house impeachment inquiry. a lot of things digging more into the -- what happened in that sort of rough transcript, that national security council member who testified yesterday saying he was trying to get more information into that. this is not an exact transcript, which has been shared. it's a rough tripleanscript. there's a lot of ellipses, and what are those gaps hiding. >> live for us in washington, d.c., we appreciate it. we're going to be reading "axios" in just a bit. >> that does it for us on this wednesday morning, i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. "morning joe" starts right now. and it seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about ukrainian defense. i don't know that he's concerned about american policy, but his main mission was to make sure the ukraine got those weapons. i understand that. we all have an affinity to our homeland. >> ooh, how did we sink to such a low point that someone would openly question the loyalty of an american combat veteran in the name of partisan politics?

well. >> he's a war hero -- he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured. >> if you look at his wife, she was standing there. she had nothing to say. maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. you tell me, but plenty of people have written that. >> this was a mission that was started before i got here. this was something that was, you know, just they wanted to do, and they lost ryan. >> i learned a lot about generals. i met some good ones, and i saw some bad ones, some that didn't have what it takes. >> i mean, it really is incredible that, again, he's questioned war heroes all the time. he's attacked the greatest generals of this generation. he said that mattis did little to nothing for him. his spokesperson this past week was talking about how general john kelly a man who dedicated h his life was a great general, one of the best generals, who lost his son in combat.

couldn't understand the genius of donald trump. he talks like a tyrant when he talks about how when i took over the military, that is actually -- he's more like as john meacham reminded me yesterday, more like king louis the xiv. >> we'll get into all that, for shawn duffy, for laura ingraham, for all these people who wanted to throw mud all over an american hero over someone who has given literally his life, and by the way, whose three children are serving. this is incredible what played out over the past 48 hours, and it has blown back in their face, mud on their faces looking bad this morning and not serving the president well, which ask mick mulvaney this morning how that's going for him. >> where's mick? >> trying to trump for trump. good morning. >> hold on a second. >> where is mick?

>> where is mick? he didn't know anything about this, which, again proves you debase yourself. you sacrifice everything you believe in. mulvaney was supposedly a deficit hawk, but you just completely debase yourself politically and then you get nothing in return. you're left in south carolina playing golf or whatever mulvaney was doing, and didn't know anything about it. >> yeah. >> i wanted -- maybe he'll end up in orange ruffles and green ruffles in "dancing with the stars" a couple of years from now. i wanted to talk about something your father said. it's very relevant to the lieutenant colonel. we were interviewing him one time, and he said that when he first walked into the white house he understood how lucky he was as a polish immigrant, and he said as he walked into the white house he said to himself i'm going to dedicate every

moment of my life, the rest of my life will be to work, to defend and give everything i can to this country to pay back to this country what it's given to me. and that's what lieutenant colonel vindman has done. he sacrificed in combat. his children are now in uniform. i wonder all those people who were talking the lieutenant colonel if they've served in uniform. i wonder if shawn duffy east served in uniform. i know that vindman and his children have. again, i think laura ingraham actually did a great disservice for the president of the united states because everybody stopped talking about el baghdadi and started talking about how heinous it was what she and others -- i didn't hear what -- >> duffy was on mtv. >> i didn't hear what the guy

who was involved in the epstein case said. they were all, though, trashing -- all trashing vindman, and all it did was it completely redirected the talk from al baghdadi to this story. so sometimes strufwhen you're t to help the president by saying something outrageous, we've gotten to the point in the process where that may have worked in 2016 and 2017. it doesn't work anymore. >> don't forget the story of america. a lot of us are children of immigrants or immigrants. >> it's a really good story. >> albert einstein came from germany, helped us win the war. >> good morning. >> good story. this american story, ronald reagan talked about it in his farewell address to the country. he said we become a stronger country with waves and waves of immigrants coming in, well, lieutenant colonel vindman certainly showed that. we salute you lieutenant colonel vindman, and we certainly salute

your children who are serving proudly in uniform. >> welcome to "morning joe," it is wednesday october 30th, along with joe, willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, msnbc contributor clint watts, heidi przybyla. >> we're going to get to vindman in a second. there is a lot of news. we would be remiss, willie geist if we didn't talk about one of the great world series games of our time, game six. one of the great series of our time, willie. the home team has yet to win this game, and the first time in the history of the series, first time since 1903. >> yeah, the first time, in fact, in the history of the four major sports in a seven-game series hockey, basketball, that this has happened that the road team has won every game. incredible game last night, .

stephen strasburg was great after the first inning, took the game into the 9th inning. there was some controversy in this game. the nationals were -- >> soto carries the bat to 1st base just like bregman. >> bregman actually apologized after the game is and said he wished he hadn't done that maybe because of what soto did next. the controversy came with them up 3-2. trey turner hits a little nubber, beats it out to 1st base. he goes to second. the runner ahead of him goes to third. it looks like the nats have second and third and a chance to go up big. the ump inexplicably calls runner interference, big delay, big review, trey turner is called out, but then as nats fans are dreading the worst, anthony rendon hits a home run. after that inning the nationals manager dave martinez going nuts gets run out of the game. >> while the crowd is singing take me out to the ball game. >> and then rendon hits another

double 7-2 the nationals win. so now this is the scenario we talked about yesterday, which is if they could beat verlander in game six, if strasburg could have the game a lot of people thought he could have and he did, now you get to a game seven with one of the best pitchers of this generation, max scherzer starting for the nationals. they have a great shot as the underdog to win the world series. >> oh, my goodness. momentum in baseball lasts as long as your next night's pitcher, and strausburg, again, he has a slow start this is not the first time he had a slow start, but man, he went into the 9th inning, what an incredible job he did. and also, let's talk about the controversy last nagight. i think that may have been the worst call in any world series since remember the '85 world series, the cardinals royals.

he was in the line right there. in the line. >> well, here's the deal on that, joe. it's a judgment call from the umpire. they have the exact same play occur in game four of last year's world series involving cody bellinger of the dodgers, he was the runner, same exact play and he was called safe, but all in all baseball and the concerned needed that game. we need this world series given everything else that we're going to talk about today, baseball is such a relief. thank god for baseball, and the idea of stephen strasburg performing the way he did last night, he is clearly the team's mvp no matter what happens tonight because without stephen strasburg last night there's no tonight. this is the last baseball game of the year for us mika, so we won't be talking about this until like pitchers and catchers report. >> i kind of like the nationals, i went to that game. >> what an exciting, great team.

what a great story. verlander one of the greatest pitchers of our generation, he just looks gassed. he's having trouble in the fall. chris sale is a great pitcher through like july the 3rd. verlander is starting to look gassed now, and it's just -- it's tough, but it happens. it's a hell of a long season. >> yeah, he's 0-6 in world series games. like scherzer one of the greatest pitchers of any generation, but he doesn't get it done in the world series. i think they hoped he'd take the ball last night and win the game. the nationals have gotten through cole, they've gotten through verlander and now they're to zack grin key. . a great pitcher in his own right. >> everything plays. >> this is one of the great series. jack and i went up to see a few games. >> i know, good memory. >> this past weekend, and just

great people the nationals, the whole organization. >> it's another late night ahead of us. >> i've got to say too, and we'll leave after this, leave baseball after this, but you know, mike and willie, this astros team, they're just -- i can't remember a team any better than this. every one of those players, and yes, bregman carries the bat to 1st base and yeah, sometimes he seems like out there. what a great player, though. he throws himself all in it. altuve has such a wonderful time, springer, like they're great top to bottom. it's an incredible houston astros team. >> it is an incredible team. it's obviously the best team in baseball so far. might not be at the end of the evening this evening, but the nationals as well, i mean, trey turn turner, their shortstop. anthony rendon is going to be a free agent. he's going to make hundreds of

millions of dollars. if you watch this guy perform on a day-to-day inning by inning basis, he absolutely shows no emotion whatsoever, no matter the circumstances, and guess what he does despite the look of lack of emotion, he performs as you're about to see right here, here it comes, anthony rendon moments after the controversial call at 1st base, boom, see ya later. >> and that was set up, joe, that play at 1st, that awful call at 1st was set up to be a black mark, maybe part of the history of the washington nationals, and he just ended the conversation with that swing and was like don't worry about this. i got it, guys. >> hometown kid says hold my beer, and walks up to the plate. to the impeachment probe now and the parts of the phone call at the center of the inquiry that the white house apparently omitted from the memo. remember the memo that they released that basically kind of explained how it all worked? >> the transcript.

>> the revelations come from lieutenant colonel alexander vindman. the top ukraine expert on the national security council who testified for more than ten hours yesterday. according to a lawmaker who was present for his testimony and another source familiar with it vindman told investigators that he tried to edit the white house's reconstructed transcript to reflect president trump's mention of possible recordings of joe biden discussing ukraine corruption, and ukrainian president zelensky specific mention of the gas company burisma, which hired biden's son hunter. president trump's mention of a biden recording appears to be a reference to the widely circulated video of the former vice president speaking at an event for the council on foreign relations. according to the "new york times," vindman testified that some of his edits made it into the reconstructed transcript, but not the ones about the tape

and zelensky's burisma comment. he did not speculate as to why the mentions of joe bidenen a a burisma remained omitted. so this revelation contradicts the president's repeated claims that the white house released an exact transcript of the phone call. here he is as recently as monday. >> they tried to take that conversation and make it into a big scan ddal. the problem was we had it transcribed. it was an exact transcription of the conversation. the whistle-blower reported a totally different conversation than i had. i released the transcript of my conversation, an exact transcript. >> i thought that i would finish off the first term without the threat of people making false claims, but this one turned out to be incredible all because they didn't know that i had a transcript done by very, very talented people word for word,

comma for comma, done by people that do it for a living. we had an exact transcript. >> willie, the lying, the lying is so -- it's breathtaking. >> astronomical. >> i mean, the actual document of that, quote, exact transcript released by the white house says on page 1, caution, a memorandum of a telephone conversation is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. the text records the notes assigned to listen and memorial a conversation in written form as the conversation takes place, not a transcript. so the president says exact transcript, word for word transcript, comma for comma, he's lying. we knew he was lying from day one, just like we knew he was lying about baghdadi that the dog when i say peispered to him

baghdadi had whimpered and cried. and the story about china, china called last night. which of like the 2 billion called? and now this exact transcript. so we knew he was lying from the beginning but now we find out that they would not put in the most damaging parts of that transcript and the lieutenant colonel tried to get them to do it, and they refused. >> yeah, we always knew this wasn't an exact transcript. how did we know? because of what you just showed, it was written on the top of the document this was not an exact triple transcript. no matter how many times the president sauce it doesn president says it it doesn't become true. you see a bunch of ellipse in that summary that the white house put out of the phone call. we wondered what was in those

blanks and now you have mentions of joe biden, mention by president zelensky of burisma. this testimony, again, from colonel vindman, we had it yesterday morning with the opening statement. now very specific testimony confirming that the white house tinkered with the document. it also explains why they had it locked up and hidden the full transcript in that classified server usually reserved for top secret material. >> it's remarkable because every day we learn of one more person that heard about this phone call, that knew about this phone call that when they come forward or tried to do something inside the what houite house, this col tried to bring it up to the chain of command. he tried to correct that transcript that we see is missing these key elements of information. when they get called to testify, colonel vindman is going to say the truth, right? he's been serving this country for basically two decades. he knows what this policy is that we're supposed to be pushing in ukraine.

