in the streets of brussels and paris. he is a unique figure. don't get me wrong. his removal does not end isis. isis will remain. they have tens of thousands of fighters on the ground in iraq and syria. our withdrawal from syria makes it very difficult to actually consolidate the gains are this big success. i think that's unfortunate. we have to stay at it. it's very important to stay at it. the loss is significant and we should take a moment to reflect on the victims of isis and the

men and women who made this happen tonight. >> and in a piece you wrote for "the washington post," you wrote our abrupt pullout from syria will make it harder to act on this information, information gleaned from the raid. unpack that argument for us. >> you know, these operations don't just happen. i saw your first segment with craig warren saying it's not a movie. it's not a movie. they happen through really years of painstaking work and developing relationships and developing networks, developing information. and that happens from having people on the ground. when we develop this campaign -- it was developed under president obama and carried forward under president trump with really great continuity with some tactical adjustments. we developed it to have a number of special forces so it was sustainable for the long term, because these things take a long time. syrian democratic forces that grew to 60,000 fighters allowed

us to gather intelligence and pick off isis leaders one by one. that is from all the reporting today, that is really what led us to baghdadi. and tonight, we have intelligence analysts, i'm sure, pouring over the information that's been taken from this compound. then that will be turned into actionable intelligence for follow on operations. the problem is that we've already abandoned most of the northeast syria, which was the isis caliphate over the last three weeks and raqqua, that we had influence over a month ago are now back in the hands of russia and the assad regime. the fact is that it makes it much harder for us to consolidate this and uproot all of these networks. the fact that we've given up this territory makes it more difficult. >> one more question as we think about what comes next. president trump said he wants to keep a small footprint of troops in the region to protect the

oil. one, is that appropriate, given that syria is a sovereign nation? two, is it realistic? the oil that exists there, there's not much of it and it's fairly low quality. give us a reality check of that happening. >> i think what happened here is president trump said basically get out of syria. you had a very rapid unraveling. and our forces are trying to decree act to a cascading set of circumstances, abandoning bases, russians taking them over. the president was convinced to leave some forces in syria, which is probably a good thing. the problem is, and you're exactly right, these regions are kind of in the middle of nowhere in the southeast corner of the whole third of syria we used to have influence over. we've already given up the main kurdish areas in the north of the zone. to say we're going to protect the oil and support the kurds with revenue doesn't really make much sense. and the presence itself -- you

know, i heard the president and senior officials say we want to make sure that a reconstituted isis cannot take control of these oil facilities. that doesn't really make sense. the mission should be and was we want to make sure that isis cannot reconstitute. not that once they do they can't retake control of oil facilities. i think they're trying to hold a tow hold in syria. it's remote. not reliable in the coming months and over longer term. i think they're making this up as we go along. we've already given up territory that would be territory in which our special forces with the syrian kurds would be following up and information gleaned from the raid last night on the baghdadi compound and we're not going to be able to do that. that's unfortunate. >> brett mcguirk, thank you for joining us. appreciate it. democratic congressman bennie thompson of mississippi, chairman of the committee on homeland security. i want to get you to react to

the fact that you were among the congressional leaders who were not informed in advance about this al baghdadi operation. how do you respond to that, react to that? >> first of all, let me thank the men and women who did participate in this successful effort. you know, our president continues to try to divide us. in the past we joined as a nation to fight a common enemy. i wish the president would understand that and quit trying to divide us. it's unfortunate. the fact that the speaker of the united states house of representatives and a lot of other of us had to see this play out on tv. this is really not how it should be done. >> and what's your overall reaction to your news of the

day, that this isis leader died by a raid of special u.s. forces? >> you know, i just returned from afghanistan, jordan and qatar last week. i talked to a lot of our intelligence officials, some of our military people. they're doing a good job but it has to be a steady job. you can't health lter skelter, what we're doing in that region of the world. i'm concerned because we have a lot of lives at risk. more importantly, there's still a threat to the homeland because of what's occurring in that part of the world. as chair of the committee, i want to be informed just like any chair would. for some reason, this sprays decides to cut democrats out of the information loop. we support our men and women in uniform. we don't talk about our intelligence gathering entities.