then when you watch both the republicans and congressmen, when you watch the president immediately tear down this individual's credibility, it just sticks out like a sore thumb that there is something going on that the white house wants to hide. >> and mike, go ahead. >> i was just going to say the president's attack was that colonel vindman is a quote, never trumper. there's no evidence for that. it almost goes without saying there's no evidence for that. i thought it was interesting we asked yesterday morning would congressional republicans fall in line with this line of attack on colonel vindman that he was somehow a double agent because he speaks ukrainian. i didn't see a lot of republicans going there. they went other places. they tried to distract. it was very interesting that it was almost limited to the tv talkers who had no stakes in it except to protect donald trump on television. when confronted with this, i didn't see a lot of congressional republicans willing to go against colonel

vindman. >> in fact, they defended him. >> i also want to say a word about something else that's been going on over the course of the last several hours ask last night, which i think is also shameful, and that is questioning the patriotism, questioning the dedication to country of people like mr. vindman, lieutenant colonel vindman who will be coming today and others who have testified. i think that we need to show that we are better than that as a nation. their patriotism, their love of country, we're talking about decorated veterans who have served this nation, who have put their lives on the line, and it is shameful to question their patriotism, their love of this nation, and we should not be involved in that process. >> i thank him for his service. i think his commitment to this country, but he is wrong in this. >> i'm not going to question the patriotism of any of the people who are coming forward. >> it's absurd, disgusting and way off the mark. this is a decorated american soldier, and he should be given

the respect that his service to our country demands. >> so mike barnicle, you have liz cheney talking about how shameful this was yesterday morning. mitt romney said it was disgusting, and i thought it was very interesting what mitch mcconnell said and it was very important what mitch mcconnell said. he didn't just defend lieutenant colonel vindman. he said i'm not going to question the patriotism of any of these people coming forward. here you had, again, donald trump and republicans trying for some time to do great violence to the whistle-blower statutes that are supposed to keep our government, you know, talk about keeping it transparent and keeping corruption out of it, and mitch talked about how we shouldn't question the patriotism of any of these people coming forward. i thought that was very significant.

just as a side note, and mika would agree with me here, i've been unbelievably harsh. he had one of the more moving remembrances of elijah cummings in the capitol. think about the message. we always talk about the message that donald trump sends across the world, the bad message. think about the message this is sending to our allies across the world. if reminds me of a guy who came up to me several years ago and he said you americans, you americans get it wrong all the time. he said but in the end, but in the end it's like a hollywood movie. you somehow right the ship and end up where you're supposed to be. think about the message that these staff members can come forward, tell the truth, and bring transparency to this process. you think at the end of the day we're talking about ending corruption in ukraine. music, i think this message that

vindman sends and this entire process sends, that's the message that america wants to get out there, not that donald trump is going to go down politically but in america at the end of the day whistle-blowers can come out. they can be protected and yes, even republicans will defend them. >> you know, joe, what's interesting there were two levels of great interest in this story when it comes to colonel vindman. one obviously is his courage in coming forward. it takes a lot. he still works at the nsc in the white house. it takes a lot for him to come forward. coupled with that is his personal story and when you see colonel vindman right there coming into the capital, at the top of his medal bracket on his left-hand side of his chest there is something that very few people have that you really don't go out of your way to get. it's called the combat infantry

badge. it means you've been shot at. you've been in an active combat situation. it's his personal story combined with the fact that he has the courage to come forward that i think would rivet the attention of people around the globe when they think about it or when they hear about it. he came to america with his twin brother, his father, and his grandmother when he was 3 years of age. his family built a life in this country. he joined the -- >> didn't they escape the soviet union? >> yes, yes, they did. >> escaped the soviet union laura ingraham, escaped the soviet union, john yu, escaped the soviet union shawn duffy. >> their mother died. their father worked multiple jobs and then worked on trying to learn english at night. this is how much this family wanted to be in america. came here for the values of american life. >> and what did the country mean to them?

the country meant so much to them and means so much to them on a daily basis, the things that most of us who were born here take for granted, meant great things for him and his brother. both of them in the military, and colonel vindman's children two of them, in the military. this is a uniquely american story. >> it also just keeps bringing up why does the white house want to destroy the reputation of every entity of the government that is dealing with russia or ukraine. if it's the fbi counter intelligence division that's working against russian espionage. >> good question. >> if it's the u.s. army lieutenant colonel who is our ukraine expert, he served in moscow, he served in kiev. he served on the battlefields. if it's bill taylor the u.s. ambassador who was picked as an appointee by trump or if it's the u.s. intelligence committee's whistle-blower. when you look across the board, it has decimated our abilities to do anything in terms of

countering russia, dealing with ukraine how could we ever be a trusted partner, and this lieutenant colonel vindman he is our guy to do that. he has served, you know, ambassador mcfall was talking about it last night. he's worked with all of our top diplomats. you look at this gentleman. is he going to be able to go back into the white house and effectively perform his job. certainly he's going to be scrutinized because we've seen how petty the white house has been to these personnel who have gone and done their job and serve their country. >> i had a good friend offer up a theory on all of this, and i'm just wondering, it certainly sounds like something that somebody who wanted to help russia would do, but everybody's focusing looking at the top level of donald trump trying to get intel against one of his political opponents. but my friend said look below that. what if donald trump had succeeded in getting the ukrainian government to

politicize this process? they would then automatically divide washington. they would lose all democrat support for any future military aid, and it fwactually would be brilliant play by putin and the russians or by people that want to help the russians that you corrupt ukraine. you prove that they're still corrupt and they are unworthy of military aid or any other sort of aid by even getting them involved in the process. so if you're vladimir putin you win if they help with the political espionage or whatever john you might call it because you've corrupted that government and made them unworthy of getting future military aid. >> that's exactly right, joe, and think about it for going into 2020. we're just about one year from the election. we've been talking since the last election about russian interference in 2016, and look what we've handed the russians.

all they would have to do at this point is come up with any sort of compromise, any sort of false material or placement and drop it into the ukrainian media system and what do you think would happen? a biden smear would take off immediately joeoverseas. what would we have to do? we would immediately have to assess it. is it true or false. that gives them an enormous amount of power to interfere in election 2020. what would we expect our country to do? we watch our leaders right now, they're all being told you have to defend election 2020. they can't do anything to defend that whenever the white house is actively looking for compromising material on their political opponent and they're doing it at the behest of the white house. house democrats have released texts of the resolution detailing their next steps in the impeachment inquiry. the eight-page resolution, which the house is expected to vote on tomorrow lays out the democrats'

general format for the impeachment investigation. it calls for public hearings and would also allow the president or his counsel to participate in proceedings held by the house judiciary committee. the judiciary committee will ultimately decide whether to report articles of impeachment to the full house. democrats say if the president refuses to cooperate unlawfully with congressional requests, the chair will have the discretion to impose appropriate remedies which include denying specific requests by the president or his counsel. so heidi, what should we make of this? republicans have a lot of process complaints. they say they're being shut out. any parallels here to clinton? >> this is really the next phase, mika. they're trying to set out some rules for the public phase of this testimony, and i did a lot of interviews last night in which i was told that this is exactly the same rules that were shet

set in place for clinton and nixon in terms of allowing the president's counsel to participate once this process actually gets to the judiciary committee. so think about it this way. think about the clinton impeachment when you had ken starr presenting a report to judiciary. in this case we could have multiple ken starrs. ken starr could be adam schiff who takes his report and then presents that to judiciary where the president's counsel there has every right as well to bring in information, to question the witness in that case, but that will not happen in the public phase in terms of the intel committee, and there is the rub in terms of why the republicans are angry because they said that their counsel, the president's counsel should also be able to question in that phase. but democrats counter and say, hey, look this is not our constitutional authority. our authority is to bring charges, is to issue a report. the senate is where that trial

takes place, and so the problem here mika and joe, really is not that the rules are any different than they were under clinton and nixon, it's that the culture is different. >> very different. >> under nixon, the republicans and democrats on the committees worked collaboratively in order to issue subpoenas. in the case of clinton you really didn't see clinton's attorneys wanting to subpoena anybody. there wasn't an attempt to really do that, at least in the initial phases, so the culture here is really so different. the sources that i spoke with said it's very similar in terms of the rules, and secondly, mika and joe, i do have some new news to report about how house democrats are thinking about framing these articles of impeachment, how they think what has transpired here and the evidence that's already come out really constitutes evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. they tell me that the founders thought very specifically about impeachment in terms of the abcs

of impeachment. a is for abuse of power. in this case we saw the president abusing his power to benefit himself personally to try and get that dirt on joe biden. b is for betrayal, betrayal of the country in terms of its national security interests and compromising a critical ally in ukraine in terms of allowing russia to push into ukraine and compromising ukraine's ability to push back on that. and then c is for corruption, for corrupting potentially our election process by encouraging a foreign power to intervene in our elections. >> wow. heidi, that you think, and still ahead on "morning joe," president trump has tried all sorts of things to pull the nation's attention away from impeachment. it has not worked, but shutting down the government might. why chuck schumer is sounding

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we'll be right bac look, i believe left to our own devices congress could work out an agreement to quickly fund the government, but i'm increasingly worried that president trump may want to shut down the government again because of impeachment, an impeachment inquiry. he always likes to create diversions. i hope and pray he won't want to cause another government shutdown because it might be a diversion away from impeachment. >> senate minority leader chuck schumer issued that warning when it comes to the impeachment probe and the possibility of a government shutdown. so far the house and the senate have yet to reach an agreement on 12 of the appropriation bills needed to be passed before the deadline of november 21st, which the president will then need to

sign. >> so heidi, it's -- the president's already shut down the government three times in three years. do democrats and republicans really think it's a possibility that he's going to shut down the government -- i mean, this is a guy who came to washington and said i'm going to make washington work. we won't shut down, we'll balance the budgets. we'll pay off the debt. i'm the only one who knows how to make washington work. is this guy really going to go into an election year having four government shutdowns in four years? >> joe, since when has either side of the aisle been able to predict exactly what this president is going to do, and that is the problem and the reason why we would even ever entertain the possibility of this. if you think about the time line, government funding will lapse around november 21st around thanksgiving, which is exactly around the time when at least right now speaker pelosi is hoping to wrap things up and have an impeachment vote.

you have a combustible combination there of these appropriation bills coming due and a potential impeachment vote. this president is known for trying to create diversions and distractions, and there are in number of things that he could pick off in the course of these negotiations that he could hang on in terms of funding for his wall, the usmca, drug pricing, anything that he could kind of throw up against the wall as an excuse as to why he's taking a stand that he thinks in his own mind might be popular with his base, but obviously history has shown us through polling has been disastrous for himself and for his party. >> i'll tell you what, four government shutdowns in four years would undercut every single argument he made about knowing how to make washington work. heidi, thank you so much. greatly appreciate your reporting. still ahead, president trump has defended his decision to leave democrats in the dark ahead of the al baghdadi raid.

turns out someone else was out of the loop too. >> where's mick? >> the acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. zb zb. >> is mick in there somewhere? >> in the wilderness. >> that new report is ahead on "morning joe." >> is he on the "dancing with the stars" episode this week? >> not yet. ah!