we support them. i wish i president would do likewi likewise. >> let's turn for a moment to the impeachment inquiry. chairman thompson you asked the house sergeant at arms to take action against that group of republicans that took cell phones into the classified area on the house side that delayed depositions about five hours. talk me through your decision making there. >> it's quite clear. every member of congress signs an oath of office when you are elected and sworn in. one of those requirements is handling classified information. that information is provided to us in a sterile environment, in something called a scif. that scif is highly protected, very secure and should not be breached. electronics is an absolute no no. any time we're in that facility we have to give up all of our

electronics, cell phones, bluetooth, anything like that. as well, there's an on guard at the scif door that's under the direction house sergeant in arms. so the notion is, these renegade members of congress just decided to they're going to ignore the rules, the oath of office they signed to protect this classified information and breach this facility. now this breach means we now have to recertify this facility. i'm not certain that that can be done, because there were too many men breaching this facility. now, what you understand, they ordered pizza. they ordered wings. it was just a mess. and here we are, in a facility designed to manage secure,

classified information. and our men are in, acting like a frat party. >> chairman thompson i want to end on this i know you were a friend of the late congressman, elijah cummings. first of all, my condolences in the loss of your good friend. the question, though, is how do you picture the future of congress really without his influence, this huge void? he was this force for moral leadership. had a deep and abiding passion. could still make it plain for folks that this country faces and that voice is now gone. where do we go next? >> well, we lost a champion. elijah cummings was a true patriot. he was somebody who not just loved his district, but he loved this country. he spent every waking moment trying to make this country a better place. despite the criticism that he

received, he marched on. we collaborated on a number of areas. he was always a statesman. he was a gentleman. and there's no question. his leadership in this institution will be greatly missed. >> congressman bennie thompson, thanks for your time this evening. i appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. >> sure. >> let's bring in jonathan swan now, national political reporter for axios. jonathan i want to return to the big news of the day. you're such a keen observer of all things trump related. take us into the white house. we heard the president go into very specific detail, that baghdadi was chased down like a dog and was william perfehimper. how was he trying to describe

this to his benefits. >> he was trying to describe baghdadi not as a mighty figure but pathetic figure, used words like whimpering, crying, screaming. talked about osama bin laden using his wife as a human shield. trump talked about baghdadi using three children and blowing them up. obviously, he wanted to make a huge event of it. he sees this as one of his signature victories. 9:00 a.m., i don't know the planning. i didn't talk to anyone about this inside, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was partly to do with the fact that this set up all the sunday shows. i don't think that's particularly unusual, that the president would want to create maxim packet with an announcement like that. >> you recently sat down with

the president of iraq. we saw a clip of it last hour for an interview that aired on axios hbo. he told you he was concerned about what's happening in syria. >> five years of blood, treasure, effort. a lot of human misery went into defeating isis. this was not easy. and for anyone to become complacent about it is terrible. it's dangerous, tragic. >> it sounds like you're worried about what president trump has done in northern syria. >> the entire neighborhood is concerned about the implications of this policy. >> that's a striking statement from an important u.s. partner. >> to understand this, sala, president of iraq, is a very careful statesman. he chooses his words very carefully. he is one of the most pro-american leaders in the

middle east. he has relied on american friendship and is an ally. i was in baghdad monday, interviewed him at the presidential palace. he spoke -- i've watched every interview he has ever done on western media. this is the most raw, and in some ways, vulnerable i've ever seen him. he truly feels extremely concerned about the direction of u.s. policy in the middle east. he is worried about this american withdrawal. and when i said to him how are you thinking, he said we're having to recalibrate. used the word recalibrate. i said what does that mean? he said rethink our relationship with the u.s. i said does that mean iran, russia? he said of course. this is a man who has relied on american friendship, desperately wants america to remain an ally but now has to re-evaluate and is looking to russia and iran. >> russia and iran could step into the void. >> russia already has. it's happened very quickly. >> jonathan swan, the president

loops in russian, syrian kurds about the raid but not congressmen. pramila jayapal joins me and trump joins the astros and nationals at the world series. os and get way more. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. for small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair.com

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out of the loop of the operation to kill baghdadi, where the top lead were the top leaders of the u.s. congress. the white house isn't required to brief them but someone generally does, like when leon panetta kept them in the loop to the raid of osama bin laden. >> they wanted to keep this as close as possibly could, knowing operational security would jeopardize and could accelerate his packing up and leaving. >> when were you told about the mission again? >> i've been talking to mr. panetta over these four months and over this weekend. we knew when the president authorized it and we had some discussions that it was likely to happen and then got a call after it happened. >> the gang of eight was left out and president trump framed his reasons as dire. take a look at this. >> have you notified the congressional leaders about this, pelosi?