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joining us now chairman of priorities usa, guy cecil joins us. a new poll out of new hampshire has senators bernie sanders and elizabeth warren neck in neck in the 2020 primary race. the latest university of new hampshire cnn poll has sanders and warren statistically tied within the polls over four-point margin of error. 21% of voters support sanders run up two points since july. 18% back warren down a point. former vice president joe biden is also statistically tied with warren at 15%, but he's down nine points since the summer. mayor pete buttigieg sits at 10%, only 23% of new hampshire's likely democratic primary voters said they are definitely decided on their pick.

21% are leaning toward a candidate, and 57% are still trying to decide. >> let's put the poll back up, guy, and let's take a look at these numbers. obviously the screaming headline is joe biden down nine percentage points. gabbard up four, klobuchar up five, yang up four. joe biden now finds himself in a position where, yes, he could -- who knows, he could sweep through everything. he could sweep through iowa. he could sweep through new hampshire, who knows. but there's also the possibility with mayor pete starting to gain momentum in iowa biden could finish in fourth place or he could finish in first place or fourth place behind mayor pete, elizabeth warren, and bernie sanders. and it doesn't get any easier for him in new hampshire. i mean, this race is wide open.

>> look, i think the most important number for joe biden in that poll, the 57% of people that say they are undecided or are still looking for their candidate, that that's his path to regain some of the vote that he's lost. i think it's also important to note particularly in new hampshire, one, you've got two neighboring senators in elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. bernie did particularly well against hillary clinton in the democratic primary in the last election, and new hampshire also has a reputation for a lot of late movement. i mean, let's remember that howard dean was leading in new hampshire at one point. bill bradley was leading against al gore in new hampshire at one point. we saw the race change a lot over the last week between hillary clinton and barack obama in 2008, so i suspect -- and i've been saying this for a while, we're going to see more change in the polling in december and january than we're going to see the entire year

this year. i think there's still a lot of movement left in these states. >> well, but let me ask you, guy, can you name a historical parallel where a front runner who's way out in front lost support in the democratic primary and fell the way biden has and then was the one that made that late charge? because i can't. >> yeah, it's really difficult. it's also hard to name somebody who came in third or fourth place and then was able to recover in nevada ask new hampshire. although, i will say again you saw historically someone like john kerry, even al gore against bill bradley, the race tightened up. you saw people exploring their options and eventually came back and ended up supporting kerry and gore in those cases. there's no question that in both of these states, biden has room to make up. a lot of this is also the fact that warren and for that matter buttigieg and sanders have all been organizing on the ground in both of these states for quite some time, and i think a lot of these other organizations are

not at the same standard as these three candidates. >> i think your point about the undecided number is a good reminder to all of us that most of the country is not tuned in, ask there will be a lot of movement as we get closer. if you game it out as joe suggests, you look at iowa, let's say elizabeth warren wins iowa and move over to new hampshire eight days later, elizabeth warren or bernie sanders wins new hampshire, joe biden has sort of set up south carolina as his firewall. he has a huge lead there as of right now. he's got a huge lead among african-american voters. as an adviser, somebody who's worked on campaigns and jistrai jiezed, does the idea of a firewall concern you? it hasn't always worked out for candidates. >> the risk is pretty simple. if your supporters see that you have lost the first three contests don't forget we also have the nevada caucuses in between, if your supporters see you've lost the first three and come in third or fourth place,

are they going to stick with you in the long run or look for other options? that's always the challenge when you're relying on states that are later in the process is it's very difficult to game out how and why supporters stick with you. although, i think through the course of the last several months we've seen that as the polls have fluctuated up and town that african-americans in south carolina and other states have stuck with the vice president. the question is will they if these numbers continue to be the same in the first three states. i think it's a big open question for their campaign. >> i think the problem with the biden campaign in iowa is similar to his problem in new hampshire and a lot of it has to do with the lack of money and the lack of energy within the campai campaign. could you talk about the role of m money as a functioning element of keeping these campaigns going ee early in the process. >>ic there's a misunderstanding about iowa because it's a cau s caucus, so much is focused on organizing and grass roots, it's

a cheap date. the fact is these campaigns are spending millions of dollars. bernie sanders is up on television. amy klobuchar is up on television. they're spending money on grass roots organizers, on field staffers, it is an expensive proposition to organize on the ground in iowa. so the challenge for any campaign when it comes to money is how do we balance how much to spend in a place like iowa or new hampshire or a caucus state like nevada where so much is on organizing. and don't forget that right after these first four states we've got california and texas, which are huge cost if you're really trying to advertise in any of these places and very difficult to organize because of their size. so the money pressures are not just about television. the money pressures are really about grass roots organizing and how you're continuing to bring new people in your campaign at the 5, 10, $20 level. if you're having a hard time finding a $10 contributor, you're probably having a hard time finding somebody to knock

on the door for you. >> pete buttigieg another guy with tons of money, and he is tied. thanks so much for your insights. good to see you. coming up on "morning joe," the parade of testimony in the impeachment probe continues today with a top state department official expected to tell congress she told president trump directed mick mulvaney to withhold that military aid towards ukraine. she was told that. that's ahead on "morning joe." managing type 2 diabetes?

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president trump and first lady melania trump handed out candy to trick or treaters at the white house halloween festivities on monday, and this video of the event is kind of going viral after a brief moment where the first couple placed candy bars on the head of a child dressed as a minion from

the movie despicable me. the costume prompted a laugh from the president who patted the child on the head with the candy bar before leaving it there with melania following suit. seconds later the candy bars are seen falling off the child's costume when another attendee picked them up and placed them in the child's bag. it all ended well. willie, do you hand out candy that way? >> i'm so confused by this video. i guess the defense is he didn't see the kid's bag because the minion has a bag in hand, and the president and first lady drop a big old candy bar on top of his head. >> he's got a bag. >> it might have been screened out by spider-man, didn't see the bag. >> look, there's a bag. >> the candy fell off. >> i don't know about you, halloween night, i always put the candy on top of the kid's head. >> that mika is a man who's never just lived on a street and had kids come by the house trick or treating like the rest of us. >> it looked like they had fun.

no harm down. >> it was a nice event. coming up, the president and his allies are attacking a decorated veteran and national security official who contradicted the president's claim that the transcript of his call with the leader of ukraine was exact. we'll be joined by former navy pilot and house armed services committee member congresswoman mikie sherrill ahead on "morning joe." performance comes in lots of flavors. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪

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they tried to take that conversation and make it into a big scandal. the problem was we had it transcri transcribed. it was an exact transcription of the conversation. the whistle-blower reported a totally different conversation than i had. i released the transcript of my conversation, an exact transcript. >> i thought that i would finish off the first term without the threat of people making false claims, but this one turned out to be incredible all because they didn't know that i had a transcript done by very, very talented people, word for word, comma for comma. done by people that do it for a living. we had an exact transcript. >> you know. >> word for word, comma for comma. >> all because -- you know, willie, it reminds me, right, i'm treated with such great disrespect all because people don't know i won the masters

when? >> it was '87, yeah. >> it was '87. >> yeah. i was eclipsed by nicholas, like come on, jack, just one time get out of my way. just one time. i love this, exact transcript, different conversation than i had. you know what? they say these terrible things about me all because they didn't know i had an exact transcript. except as you pointed out last hour, willie it says on the document they released, what does it say? not a trutranscript. >> let's show it again. before you even get to the first word of the conversation, it says caution a memorandum of a telephone conversation is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion, but the president apparently thinks we don't see the document that he's trying to sell as a transcript. of course it wasn't rkts and by the way, some of his defenders on capitol hill yesterday were using the same talking point saying the world has seen the transcript.

we respect colonel vindman's service but he's wrong on this one said kevin mccarthy. we've all seen the transcript. no, we have not seen the transcript because it's not a transcript. and it says so right there. >> they're such dolts, and it's like none of them read anything. you remember when kevin was on "60 minutes" and he just completely botched -- >> it was steve. >> i thought it was steve. >> donald calls him steve. speaking of donald, i thought the halloween thing with the minion, i thought that was pretty funny myself. >> it was funny. >> everybody seemed to be having a good time. speaking of which, halloween tomorrow night i think it is, i tell you what, when we're in new york, when we used to live in new york the kids, man, they loved -- we would go on 69th street, and it was crazy what people around manhattan do. i mean, i think i bumped into

you once or twice there. it's just a great night out. >> it is. it's like mardi gras on the streets of the upper west side. they shut them down. the nypd does a great job. they set up so no cars can get through and the kids maraud through the streets of the upper west side having large chocolate bars put on their heads as is tradition. >> all the time. >> they're so much fun. yeah. look, everybody's having fun, come on. >> it's a good event, come on. >> melania's having fun, donald's having fun, and seriously if this is the worst thing the kid has to deal with in his whole life, come on, get over it. >> that little girl is so cute. >> so anyway, willie, but yeah, it's a lot of fun. now what are your kids -- they still trick or treat, right? >> my daughter and three of her friends are the four seasons, homemade costumes. they were out with the glu ge g the other night.

my son george has one of those inflatable things a lot of kids have now, where they blow up big, he's a bull rider. >> i love that. >> and jack's going as a -- >> what is that? >> he's a dinosaur. it's one of these inflatable things. >> those are the new rage. >> their friends all have different themes and everything else. >> okay. so along with joe, willie and me. >> i was just going to tell you -- can i tell you my brush with greatness? >> yes, what is your brush with greatness? >> on one of those halloween nights on 69th street trick or treating with the kids, i saw tina fey. >> that is amazing. >> that's as good as it gets right there, right? my kids were excited about the candy i said hey, that's tina fey over there. >> was it a tina fey halloween costume? >> that's good. that or julia liouise dreyfus. >> what's interesting about

halloween is when your kids get older, like when jack gets older in his mid-20s, late 20s, early 30s they still show up halloween at your door, but they want money, not candy. >> yeah, yes, they ask for it. that's every day. >> joey and andrew are still trick or treating. i'm joking, guys. it's just a joke. also with us former fbi special agent and msnbc contributor clint watts, former u.s. senator now an nbc news and mu msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill. >> claire had a party, and guess who showed up? people wearing a costume and what was the costume, claire? >> you guys should show the picture, it's joe and mika. they were spot on. spot on. >> oh, man. >> let me ask you this, claire. as a prosecutor and a mom, what is the cutoff for when your kids say to you, i want to go out trick or treating. when do you say you know what?

why don't you just sit home and watch reruns of "young and the restless" with me. what year is that? >> i start encouraging parties for kids around 11 or 12, but i would say once you have a teen in your age, then you need to leave the trick or treating to the little guys. >> wow, that's tough. >> oh, wow. >> i think so. i went out in 8th grade as a hunter. it was not -- >> i bet you were up to no good. i bet you were up to no good. >> i was 6'4". >> that's terrible. >> it was, it was bad. >> okay. >> you were 6'4" at 12. >> i was 6'4" at 12. i kept telling them it wasn't a real gun, but they just -- >> stop. okay. >> what were my parents thinking? [ laughter ] >> terrible. all right, also with us senior writer at "politico" and

co-author of the play book jake sherman. he's an msnbc political contributor. >> it was upstate new york. >> and he's trick or treating tomorrow, and senior adviser at mo moveon.org karine jean-pierre. her new book "moving forward," a story of hope, hard work, and the promise of america is out next week. so excited karine. >> thank you. >> congratulations. we're going to begin with the impeachment probe and the parts of the phone call at the center of the inquiry that the white house apparently omitted from the memo. the revelations come from lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, the top ukraine expert on the national security council who testified for more than ten hours yesterday according to a lawmaker who was present for his testimony and another source familiar with it. vindman told investigators that he tried to edit the white house's reconstructed transcript to reflect president trump's mention of possible recordings

of joe biden discussing ukraine corruption and ukrainian president zelensky's specific mention of the gas company burisma, which hired biden's son hunter. president trump's mention of a biden recording appears to be a reference to the widely circulated video of the former vice president speaking at an event for the council on foreign relations. according to the "new york times," vindman testified that some of his ed diits made it in the reconstructed transcript but not the ones about the tape and zelensky's burisma comment. he did not speculate as to why the mentions of joe biden and burisma remained omitted. >> you really don't have to, but willie, obviously i mean, we keep getting bomb shells in this case every day. yesterday was a big one. >> how many more do we need. >> that actually they tried to sanitize, the memorandum,

so-called transcript. >> i think most people expected that is exactly what happened when we got that summary, it was not a transcript, we saw those ellipses in the text, when we heard the reports from the whistle-blower that the actual transcript was placed in a classified server usually reserved not for the transcripts of phone calls but for top secret information. we suspected a lot of it is true and now clint watts we know from someone who was on the phone call and testified yesterday under oath that he tried to get the references to joe biden, the references to burisma back into the transcript, but they didn't turn up in the final summary that was presented to the public, that that's exactly what happened. >> what's remarkable is every day we find out about one more person that's in the white house or inside the administration that knew what was going on in terms of this phone call or the fallout from the ukraine policy confusion. we find out that this lieutenant colonel who's going to be honest when he goes in the door, who has his entire career and reputation behind him, who is an expert on ukraine and serve instead moscow, did not see the

phone call the way the transcript, which is really a summary says it was. and more remarkable is you keep seeing e key figures emerge in this. john bolton is a key figure that is in these meetings that saw some sort of problem in it. tough wonder based on the news was that part of the reason he left the white house. you look at sondland and rick perry, they both show up in different contexts and it doesn't quite match other stories we've heard. i think yesterday's testimony was quite devastating because you've got somebody of high integrity and high character who has a firsthand account, not just of the phone call but also meetings that put people in context of the situation from multiple different directions. >> claire, it seems -- this is almost an antithesis of the way things unfolded with the mueller report where everything seemed a bit more understated than you expected. here every day is a new blaring headline. >> yeah, and lieutenant colonel vindman has locked down credibility. he is not coming forward against

trump or for the democrats. he's coming forward because he was worried about the national security implications of what he was hearing, that he knew this would politicize the aid for ukraine, which would put ukrainian people in jeffrey epstein duh -- in jeopardy of b overrun by putin. that is a risk to the united states of america. ya i can't wait for him to be cross examined by these clowns, when he is in his dress blues and they are trying to somehow impugn his credibility because that is a moment that will be arresting for the american people to see him be straight and watch the republicans try to twist it into something that it's not. >> yeah, and they tried to do that. i will say this, though, yesterday, though, mika, i think in response to what people saw on cnn or on fox news the night before, the republicans came out

very early. i have got to say in the age of trump, it was one of the first times i've seen them react lightly on their feet politically and doing something very quickly to cut off further damage from what they saw in laura ingraham's show last night, and john yoo, like can you imagine being in his class at uc berkeley and this guy really just makes a fool of himself, first of all, attacking an american hero. >> implying that he might be committing espionage in some way. >> implying he might be committing espionage. that's not just really a terrible thing to say about an american hero. it's also just dumb. if he doesn't know the law any better than that. that's not espionage, that's actually white house work, you do wonder why people are in his class. here are the republicans yesterday saying you know what, laura ingraham, john yoo, you

guys stand in the corner. we're going to have none of that. >> now, i also want to say a word about something else that's going on over the course of the last several hours and last night, which i think is also shameful, and that is questioning the patriotism, questioning the dedication to country of people like mr. vindman, lieutenant colonel vindman who will be coming today and others who have testified. i think that we need to show that we are better than that as a nation. their patriotism, their love of country we're talking about decorated veterans who have served this nation, who have put their lives on the line, and it is shameful to question their patriotism, their love of this nation, and we should not be involved in this process. >> i thank him for his service. i think his commitment to this country, but he is wrong on t s this. >> i'm not going to question the patriotism of any of the people who are coming forward. >> it's absurd, disgusting and way off the mark. this is a decorated american soldier and he should be given

the respect that his service to our country demands. >> so jake sherman, what can we potentially expect to hear further from republicans today? it seems to me this was the door opening a little bit and a little space between who the republicans are and at least not donald trump himself but trump's tactics because these were trump-like tactics being employed by a conservative or republican analysts, fox news hosts and it was very clear across the board here that they doernt wa doe don't want to play those games. >> there is no strategy here because this white house operates on the whims of donald trump, and that's not con due si sieve for what's becoming a complex situation. the president's lawyer rudy giuliani seems like he's in legal trouble, there's no

coherent message or strategy outside of the white house besides tweeting about what the president terms a perfect phone call and terming everybody who speaks to this committee a never trumper so we don't know what we're going to hear. the problem with what mccarthy said there is he said mr. vindman was wrong. now how could he be wrong? he's sharing his opinion based on a phone call he was on. i don't know what could be wrong about something that he witnessed firsthand. basically what mccarthy is saying is i believe the president over you. now you could understand how republicans are struggling here because the president and the white house wanted them to kind of lambaste the process here for a long time. they did that, and now the president says defend me on the merits, which most republicans are not willing to do because they don't think the merits are deserving of defense at this point, and all they have is that democrats are behind closed doors conducting this impeachment inquiry, which was sustainable for some period of time but is becoming, according

to my reporting and everybody i talk to less and less sustainable as time goes by. i mean, there's 60 days or so left in this calendar year. democrats feel and they say privately, they need to bring this into the light. they need to make a coherent argument in front of the american people so republicans can't say we're just relying on media leaks to know what we know. so again, you could only take away here -- there's one takeaway that you could have, and republicans have it, too, that this white house is not equipped at the moment to handle what is just a ballooning and very difficult and complex situation where they have no staff so to speak. they have no war room because they have no communications operation. the press secretary hasn't briefed in months. they have no message they're driving besides don't trust these people because they don't like the president. so that's a strategy republicans are not comfortable with and that's not to say democrats are doing everything right and by the book here. they're not and they can see that behind the scenes, but

again, the white house is ill equipped here. the president is ill equipped to handle the situation. >> to the extent there is or ever has been a communications strategy in the white house has been to smear the people who were criticizing the white house, whether you're talking about enemy of the people with the media, the deep state with our intelligence community, that strategy just isn't working with bill taylor because people know who he is and where he's been. the stream ategy is not workingh lieutenant colonel vindman. you've seen tv talkers attacking his credibility but not really congressional republicans willing to go there on somebody who earned a purple heart fighting in iraq and who fled the soviet union. his back story is important to point out because that's the basis on which the critics are saying you can't trust him because he lived in ukraine for three years as a baby, and he speaks ukrainian and laura ingraham and the sean duffy are saying he's a double agent. rudy giuliani's saying he's working for two countries. none of this is true, but you've

got to put it out in the light because that's the only defense they have right now. >> they can't argue the facts, they can no longer argue the process because nancy pelosi smartly took that away yesterday in the resolution, and so they're doing character assassination, and that's what they're doing. we have to remember, lieutenant colonel, he raised his hand and volunteered to protect this country, to serve this country. he went to war. he got injured in war, and now his commander in chief is sending out his allies to attack him, right? a purple heart veteran. this is where we are right now, which is why i think it is very smart for democrats who have put out that resolution to talk about the next phase. when we look at the polling, they're hovering around 50%. some are a little under 50%. but that's before the public hearing. now when you have the public hearing and you hear from taylor, you hear from the lieutenant colonel, but that is going to move the numbers, i believe, and so i think this is now the next phase that we are

in, and we'll see what happens. >> so depositions in house democrats' impeachment inquiry will continue this morning. lawmakers are expected to hear from state department special adviser for ukraine katherine kroft and former special adviser to ambassador chris volker chris anderson. both have been told not to appear at the direction of the white house counsel's office, but are appearing under subpoena according to their attorney mark macdoug macdougall. neither was assigned to listen to the july 25th call between president trump and ukraine's president, but in her opening obtained by nbc news, croft is expected to testify that she received multiple calls from lobbyists and former house member robert livingston saying

that ambassador marie yovanovitch should be fired because she was an obama holdover. livingston is a former congressman who resigned in 1998 after confessing to having an adulterous affair. croft will testify that she was told at a july 18th meeting with the office of management and budget that mick mulvaney's decision to place a hold on the ukraine aid was quote, at the direction of the president. meanwhile, according to christopher anderson's opening statement also obtained by nbc news, he is expected to say that john bolton cautioned him that, quote, giuliani was a key voice with the president on ukraine, which could be an obstacle to increased white house engagement. >> you know, claire mccaskill, it does seem that all roads -- nancy pelosi said that all roads lead to putin when it involves donald trump. i've got to say in this ukraine

story, it does seem that all roads lead back to rudy giuliani whether you're talking about this, quote, drug deal that john bolton was talking about or just all the corruption that was swirling around giuliani and his associates. >> yeah, the prosecutor in me wants to see the financial docs. i want to see, you know, follow the money. clint will tell you there's money here. giuliani is washing around in foreign money, he has for years, and it has been the way that he has padded his bank account. and livingston, who's paying his bill? who was behind him trying to get rid of a line diplomat that didn't belong to either party? why were there are forces behind the curtain trying to get rid of this ambassador in the ukraine? it had to do with russia and money and oligarchs money and putin. it is putin, and on the

communication piece, i agree with you that there is no war room, there is no communications strategy, but there's one important reason they don't have that. that is because donald trump thinks he doesn't need it because he thinks he's got this handled, that he is the best communicator in the world. he's a perfect communicator and that everything will be fine if everyone will just fall in behind him, and it will be his undoing. >> senator mccaskill, you're exactly right, and what's remarkable about all of this is not just the money we know about and we've already read multiple news stories in terms of these transactions, it's the communications and the things that are in plain sight. when you look at rudy giuliani's associations with different individuals that have already been, you know, arrested and investigated, you can see it on twitter. you can see it in pictures that are not only posted on social media, these connections, and they don't really add up unless there's some sort of conspiracy behind the scene. and what we consistently see in every piece of testimony that

comes up is that there were concerns amongst almost every government servant that was involved, whether it's the state department, the department of defense, the u.s. intelligence committee about what this parallel foreign policy establishment was, who was involved in it, who was directing it, and why was it undercutting what is essentially our u.s. national policy backing the government of ukraine in a war, a hot war that we're fighting every day with u.s. mu military personnel in support, with others in support from the state department trying to rappel russian aggression. who benefits the most, it always comes back to one person, that's vladimir putin. he has gotten more than he could ever want. he could never damage the state department, the fbi, the u.s. intelligence community and the department of defense in one blow the way he has with the elevation of president trump. >> so jake sherman, you're as plugged in as anybody on capitol hill. i'm curious if you can share

some of your private conversations with republicans or characterize them at least about how they feel things are going. they've resorted to storming the skiff last week and having a pizza party in there. obviously they're attacking the process of this thing. it's being done in secret. it's in the basement of the capitol which is where the skiff is, that's why it's in the basement of the capitol. are they feeling like this is getting away from them the way it is from the white house? >> you know, it's mixed. they think there are enough democrats on the political angle, there are enough democrats in seats that donald trump won that they can make this a political positive for them. i think the concern that i hear the most is that no one really knows where this ends. no one knows the full story here, and that's because they have no reason to believe that the white house is being forthright with them. a lot of them take the president at his word and say all that matter the that zelensky felt had had no pressure.

most pliolitically challenged republicans have been drained out of the party in the last two years because of the big win democrats had in 2018. most of these people are trump people. that's kind of the general sense of where things are in the house republicans. the big question is do house democrats do a good enough job, did they raise enough concerns, unearth enough information that some senate republicans get whee wheezy. you'd need 20 of them. i keep hearing one thing that's really interesting, maybe i should have written this for "politico" before i say it on tv, could they get 51 people from the senate which wouldn't remove the president from office but would be a hell of a statement. could they get a majority of the senate to say he should be removed from office? that would be a huge statement and it wouldn't remove him from office because you need two-thirds, but that would be really something for a majority of the republican controlled united states senate to say donald trump should have to leave office.