>> we notified some. others are being notified now as i speak. we were going to notify them last night but we decided not to do that because washington leaks like i've never seen before. there's nothing -- there's no country in the world that leaks like we do. and washington is a leaking machine. and i told my people we will not notify them until our great people are out. not just in, but out. i don't want to have them greeted with fire power like you wouldn't believe. a leak -- a leak could have caused the death of all of them. >> jonathan swan is back with us. also joining me on set is andrew desiderio, rick tyler, republican strategist and co-founder of foundry strategies, msnbc political analyst and lonnie chen, domestic policy studies and former policy adviser to the romney campaign. thanks to each of you for joining us tonight. andrew, i want to start with you. president trump said he didn't

tell congressional leaders or house speaker nancy pelosi because he was afraid she might leak it. it's deeply insulting to the house speaker but also extraordinary, given that traditionally these kind of operations, top congressional leaders, the gang of eight, are confirmed. >> i talked to an aide who said exactly what you said, the fact that nancy pelosi would impact information like this and harm our troops abroad and impact national security is appalling. mike rogers, republican chairman of the house chairman committee was in loop for four months and, of course, that never got out. that is the standard protocol on capitol hill. i think this shows more broadly is the collateral damage from the impeachment inquiry. it's preventing the president from even having a basic working relationship with matters completely unrelated to impeachment and related directly to our national security as a country. the collateral damage is having a big effect on everything not related to impeachment. >> rick tyler, i'm one of your

avid twitter followers. on twitter you wrote about this, so says the guy who gave israeli intelligence to russians in the oval office. >> nancy pelosi had access to classified information for two decades and i don't know that she's ever been involved in a classified leak information. let's not forget, trump wasn't exactly in the loop on this either. this planning to get al baghdadi had been under way for quite some time. the president clearly wasn't read in on that. and now the new york times had a story this afternoon that he was not informed and so he wasn't in the loop. why? probably because he's the biggest leaker in town. >> and, lonnie, we know that the president, he said, leaned on lindsey graham and richard burr for some advice, chairman of the senate intelligence committee. how in a normal universe, normal white house works this process have played out? >> you would have had regular

consultations with the gang of eight, intelligence committee chairs would have been read in, ranking member ons both sides would have been read in. you would have seen a process play out where the select number of people on capitol hill would have gotten information. not operational details but this is going on. we have a target identified. here are things you need to know about the timing. really it's done out of an effort to be collegial, to try to be bipartisan. when you don't do that, you start to see the breakdown of some of those norms. >> the impeachment inquiry picks up tomorrow. clearly the white house would like us all to focus on this victory for the country and for the white house. >> the testimony this week that most people, by far, the most important testimony is tim morrison. he will be the first current white house official involved in the events testifying. he is a senior official on the national security council responsible for russia and europe and has been implicated in a lot of these events.

bill taylor mentioned him 15 times in his testimony. the reason people are so -- there's so much spence inside the white house about his testimony is people are trying to parcel out, what is he doing here? the white house counsel put that out i'm supposed to do this -- >> apologies to the s.e.c. >> is that legal? >> a lot of them have taken that direction. others have said no, we're not going to testify. politico quoted his lawyer saying if we get a subpoena we'll testify. the question is, how damaging is his testimony? does it support bill taylor's version of events? he actually has firsthand information that bill taylor didn't have. i believe he was on the phone call. >> yeah, he was. >> the relevant phone call with zelensky. so, this is the one to watch. and people in the white house are very anxiously awaiting that

one. >> our panel will sit tight. when we come back, i'm joined live by congresswoman pramila ja jayapal as a judge rules the white house needs to turn over documents. turn over documents. when you take align, you have the support of a probiotic and the gastroenterologists who developed it. align naturally helps to soothe