>> wow, yeah, "politico's" jake sherman, thank you very much. and still ahead, a growing number of american military veterans now serving on capitol hill, congresswoman mikie sherrill is standing by. she joins the conversation straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪ but you're not, because you have e*trade, which isn't complicated. their tools make trading quicker and simpler so you can take on the markets with confidence. don't get mad. get e*trade. here's the thing about managing for your business.s when you've got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds- things can get a bit cloudy for you. but now, there's the dell technologies cloud, powered by vmware. a single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds.

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live shot from chicago, rainy chicago this morning. welcome back to "morning joe." >> snow coming down. >> is it snow? >> i think so. >> no, too soon. too soon. joining us now u.s. navy veteran and member of the house armed services committee democratic congresswoman mikie sherrill of new jersey. great to have you back on the show this morning. >> congresswoman, thanks so much for being with us. i just want to get your reaction to what you heard about the testimony yesterday of

lieutenant colonel vindman. what are the ramifications of that moving forward? >> well, i thought he really presented, from what i've seen in his statement, compelling case. i had always been concerned about those ellipses, i have to be honest, i've not seen a transcript with those, so the fact that he pointed that out, that was something that had always been bugging me as a former federal prosecutor when i looked at it. i think that was a very interesting point as well. >> do you care to respond to some people who have been attacking him? rudy giuliani suggesting that he had dual loyalties, people on fox news suggesting that he may be actually -- i mean, a berkeley law professor accusing him of espionage. any responses to those personal attacks against this american hero? >> you know, joe, this has been a pattern and practice of this administration to attack our military members, different

public servants with this sort of deep state notion. this is ridiculous. these are career public servants, people i've served with over time that have always put the country first. they've served for democrats. they've served for republicans because at heart they just want to serve this country, and to attack that is very offensive to me, and i was very glad to see that in the house in a bipartisan way we stood up against those attacks. >> congresswoman, it's willie geist, it's good to see you this morning. i'm curious where you think this impeachment process goes next. you had the vote yesterday that made clear, sort of laid out the rules for the public aspect for this. just a viewer's guide for people tuning in this rng morning, whe does the process go from here? >> we've been in an impeachment inquiry since september. we've been holding what are kind of akin to grand jury proceedings now. the committees of jurisdiction, both republicans and democrats have been holding those hearings, and now we are moving

into a different phase. we are moving into a phase where we will put on a more public hearing for the public so that they can have confidence in the evidence that we've been finding. >> so you've heard all the criticism, you've seen the republicans who stormed the skiff last week with pizza boxes and chick-fil-a. how do you respond to the criticism which seems to be the only criticism, which is about process, that these are somehow being handled in secret, that you're doing it in the basement of the capitol as some members have said. what's your response to that? >> so, as i think you just pointed out, that's where the skiff is. >> right. >> it's why we held it there. but that's also really interesting that they don't seem to be attacking the substance. i keep hearing, well, certainly i wouldn't have done what the president did or what the president did wasn't right, but they're attacking the process, and this process is something that, like i said, we've been giving the same opportunities to republicans on these committees of jurisdiction as democrats have had.

i think what's a little bit different is that in the past, in our past impeachments or inquiries there has been a federal investigation. but this whistle-blower -- this information came directly to the house intelligence committee, so that's why they're holding these grand jury type hearings. that's something that we in the house feel is the proper procedure, and then that's been validated by the courts now as we just had a district court judge saying that what the house is doing is akin to grand jury procedures and so now we have the courts and the house really validating these procedures. >> congresswoman sherrill, we sit here each morning and discuss the politics of this event, republicans in one corner, democrats in another. yesterday we saw lieutenant colonel vindman appear and testify. we read his statement. you have warned the cloth of the country as a navy pilot. i'm wondering do you have any

thoughts on lieutenant colonel vindman coming forward certainly and a few others under subpoena coming forward, but the politics of this, do you have any thoughts on why is it that so few people talking about this don't go to the country, the core of what this is doing to the country rather than through the politics of it? >> well, i think what we see our military members and our veterans doing just that. we've seen throughout this administration, it has been our veterans that have stood up against simply political maneuvering. you saw general mattis, for example, quitting when he really felt strongly that we should not be pulling out of syria. you've seen the testimony of veterans going forward and really putting the country first and even coming forward under, you know, when the administration said that they shouldn't, although certainly as members of the military establishment, they're able to do that. but these are things that i

think we can be proud of our servicemen and women, and we can have a confidence that they have always put this country first and that they will continue to do so. >> and speaking of veterans, congresswoman as a freshman you've sort of kept your head down through this process and tried to continue to do work including on behalf of veterans. three bills passing through the house just this week that benefit the veterans. tell us about them. >> sure, so it's been my honor really to serve in congress and to work hard for our veterans. i'm a member of the house armed services committee. we put forth the first democratic version of the national defense authorization act out of the house in many years, and we passed the largest pay raise for our veterans out of the house. in fact, the largest since the last time the democrats held the house so i'm very proud of that. we also just this week have put forth representative kelly's bill, which i co-sponsor, and we've put forth a veteran treatment court bill, so

representative kelly's bill helps gold star families allowing them to have fellowships on the hill, which i think not only is a service that we can offer to our gold star families but also can really help us on the hill understand better the implications of decisions to send our men and women overseas. we also have the veteran treatments court. i helped set up the district of new jersey's first federal prisoner reentry court. in seeing the services that these types of courts can offer now giving grant money to particularly help our veterans, we know that one in ten people that are incarcerated are veterans. so to really put forth these veteran treatments and address some of the particular problems our veterans have i think will be a good step forward. >> boy, it's a great step forward on all those profronts. congresswoman i want to ask you a question, maybe a difficult question. just given all of the chaos around it, but your colleague,

somebody you worked with katie hill this past week resigned from congress. she had a heartfelt farewell video that i know a lot of people found to be very moving. republicans and democrats alike came out and criticized the revenge porn aspect of this. so just moving to the side the ethics investigations that would have moved forward if she had stayed in congress because we don't know how those turn out. i'm just curious what you think of this revenge porn aspect against katie hill and whether there shouldn't be a national law that -- a federal law that makes that illegal? i know a lot of states have those laws. should there be a federal law that does the same? >> you know, joe, i think there should be. we know luckily i think california has that law, and i'm hoping that representative hill

can ensure that her hopefully soon to be ex-husband is prosecuted to the full extent of that. i think this has really brought to the congress's attention the need for federal legislation in this area, and as a mom of four kids knowing that they are growing up in this atmosphere where so much is online, so much of our personal lives are, you know, we have online and people have access to stuff, pictures and videos of us that, you know, in my generation people would not have had as a young person, i think we need to begin to be thoughtful about how we legislate and how we are handling this and what the privacy implications, what that is. i think you're exactly right. we do need to move forward on that. >> mika, you saw her farewell address. >> i thought it was incredible. >> it was very moving. >> it was really moving. you can tell she was hurting. and you just wonder like even --

go ahead mikie. >> well, i was just going to say you know, so many times in this business people put their own interests first and i felt very strongly that she really was thoughtful about putting the interests of her district and this country first, and that's what that video conveyed to me. i thought it was very moving. >> yeah. that's for sure. thank you very much, congresswoman mikie sherrill, appreciate your being on the show this morning. >> thank you. coming up, former president obama's message to those who revel in twitter outrage. >> it's so good. it is so good. >> we'll play for you what he said ahead. ♪ bad. you're stronger than you know. so strong. you power through chronic migraine, 15 or more headache or migraine days a month. one tough mother. you're bad enough for botox®. botox® has been preventing headaches and migraines

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this idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically bulk a woke and all that stuff. you should get over that pretty quickly. the world is messy, there are ambiguities. people who do really good stuff have flaws.

there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that's enough. like, if i tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or used the word, wrong verb, then i can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, because man you see how woke i was, i called you out. [ laughter ] let me get on tv and watch my show, watch grownish. [ laughter ] >> you know, that's not -- that's not activism. that's not bringing about change, you know. if all you're doing is casting ston stones, you know, you're probably not going to get that far. >> boy, willie, and all the people said amen.

what an important message from barack obama, who really delivered a similar message last year when he gave the speech at the mandela event, talking about political correctness and stop saying certain people can't talk on a topic because they're the wrong gender or they're the wrong color or they're the wrong this or they're the wrong that. it's such an extraordinary message from a man who has such extraordinary pull, especially among millennial voters. >> yeah, and especially when he speaks so sparingly when he does speak, it carries such great weight, not just because he's the former president of the united states and a historic president of the united states, but also because among progressives he's the leader of that group as well. so when you see people as we see every day who take glee in vaporizing somebody and finding -- they have a good day,

so let me find the worst thing they've ever done and make that the story. a guy's about to win the heisman trophy, let me find a tweet he put out when he was a kid. a guy raises $3 million at iowa state university for a children's hospital, let me go find a tweet or something he said and ruin that as well. i think the president's voice carries so much weight in this country that that's an important message he put out yesterday. >> yeah. >> yeah. it's sort of -- claire mccaskill i feel like it's also representative of sort of the media landscape and the conversation out there where people can label people, can accuse them of anything and it's decided out there in twitter world or whatever. it's become a new normal that i think is increasingly dangerous. >> yeah, and you know, it's interesting. when you listen to president obama speak, you know, what kept rolling in my head as he was talking was wisdom, thoughtful

wisdom, and what's really smart about this historic figure is he understands that his role right now cannot be in the battle. he understands that he needs to every once in a while speak like he spoke at that event, and what that does, it provides such a contrast to what we have right now in the office without corners. what we have right now is not thoughtful. there is no wisdom. there is no humility. there is no thinking about a way that we can come together and be better, and i think that that juxtaposition, that contrast could be the most power ful thing he could bring to the election scene over the next year. i'm hoping he will continue to weigh in sparingly, but when he does it's at moments like that. >> it's so important. you know, karine, i have always

worried that the areas where donald trump thrives are in the shadows of woke culture where people are afraid to respond to certain attacks because, well, they'll be seen as politically incorrect, they may lose their job. they may lose credibility. they may lose this. they may lose that, and that's why it's so important for president obama to say no, no, no, let's be better than that. let's not participate in this cancel culture that donald trump and certain trump republicans thrive in. >> right, i think that's exactly right. look, it's always good to see obama back in the news and using his voice. it's such a powerful voice, and he always uses it too at the right moments. like you see that. he comes at the right moments and lays out some wisdom, some in-depth kind of analysis or

kind of story he can really put out there. and also the contrast, to have that while we are going into a constitutional crisis with this current president, it's refreshing to see president obama out there and like i said, using his voice in such a powerful way. >> all right, his comments came as part of a much longer answer to a question on the challenges we all face today in wanting to create a just society. >> thank you. let's just say thank you president obama. thank you. >> yeah. obama. thank you. >> still to come this morning, sobering new research predicts that some 150 million people are living on land that could be under water by the year 2050. that's ahead on "morning joe." (contemplative synth music)

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climate central reveals that rising sea levels potentially could affect three times more people in the next 30 years than previously thought. and threaten some of the world's most prominent coastal cities. joining us now, ceo and chief scientist at climate central dr. benjamin strauss. in the journal nature communications. dr. strauss, great to have you with us. walk us through some of these details because, boy, they're pretty alarming. >> yeah. thanks so much for having me and we were shocked when we found these results. that we're in three times worse trouble than we thought that we were. the problem was that we used to think that land was higher than it is. it's not that seas are rising faster than we thought. it's not that the climate is warming faster than we thought. but it's that the land is actually higher because of some satellite -- satellite measurements that confused buildings and trees for the ground and we were able to correct that. so what we found is that 150

million people live on land that we project will be below the high tideline by the middle of this century. 300 million people on land that could be subject to annual floods by the middle of this century. and then you double numbers like that in terms of the potential for what could happen by the end of the -- >> so what parts of the world, as we look at vietnam, expectations of submerged land by 2050, which by the way is only 30 years from now, what parts of the world are most at risk? there's shanghai. >> above all, this is a story about asia. china, which is, in fact, today the world's largest emitter of heat trapping gases has by far the most people on land that's vulnerable to sea level rising and coastal flooding. an followed by la bangladesh and india and countries of southeast asia like vietnam and thailand, as well as indonesia. so this is really, asia sis the

headline here. >> you're not suggesting climate change is accelerating at a pace you didn't anticipate, you're saying the land is not exactly where you thought it was. >> it's kind of shocking, right? for all the amazing science that the climate research community is doing, we didn't know the elevation of the ground beneath our feet. and we twhactually know that pry well in the united states and western europe and australia. but for much of the rest of the world, instead of relying on the rather expensive and sophisticated airborne laser measurements, which we use here, a lot of the rest of the world and across asia relies on satellite measurements. and basically, the beam that comes down is so broad, it blends in a building and the ground. so a city kind of looks like a hill and you get a completely -- a complete sense of false safety. >> so because we're so perocial here, what happens to places like new orleans and the florida keys? >> yeah. so both of those are certainly

in trouble. there's no new information in this research but we already know very well that south florida has a big problem because of sea level rise and the fact that the bed rock that south florida is built on is from old corals. it's filled with holes. so even if you built coastal defenses like levees or dikes, the levels -- i don't know how we can defend south florida. new orleans, we are defending. there are levees which are around it but katrina showed us the danger that can happen when you get that sense of security behind levees if they fail in a storm or an attack. suddenly, you're living in the bottom of a deep bowl that can fill up very quickly. and tragedy follows. >> ben, what is the most devastating thing right now that the u.s. government is doing to our climate? >> yeah. i don't want to get into the politics of it too much. but i -- i do -- i guess i'll

say that i would be delighted to see the political parties in this country fight fiercely about what to do about this problem. but it's tragic in so far as we have arguments about whether there is a problem. i kind of think in my mind of an image of two fire chiefs looking at a building with smoke pouring out. they should be arguing about how to put out that fire, not whether there is a fire. and that's a little bit our situation here right now. >> the study in climate central, dr. ben strauss, thanks for bringing it to us this morning. >> thanks so much for having me. >> still ahead on "morning joe," we will lay out what the white house apparently omitted from the phone call. despite the president's claim that it was an exact transcript, which it was not. plus, new reporting on how democrats plan to make the case that the president's actions constitute high crimes and misdemeanors. "morning joe" is back in two minutes. eanors "morning joe" is back in two

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and it seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about ukrainian defense. i don't know if it is concern about american policy but his main mission was to make sure the ukraine got those weapons. i understand that. we all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from. >> oh how did we sink to such a low point that someone would openly question the loyalty of an american combat veteran in the name of partisan politics? well -- >> he's a war hero. he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured. if you look at his wife, she was standing there. she had to nothing to say. probably maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. you tell me. but plenty of people have written that. well, this was a mission that was started before i got here. this was something that was, you know, just they wanted to do. and they lost.

>> i learned a lot about generals. i met some good ones and saw some bad ones. some that didn't have what it takes. >> i mean, it really is incredible that, again, he's questioned war heroes all the time. he's attacked the greatest generals of this generation. he -- he said that mattis did little to nothing for him. his -- his spokesperson this past week was talking about how general john kelly, a man who dedicated his life, was a great general, one of the best generals who lost his son in combat. it wasn't -- couldn't understand the genius of donald trump. he talks like a tyrant when he talks about how when i took over the military. that is actually he's more like as john meecham reminded me yesterday, more like king louie the 14th in that respect. >> and these little imitators, which is what they are, doesn't end well. it actually didn't go well.

for shawn duffy, for laura ingram, for all these people who wanted to throw mud all over an american hero, over someone who has literally given his life and by the way, whose three children are serving. i mean, this is incredible. what played out over the past 48 hours and it has blown back in their face. mud on their faces. looking bad this morning and not serving the president well, which ask mick mulvaney this morning how that's going for him. >> where's mick? >> trying to trump for trump. good morning. >> hold on a second. where is mick? he didn't know anything about this which again, proves you debase yourself. you sacrifice everything you believe in. you know, mulvaney was supposedly a deficit hawk. but you just completely debase yourself politically and then you get nothing in return. you're left in -- you're left in south carolina playing golf or whatever mulvaney was doing. and didn't know anything about it. but i wanted -- you know, maybe

he'll end up in orange ruffles or green ruffles in dancing with the stars a couple years from now. but i wanted to talk about something your father said and it's very, very relevant to the lieutenant colonel. we were interviewing dr. brzezinski on stage one time and he said that when he first walked into the white house, he understood how lucky he was as a polish immigrant. and he said as he walked into the white house, he said to himself, i'm going to dedicate every moment of my life, the rest of my life, will be to work, to defend, and -- and -- and give everything i can to this country to pay back to this country what it's given to me. and that's what lieutenant colonel vindman has done. he sacrificed in combat, his children are now in uniform. i wonder all those people who were attacking the lieutenant

colonel, whether they've served in uniform. i wonder if shaun duffy's served in uniform. i know that vindman is his children have. just, again, and i think laura ingram actually did a great disservice for the president of the united states because everybody stopped talking about al-baghdadi and started talking about how heinous it was. what she and john and others -- >> duffy was on -- >> i didn't hear the guy who was involved said. but they were all, though, trashing -- all trashing vindman. and all it did was it completely redirected the talk from al-baghdadi to this story. so -- so sometimes trumpists, when you're trying to help the president by saying something outrageous, we've gotten to the point now in the process where that may have worked in 2016,

2017. it doesn't work anymore. >> don't forget the story of america. lot of us are children of immigrants. it's the story of america. >> albert einstein came from germany. helped us -- >> good morning. >> good story. this american story. ronald reagan talked about it in his farewell address to the country. said, we become a stronger country with waves and waves of immigrants coming in. while lieutenant colonel vindman certainly showed that and we salute you, lieutenant colonel vindman and we certainly salute your children who are serving proudly in uniform. >> welcome to "morning joe." along with joe, willie, and me, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. msnbc contributor chris watts. to the impeachment probe now and the parts of the phone call at the center of the inquiry that the white house apparently omitted from the memo. remember the memo that they

released that basically kind of explained how it all worked? >> well, he said -- >> a transcript. >> the revelations come from lieutenant colonel alexander vindman. the top ukraine expert on the national security council who testified for more than ten hours yesterday. according to a lawmaker who was present for his testimony and another source familiar with it, vindman told investigators that he tried to edit the white house's reconstructed transcript to reflect president trump's mention of possible recordings of joe biden discussing ukraine corruption. and ukrainian president zelensky's specific mention of the gas company barisma, which hired biden's son hunter. president trump's mention of a biden recording appears to be a reference to the widely circulated video of the former vice president speaking at an event for the counsel on foreign relations. according to new york times,

vindman testifies some of his edits made it into the reconstructed transcript but not the ones about the tape and zelensky's barisma comment. he did not speculate as to why the mentions of joe biden and barisma remained omitted. contradicts the president's repeated claims that the white house released an exact transcript of the phone call. here he is as recently as monday. >> they tried to take that conversation and make it into a big scandal. the problem was we had it transcribed. it was an exact transcription of the conversation. the whistle-blower reported a totally different conversation than i had. i released the transcript of my conversation. an exact transcript. >> i thought that i would finish off the first term without the threat of people making false claims. but this one turned out to be incredible. all because they didn't know

that i had a transcript done by very, very talented people. word for word, comma for comma, done by people that do it for a living. we had an exact transcript. >> willie, the lying. >> wow. >> i mean, the lying is so -- it's breathtaking. i mean, the actual document of that quote exact transcript released by the white house says on page one, caution, a memorandum of a telephone conversation is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. the text in this document records the notes and recollections of situation room duty officers and nsc policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize a conversation as the conversation takes place. not a transcript. so the president's exact transcript, exact transcript, word-for-word transcript, comma for comma, he's lying. we knew he was lying from day one just like we knew he was lying about baghdadi that the dog whispered to him that

baghdadi had whimpered and cried. and the story about china calling, oh, china called last night. china called last night. come on. china called last night, by the way, which of the like 2 billion? and now, this exact transcript. so we knew he was lying from the beginning. but now, we find out that they would not put in the most damaging parts of that transcript and the lieutenant colonel tried to get them to do it and they refused. >> yeah. we always knew this wasn't an exact transcript. how did we know? because of what you just showed. it was written on the top of the document that this was not an exact transcript. so no matter how many times the president says it, it doesn't suddenly become true. clint watts. one of the lessons i think of this administration is your suspicions usually end up being true and we see a bunch of ellipsis in that summary. we wondered what was in those blanks and now you have colonel

vindman coming out and saying here's what was in the blanks. mentions of joe biden. mention of president zelensky. this testimony, again, we had it yesterday morning with the opening statement. now, very specific testimony confirming what most people suspected was that the white house tinkered with the document. it also explains why they had it locked up and hidden in that classified server usually reserve for other top secret material. >> yeah. it's remarkable because every day we learn of one more person that heard about this phone call, that knew about this phone call. that when they come forward or tried to do something inside the white house, this colonel immediately tried to bring it up the chain of command. he went to the nsc lawyer. tried to bring this up. he tried to correct that transcript that we see is missing these key elements of information. and so when they get called, you know, to testify, colonel vindman is going to say the truth, right? he's been serving this country for basically two decades.