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joining me now is democratic congresswoman pramila jayapal, senior whip for the democratic caucus. thanks for being with us. >> great to be with you. >> the russian government was told about the raid and death of al baghdadi before nancy pelosi was notified. what do you make of this lack of communication or more to the point lack of trust between the white house and legislative branch? >> it's really outrageous to suggest that nancy pelosi could be a leak. this is the speaker of the house. she has tremendous experience. she has never been accused of such a thing before. i think the deepest problem here is donald trump is continuing to politicize our national security, and that's a problem for all of us, you know. so i think this cannot continue. we are a co-equal branch of

government and he has a responsibility to congress to make sure that we have this information that our leaders have this information and that we're all making these decisions together, or being informed of the decisions as they're being made. >> and to your point, after he announced the successful raid, his campaign sent out this text. it says this. president trump has brought the number one terrorist leader to justice. is he keeping america safe. rate his job performance. take our poll in the next hour. you talk about politicizing national defense and politicizing the military. this takes it to a different degree, it appears. >> it really does. and, look, we just have to say that, first of all, we are grateful to the troops. we are grateful to the intelligence agencies and to the kurds who took a very dangerous person off the streets. al baghdadi is somebody who literally caused the deaths of thousands of people and the displacement of so many more. but let's be clear that the

situation in syria is far from stable because of donald trump's actions. most recently, he has not listened to the same people that he listened to, apparently, on the raid. instead he created chaos in syria. if we are to succeed against isis, we have to have a coordinated, strategic plan that includes our global allies and that listens to our intel and american community, something that donald trump has apparently refused to do in multiple situations. so, this is a serious problem for us going forward as well. >> let's talk impeachment. house republicans, as you well know, claim they were being left out of the closed door impeachment testimonies and they continue to attack the process. this morning, though, former republican congressman trey gowdy of the benghazi committee. >> if you're going to have

unlimited time for cross examining witnesses that's a good thing. what's not a good thing is to have selective leaks where you pick one sentence out of an eight-hour deposition, run to a bank of microphones and try to prejudice the outcome of the investigation. >> so, first of all, go ahead. >> well, i'm sorry. i was just responding almost immediately because i was thinking about bill barr and the mueller report. and thinking about the way in which the mueller report was intercepted by bill barr, the attorney general of the united states, who was actually acting like the attorney general for the president and actually misled the public about what was in there. but, look, i think in general on this process, the chair -- you kn know, there were 72 people in the room for bill taylor's deposition. that is a quarter of members of congress were in that room. that included both republicans and democrats. republicans had equal time to question the witnesses. everything will be released through public depositions and

there will be a public process as chairman schiff and nancy pelosi has aid sa. the fact that they're trying to criticize the process and somehow start criticizing the kinds of things that they have actually been the leaders of is somewhat amusing. the whole thing is not amusing. the whole issue here is that the president has aabused the power of the white house. he has asked a foreign ally to dig up dirt on his political rival, interfere in the 2020 elections and, by the way, when would over -- almost $400 million of military assistance to ukraine that congress had already authorized. that is a betrayal of our national security. it is a betrayal of our constitution and certainly of our values and very, very dangerous. >> we have another week ahead of us of closed door testimony which, for me, is another week of standing in hallways. same thing for andrew desidirio

here. any sense on when we'll get >> what's happening is every day we get a new witness that tells us something even more. now i will say that all of these witnesses are adding color to a story but let's be clear that the primary witness here, the number one witness came very early and publicly to the american people and that was donald trump, who admitted to doing all of this and betraying our values and our national security. we are filling in color now but every witness who comes forward and suddenly tells us that there were more people who knew about this or more people that were involved with this or on the telephone, we do have an obligation to follow up on some of those things. at some point the picture is going to be so clear here -- i think it's already pretty clear, frankly. but we are going to have to move

to closing this part of the investigation and then, of course, all the committees would move into public and then all of the reports from the different committees would be sent to the swrushry committee, where i am a member. and we would decide what the next steps are from there. >> friday afternoon a judge ruled that your committee should have access to the grand jury information related to the mueller report. the doj is expected to appeal it. how confident are you that your committee will get the thing that you've been seeking for months now? >> we will get it. the most important line, i thought, in that whole opinion -- i haven't read the entire piece of it but on page two, at the bottom of page two it says the doj is wrong. the judge says the doj is wrong. what she's referring to is that the doj and the trump administration were trying to make an argument that somehow because we hadn't had a vote on the floor of the house for an impeachment investigation, we were not really in an impeachment investigation.