he knows what this policy is that we're supposed to be pushing in ukraine. and so then when you watch both the republicans and congressmen, when you watch the president immediately tear down this individual's credibility, it just sticks out like a sore thumb that there is something going on that the white house wants to hide. >> yeah. >> well, you know, and mike -- sorry, go ahead, willie. >> i was just going to say the president's attack was that colonel vindman is a quote never trumper. there's of course no evidence for that. it almost goes without saying there's no evidence for that. i thought it was interesting we asked yesterday morning would congressional republicans fall in line with this line of attack on colonel vindman? that he was somehow a double agent because he speaks ukrainian or whatever shaun duffy was trying to say on cnn yesterday. i didn't see a lot of republicans going there. they went other places. they tried to distract. it was very interesting that it was almost limited to the tv talkers who had no stakes in it except to protect donald trump on television. when confronted with this, i didn't see a lot of congressional republicans

willing to go after the credibility of colonel vindman. >> in fact, they defended him. let's take a look. >> now, i also want to say a word about something else that's been going on over the last several hours and last night which i think is also shameful. and that is, questioning the patriotism, questioning the dedication to country of people like mr. vindman, lieutenant colonel vindman, who will be coming today and others who have testified. i think that we need to show that we are better than that as a nation. their patriotism, their love of country, we are talking about decorated veterans who have served this nation, who have put their lives on the line and it is shameful to question their patriotism, their love of this nation and we should not be involved in that process. >> i thank him for his service. >> i'm not going to question patriotism of any of the people who are coming forward. >> it's absurd, disgusting, and way off the mark.

this is a decorated american soldier and he should be given the respect that his service to our country demands. >> liz chaieney talking about h shameful this was. mitt romney said itself disgusting. i thought it was important what mitch mcconnell said. he didn't just defend lieutenant colonel vindman. he said i'm not going to question the patriotism of any of these people coming forward. here you had, again, donald trump and republicans trying for some time to do great violence to the whistle-blower statutes that are supposed to keep our government, you know, talkingabilitalking about keeping it transparent and keeping corruption out of it. and mitch talked about how we shouldn't question the patriotism of any of these people coming forward. i thought that was very significant. also, just as a side note and

mika will agree with me here, i've been unbelievably harsh on mitch mcconnell for very good reason. he had one of the more moving, i thought one of the more moving remembrances of elijah cummings in the capitol. but, you know, think about -- think about the message. we always talk about the message that donald trump sends across the world. the bad message. think about the message this is sending to our allies across the world. it reminds me of a guy who came up to me several years ago and he said, you americans, you americans get it wrong all the time. he said, but in the end, but in the end, it's like a hollywood movie. you somehow right the ship and end up where you're supposed to be. >> still ahead on "morning joe," house democrats are laying out the next steps in the impeachment inquiry. will it change the president's defense? nbc's heidi przybyla has new details next on "morning joe." i" (contemplative synth music)

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house democrats have released text of the resolution detailing their next steps in the impeachment inquiry. the eight-page resolution, which the house is expected to vote on tomorrow, lays out the democrats' general format for the impeachment investigation. it calls for public hearings and would also allow the president or his counsel to participate in proceedings held by the house judiciary committee. the judiciary committee will ultimately decide whether to report articles of impeachment to the full house. democrats say, if the president refuses to cooperate unlawfully with congressional requests, the chair will have the discretion to impose appropriate remedies, which include denying specific requests by the president or his

counsel. so, heidi, what should we make of this? republicans have a lot of process complaints. they say they are being shut out. any parallels here to clinton? >> this is really the next phase, mika. they're trying to set out some rules for the public phase of this testimony and i did a lot of interviews last night in which i was told that this is exactly the same rules that were set in place for clinton and nixon in terms of allowing the president's counsel to participate once this process actually gets to the judiciary committee. so think about it this way. think about the clinton impeachment when you had ken starr presenting a report to judiciary. in this case, we could have multiple ken starrs. could be adam schiff who takes his report and then presents that to judiciary where the president's counsel there has every right as well to bring in

information, to question the witness in that case. but that will not happen in the public phase in terms of the intel committee. and there is the rub in terms of why the republicans are angry because they said that their counsel, the president's counsel, should also be able to question in that phase. but democrats counter and say, hey, look, this is not our constitutional authority. our authority is to bring charges, is to issue a report. the senate is where that trial takes place. and so the problem here, mika and joe, really is not that the rules are any different than they were under clinton and nixon. it's that the culture is different. >> very different. >> under nixon, the republicans and democrats on the committees worked collaboratively in order to issue subpoenas. in the case of clinton, you really didn't see clinton's attorneys wanting to subpoena anybody. there wasn't an attempt to really do that. at least in the initial phases. so the culture here is really just so different but the

sources that i spoke with said it's very similar in terms of the rules. and secondly, mika and joe, i do have some new news to report about how house democrats are thinking about framing these articles of impeachment. how they think what has transpired here and the evidence that's already come out really constitutes evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. they tell me that the founders thought very specifically about impeachment in terms of the abcs of impeachment. a is for abuse of power. in this case, we saw the president abusing his power to benefit himself personally to try and get that dirt on joe biden. b is for betrayal. betrayal of the country in terms of its national security interests and compromising a critical ally in ukraine in terms of -- of -- of -- you know, of allowing russia to push into ukraine and compromising ukraine's ability to push back on that.

and then c is for corruption. for corrupting potentially our election process by encouraging a foreign power to intervene in our elections. >> coming up on "morning joe," the impeachment of a president is complicated. particularly, during a government shutdown. why the senate's top democrat is warning about that possibility next on "morning joe." warning about that possibility next on "morning joe." (engines rev) the only thing better than horsepower... ...is more horsepower. (engines rev) if we were for everyone, we'd be for no one.

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look, i believe left to our own devices, congress could work out an agreement to quickly fund the government. but i'm increasingly worried that president trump may want to shut down the government again because of impeachment. an impeachment inquiry. he always likes to create diversions. i hope and pray he won't want to cause another government shutdown because it might be a diversion away from impeachment. >> senate minority leader chuck schumer issued that warning when it comes to the impeachment probe and the possibility of a government shutdown. so far, the house and the senate have yet to reach an agreement on 12 of the appropriation bills needed to be passed before the

deadline of november 21st, which the president will then need to sign. >> so, heidi, it's -- the president's already shut down the government three times in three years. do democrats and republicans really think it's a possibility that he's going to shut down the government yet -- i mean, this is a guy that came to washington and said i'm going to make washington work. we won't shut down -- we'll balance the budgets. we'll pay off the debt. i'm the only one who knows how to make washington work. is this guy really going to go into an election here having four government shutdowns in four years? >> joe, since when has either side of the aisle been able to predict exactly what this president is going to do? and that is the problem and the reason why we would even ever entertain the possibility of this. but if you think about the timeline, government funding will lapse around november 21st, around thanksgiving, which is exactly around the time when at least right now speaker pelosi is hoping to wrap things up and have an impeachment vote.

so you have a combustible combination there of these appropriation bills coming due and a potential impeachment vote. this president is known for trying to create diversions and distractions and there are any number of things that he could pick off in the course of these negotiations that he could hang on in terms of funding for his wall, the usmca, drug pricing. anything that he could kind of throw up against the wall as an excuse of why he's taking a stand that he thinks, in his own mind, might be popular with his base. but obviously, history has shown us through polling has been disastrous for himself and for his party. >> i'll tell you what. four government shutdowns in four years would undercut every single argument he made about knowing how to make washington work. heidi, thank you so much. >> thank you, heidi. >> greatly appreciate your reporting. >> coming up, our next guest is warning the next generation to fear their future.

okay. you've got our intern's attention. phillip klein joins the conversation next on "morning joe." n joins the conversation next on "morning joe.

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don't -- don't hire a yes man. someone that's going to tell you or won't tell you the truth. don't do that. because if you do, i believe you'll be impeached. and someone has got to be the guy that tells you that, you know, with heavy authority you don't or, mr. president, you know, don't do it because whatever. you know, but don't hire someone that will just, you know, nod and say that's a great idea, mr. president, because you will be impeached. >> those were recent comments by former white house chief of staff john kelly. we showed you earlier in the week from an event conducted by the washington examiner. joining us now is the examiner's executive editor phillip klein, who is also the author of the

new book "fear your future. how the deck is stacked against millennials and why socialism would make it worse." also joining our conversation, washington bureau chief for usa today susan page and karine jon pierre is with us as well. first, though, at your event, john kelly saying i'm sorry i left effectively. kind of laying out the idea that none of this would've happened if he'd still been there. >> yeah. it was pretty remarkable and my colleague byron york, who conducted the interview, wasn't necessarily pressing him to try to draw that out of him. this was clearly something that he wanted -- he felt he wanted to say. and i think that it's part of this theme if you go back to the mueller report, there were a lot of instances where the theme was that people around trump were protecting him from his worse instincts. and certainly, john kelly was echoing a similar theme. >> joe. >> yeah. you also, of course, very busy week for the washington

examiner. also, had kelly conway trying to -- one of your reporters for actually reporting on the news. and it was a remarkable moment and a remarkable sort of insight into how at least kelly ann conway tried to intimidate your reporter who didn't back down. >> yeah. and it -- it sort of an example kind of shows what happens behind the scenes sometimes when there's this sort of aggressive pushback on a legitimate news story. >> yeah. you kind of wonder why she doesn't think that is legitimate. so you have written a book that actually -- i -- i -- i -- i've been wanting to write a book. you know, came to congress in '94 as a small government conservative. nobody cares except for maybe you so we've got a majority of two here. but i always wanted to write a book called memo to millennials, you're screwed.

i didn't do it because my mother in heaven would be very disappointed with me using that language. but you have basically written this book for me. so, please, explain just how bad things are. for millennials, especially when you look at the reckless runaway federal spending not only from this president but from the last two. >> basically, what i talk about in my book is that millennials are facing two sets of ch challenges. one is what you just mentioned, which is the unprecedented federal debt. in my book, i include a chart which i think is one of the most fascinating and scary charts, which is that the cbo tracks debt as a percentage of the economy going back to 1790 and if you go back that far, whether it's the civil war, world war i, the great depression, our debt is higher than that in a time of peace and prosperity. the only instance in which it's been higher was world war ii. but that was a short-term event

once fighting was over, debt dwindled down. that's not happening now because people are going to keep retiring and living longer and healthcare costs are going up. and so in the coming decades, we're going to blow past that world war ii record. only it's not a one time event. this is going to be happening for decades. and the second set of challenges is that even as the millennials are facing this massive federal debt, they're also facing a lot of challenges in their personal lives in terms of student loans and housing costs and healthcare cost. and so it's sort of they're being hit by the double whammy. >> yeah. you know, it is -- it's incredible that it actually took us over 200 years to accumulate a total of a trillion dollars debt. we do that every year now and i think the most frightening thing about what's happened over the past several years with donald trump is we're racking up record

debt and record deficits in a time of prosperity. >> yeah. it's absolutely scary. i went back to 1948 when modern unemployment figures came -- started being tracked and typically when unemployment is this low, you have shrinking deficits. so the idea that they're still expanding is very unlikely to happen because typically just common logic, if fewer people are, you know, if more people are working, then more people are paying taxes and fewer people are dependent on government benefits. so it should be narrowing. >> i think, phillip, a lot of people, maybe young people especially, hear debt. they hear deficit and there's sort of these abstract terms. they feel like you know what? we can keep borrowing money. the country marches along. there's milk on the shelves. there's money in the atms.