therefore, we didn't have the right to have the papers that we were seeking. what the judge said very clearly in this opinion is that there is absolutely no precedent for that and that we are entitled to all of this information. so, it debunked all of that. the trump administration may try to hold this up in court for a little bit longer. the fact that we are in an impeachment investigation very clearly means any higher court would have to rule on this very quickly, given the serious, substantive nature of what we're talking about. >> got it. congresswoman pramila jayapal, see you on capitol hill this week. >> sounds good. see you in the corridors. the president says he is the team when it comes to countering the impeachment probe as his chief of staff speaks out about the warning he issued before leaving. we're back after this. issued be leaving. we're back after this. could the right voice, the right set of words, bring us all just a little closer?

get us to open up? even push us further? it could, if we took the time to listen. the most inspiring minds, the most compelling stories. download audible and listen for a change.

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i'm speaking with myself, number one, because i have a very good brain, but i speak to a lot of people miechlt primary consultant is myself. >> i have john bolton, who i would definitely say is a hawk. and i have other people who are on the other side of the equation and ultimately i make the decision, so it doesn't matter. >> it's a lot of fun to work with donald trump, and it's very easily to work with him. do you know why it's easy? i make all the decisions. and do all the work. >> president trump has always seen himself as his best adviser. it appears he's now using that same go it alone strategy when

it comes to countering the impeachment inquiry. >> i don't have teams. everyone is talking about teams. i'm the team. i did nothing wrong. >> but jonathan swan reports that top trump officials have quietly created a de facto impeachment war room that meets most mornings at 10:00 a.m. we're hearing scrutiny from past officials. >> we were still. ♪ process of trying to find someone to take my place. i said whatever you do, don't hire a yes man, someone that's going to tell you -- won't tell you the truth. don't do that. because if you do, i believe you'll be impeached. i have an awful lot, to say the least, second thoughts about leaving because whether you like mr. trump or not, he is the president of the united states. >> all right. jonathan swan, andrew desidirio,

10:00 a.m. for impeachment war room seems a little late in the day. >> few things have happened by then. i would say the main challenge for them is that the lawyers aren't in the room. it's a messaging coordination meeting but there's been a complete breakdown in communication and really relationship between the white house counsel and the chief of staff, mick mulvaney. others in the administration have been frustrated with the lack of information that is coming out of the white house counsel's office. so, look, they're doing the best they can. they're working for a principle, a president as you showed is never going to take direction on messaging or be crafted or molded into anything. so they're always going to be playing catch-up, they're always going to be reacting. that's the way it works with donald trump. look, they have what they have. i thought john kelly's comments were fairly amusing, given that i have great regrets about leaving. you didn't really have much a choice, mate. like you weren't on speaking terms with the president by the

time you left. i don't think this was sort of, ooh, should i stay or should i go. it was pretty much a done deal. >> this notion, rick tyler, john kelly saying i told him if he got a yes man, he was going to get impeached. here we are. what do you make of that? i don't even have a good question for you. >> jonathan's comment is true, he probably didn't have a choice but to leave but the advice was good, he always surrounds him with yes men. democrats can only hope he is his impeachment adviser. as of now he is going to be impeached. that's what's going to happen. the idea of trump -- they aren't doing the best they can, jonathan. you can't start a war room meeting at 10:00 a.m. in the morning, because the whole day's newscycle is over. >> okay, rick. put yourself in the situation of dealing with a president who is

never going to listen to your advice. all you're doing is playing scramble and catch up on messaging. and you've got a white house counsel's office that has a very dysfunctional relationship with the chief of staff. you could have the meeting at 6:00 a.m., rick. >> that would toob late. trump usually started tweeting around 5:00 and 6:00. >> do it at 4:30. >> backfill, which is right. >> okay. >> at least be up. >> 4:30, great. >> at least explain it on the morning show, what the hell he said. >> and then he'll tweet during the show and it will change, so good luck with that. >> all right. andrew, this is precisely why, one of the reasons why republicans are still attacking the process and underlying issues because they don't know the process, what the message is. >> i did nothing wrong. >> from white house and congressional republicans, ever since -- before the ukraine scandal the president was incredibly successful at prev t

preventing witnesses from testifying. done mcgahn, hope hicks. corey lewandowski showed up but made a joke of the whole process. as jonathan mentioned earlier in the show, tim morrison, chief of the national security council or russia, will be coming in, first current white house official which will make another tumble in the stonewall that the white house put up that will be crumbling. yesterday alone, philip riker, source familiar with his testimony, told me that he tried to get a show of support from marie yovanovitch and the higher-ups, political people tried to prevent that. right? it's not just from the white house perspective where they feel like the walls are closing in on them. it's from the pentagon and state department as well. >> charles cumberland, supposed to testify tomorrow, said he's not able to because the white

house invokes constitutional immunity. is that executive privilege on steroids? do they have a ground to make that argument? >> it's attached to the notion that the executive -- president has the sole responsibility for executing the laws and, in so doing, there's some group of or set of information that's privileged. that presumably is what he was referring to. i think the biggest challenge in this entire process is that if you don't know where things are headed, if you don't know where things are ending, if you don't know where the drip, drip, drip is going to end, it's hard to craft the defense. that's the challenge that all these guys are dealing with. >> lahnee chen, rick tyler, andrew desidirio, thank you. de. we present limu emu & doug with this key to the city. [ applause ] it's an honor to tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. and now we need to get back to work.

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former michigan congressman john conyers jr. has died. he represented detroit and the surrounding area for more than 50 years, which made him the longest serving african-american in congress in history. he was well known for his work in the civil rights movement. he pushed for declaring martin luther king jr.'s birthday a national holiday and rosa parks

worked in his district office. and he was a founding member of the congressional black caucus he started in 1969. he was endlessly quotable calling carter a well intentioned nerd who will never get past his first administration. despite his successes, his legacy was clouded by sexual harassment allegations. he resigned after the claims surfaced in 2017. he passed away today at his home in detroit. john conyers was 90 years old. when we come back, the kasie dvr. dvr. why is that? it ain't got that vacuum in the back! we got to go. ♪ vacuum in the back, hallelujah! ♪ for your worst sore throat pain try vicks vapocool drops. it's not candy, it's powerful relief. ahhhhhh!

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we want to get right to that breaking news. president trump announcing. >> u.s. special forces killed the leader of isis. >> this is a great day for america. >> the men and women of our armed services executed this mission flawlessly. >> we had eyes on what was happening in real-time. >> you painted a vivid picture of him dying a cowardly death. >> it makes me uncomfortable to hear a president talking that way. >> in terms of notifying the gang of eight, that wasn't done. >> why didn't the president notify the speaker of the house? >> chris, i just want to emphasis the president's focus here. >> he thanked russia first and the kurds last. should we read into that? >> no. >> we had had four officials under oath.

are they lying? >> there is no quid pro quo. no quid pro quo. no quid pro quo. >> they felt pressure. no doubt they felt pressure. >> we're going to give him a fair process. >> when are you going to go home? >> we will be doing public hearings. >> they shifted their review of the 2016 russia probe to what they call a criminal investigation. >> we don't know what that criminal aspect is. >> bill barr on the president's behalf is weaponizing the justice department to go after the president's enemies. hats off to our producer who put together tonight's kasie dvr. that does it for us. here is arie melber with a look at what's up next. hey, everyone. i have been reporting of the

trump and ukraine impeachment crisis. we have another and different special program for you. "bowling for combine" as well as a conversation i had with michael moore. many people have said, when it comes to guns this film is as relevant as ever. i will be back next sunday at this time for our separate and continuing series on donald trump's impeachment crisis. as always, thanks for watching. this is an msnbc special presentation. hello. i'm joining you for something important. each time there is a mass shooting in the united states, there are heart-breaking images of innocent people killed and injured and families and communities that will never be the same, schools, synagogues, churches, nightclubs, the shopping centers. it feels like no place is spared. then we face the questions and go through this ritual,