what is the tippliing point whe somef that changes perhaps? and how do you convince people this is a fight worth having? >> well, what economists say is there's no magic tipping point. but what they do say is that large accumulated debts with no end in sight greatly increases the chances of some sort of a crisis. where investors decide, hey, it's not worth it to invest in the united states because we don't know that they're going to be able to pay this debt back. and when that happens, you have a terrible tradeoff of, you know, massive tax increases, sudden and severe cuts to entitlements, sky-high interest rates. so the potential inflation. and so that's why we need to address the problem now in a responsible way so that you can phase in changes over a long time and spread out the changes. and if you're able to do that, then you avert this sort of

massive sudden crisis. >> hey, phillip, i want to go back to john kelly just for a quick second because after watching the washington examiner interview with him just a couple days ago, the first thought that i had was why is he speaking now? he had left the end of last year and so openly. why do you think that -- that was -- that happened? >> well, i can't speak to what his personal motivations were. but as i said at the outset, clearly this is something he felt that he had a say. maybe he just sort of watching things unfold on the sidelines. as he said, he seems to have some sort of regret. >> yeah. susan page, you can take it to phillip but just on that note, it was -- it was saying so much while saying so few words when john kelly talked about that moment that he was warning trump about being impeached and, you know, who might replace him. >> you know, one of the things that's been remarkable about

this remarkable presidency is the number of former senior officials who have written books, who have talked about their experience in the oval office at the white house advising the president. in ways that really raise questions about the president's stewardship. and let's ask our author, what impact does that have do you think on the way things go in washington? on the way the president governs to have such an immediate contemporaneous account of what's going on behind closed doors. >> i think it's pretty amazing and i'm actually of two minds of this because on the one hand, yes, you don't want the president to do things that are irresponsible and reckless. on the other hand, i am worried about a lot of the precedents that are being set. leaked telephone calls. i mean, a president should be able to talk to foreign leaders and foreign leaders should have confidence that they'll be able to talk to the president without that stuff winding up on the

front page of the newspapers. and we saw that with calls prior to the ukraine call. there are also -- there was that anonymous new york times op-ed where it talked about government officials sort of, you know, conducting their own policy to try to save trump from his worst instincts. and as i said, you saw that in the mueller report, too. i mean, like or hate donald trump, he's the elected president. nobody voted for a lot of these sort of appointees and officials. they don't get to sort of conduct their own policy that's different from the president's and sort of pocket veto orders and directives that they don't like. so i think that -- the -- the sort of trump phenomenon, there's sort of the direct things that he's doing. but also, precedents being set by people who feel that they need to, you know, respond to what president trump is doing. and i think that they're both worrisome. >> but, you know, so, phillip,

this really isn't new, is it? i mean, i remember back during the bush administration, so many people in the cia and the fbi would leak things about -- i mean, at one point, even leaked the location of black sites where we were holding or other people were holding terrorists. and so it was a constant sort of pecking away at george w. bush and his -- his approach to war on terror. during the obama administration, the same thing happened. you had whistle-blowers, whether it was fast and furious, whether it was benghazi. you know, certainly, some people inside the irs drew attention to the fact that conservative groups were focused upon. is it -- again, i'm not saying it's right or wrong. but hasn't this been happening for as long as we've had a government in washington, d.c. and a press? >> i think that you have had a chipping away in terms of the leaks. but what i do think is different

is where you have all of these officials ostensibly who are supposed to carry out the president's orders who are basically saying, i'm just going to ignore orders that i think aren't in the national interest. and, again, even if you think that donald trump, what he's doing is bad, it also -- you -- you have to wonder about sort of breaching that and that, to me, is worrisome, too. >> i'd love to have that conversation a little later on. i just have to ask you as a small government conservative because it's so rare i actually have another small government conservative on. what does it mean for the future of the conservative movement? what does it mean for the future of, again, people like me that went to washington because they believed in balanced budgets and small government conservativism? where does that movement go from here? this is the second republican president that we've had that's

racked up massive deficits. george w. bush doubled the federal debt from like $5.7 trillion to $11.4 trillion. donald trump's going to do the same thing. taking a $19 trillion debt probably to $30 trillion. where do small government conservatives go other than say the libertarian party? >> i think it is very difficult. i imagine if history is precedent that if a democrat is in power, you're going to start to see a resurgence of republicans who suddenly discover that they care about the debt. >> how pathetic is that? that the only time republicans care about small government is when there is a democrat in the white house. >> it's terrible because that's the time when they have no ability to actually influence it and that's sort of one of the reasons that i wrote this book to try to hold down the van guard for small government conservatives because i feel like that has clearly been abandoned by this sort of trump wave of pop lizm.

>> well, good for you. thank you so much. >> the washington examiner's executive editor, phillip klein. thank you so much for being on the show. his new book is "fear your future." how the deck is stacked against millennials and why socialism would make it worse. and, phillip, come back. great to have you on. thank you so much. up next, a divided nation and a deeply controversial president. tom brokaw is out with a new firsthand account of how richard nixon fell from power and what it could tell us about today. that's next on "morning joe." and as we go to break, an update on what we have going at know your value.com. the head of our team, vicki, her daughter julia has a powerful piece on what she learned from her mother's cancer diagnosis. it's amazing. julia, we're proud of you. babies after 50. olivia munn on how to move on from an emotionally abusive relationship. and coming soon, daniella pure

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humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. help stop the clock on further irreversible joint damage. talk to your rheumatologist. right here. right now. humira. mr. president, let me ask you about the current situation. the world has changed enormously in the last year and a half. the germans are now striking deals with the soviet union. the japanese are about to provide massive aid to the chinese. is there a danger that the united states is being dealt out

of the first great deals of the post cold war era? >> neither germany nor japan is a superpower in the total sense. neither has nuclear weapons. neither will ever acquire them or be allowed to acquire them. the united states is the only true superpower. and the united states is needed in asia and in europe at this time. >> do you think that gorbachev's going to make it? >> i'm in a minority on that. i think gorbachev will stay in power, but he is going to have to change to do it. >> so, that was tom brokaw sitting down with president richard nixon at the dedication of his presidential library in 1990. it's an interview depicted on the front cover of tom's latest book, "the fall of richard nixon: a reporter remembers watergate." wow! what a really good time for this book. and tom brokaw joins us now. tom, talk to me, if you could,

about parallels that you were seeing between this time and back then, but also differences. >> you know, there are not many parallels, quite honestly, about the climate, the two presidents, the time. the president, president nixon, when he was trying to defend himself in that last year, he knew that on those recordings he could be heard as part of the conspiracy. that's why we had an 18-minute gap at one point. he was going around the world trying to sort out his leadership, going to russia, to china -- not to china, in fact, at that time, but he went to egypt constantly trying to persuade people that he was the president, and they couldn't get him because he had executive privilege. well, then, of course, they were defeated by the supreme court in a unanimous ruling that he had to give up the recordings because they would be the way that he would be charged and the way that we can make a judgment

about him. it was all over at that point. the difference is, of course, that everything was a lot more moderated. i didn't have one of these, you know? i was on a regular phone. i'd get briefed in the morning at the white house by the press secretary. it was all quite civil. go work on it, and i would go on the air at 6:30 that night on "nightly news," and that would be it for the day. then i would get something ready for the "today" show the next morning, and that would be it until "nightly news" the next day. now it's 24/7, and the president, this president, is fully involved using social media for his own purposes. we didn't have any of that at that time. i think that social media in so many ways is the voice of the people, is important, but we haven't figured out how to govern it, how to regulate it, so you can see the difference between what is true and what is not true. >> absolutely. >> in our days, it was our job to do that. >> beyond the delivery system being different now with the phone, how do you compare, tom, the way nixon handled watergate

as to the way donald trump is handling water -- excuse me, his impeachment inquiry, just in terms of his posture? i know we didn't hear from nixon, obviously, nearly as much. you had a difficult time even getting access to president nixon as you covered the white house, where donald trump is in our lives and in our faces every moment of every day. >> well, they both are a reflection of the culture from which they came. this is how donald trump has always operated, even when he was failing in a number of businesses up here, he would try to give the impression he was an enormous success. richard nixon was an old-school politician. he had grown up under dwight eisenhower. he lost a very close race to john kennedy. and then what people forget, in his first term as president of the united states, he made enormous changes in this country, for women's rights, for the environment and a number of other issues. the second term they were overtaken by hubris. they just thought they could do whatever they wanted to under the heading of executive privilege, and it was, i thought, the kind of reorientation of what the presidency is in our lives. donald trump has trampled all

over that, quite honestly. >> susan page? >> you know, tom, don't tell anybody, but i've already gotten a copy of your book to give as a christmas present to my husband, who also covered the watergate hearings. don't let anybody know. in your book, you make the case that with watergate, after a lot of tumult, the system held, the system worked. do you feel equally confident that with this current debate, this current impeachment proceeding, that in the end, the system, the american system, is going to hold, is going to work? >> i don't know what the system is anymore. i mean, that's part of the problem. the system is reinvented every time we have a new president. barack obama was a lot different than this president in how he conducted the presidency. george bush the 43rd was a lot different. but i do feel very strongly that the american people really are taking their time and trying to decide what they want for the president, for the white house, for the american system of law

and the american system of, we settle these things not just by going on television, but the evidence is what really counts. we've get a long way to go. we all have these discussions all day long. i'm spending a lot of time with the other part of america, and they're paying attention, but it's not dominating their lives at this point. they'll come to conclusions once the time comes for them to make that kind of a judgment. i think we have to keep that in mind as well and hear more from what i call box -- the people who are out there saying look, i have problems with people in washington telling me how to think. so that's a big, big lesson for where we are right now. >> tom, one of the most pivotal moments that happened during the watergate was that republicans stepped forward and asked -- and told, you know, nixon to step down. do you see that type of courage or bravery amongst the republicans today? >> no. they were, both the republicans and the democrats, were more attached to the system, frankly.

the republicans didn't do it immediately. >> right. >> bill cohen, who i write about, he was a young congressman from maine, came down and sat on the house judiciary committee. he spoke up because he was a new guy in town. he got a lot of grief for it. but once people were seeing what was going on, they were backing away from the president. i was invited to dinner with the republican leader in the house, when he had been invited to the white house. and my host said, can't tell anybody we're going to be here with him because he's beginning to step away from the president. and there were meetings at the white house with barry goldwater and others who had great reservations about what the president was up to, but they gave him some cover for some time. but in the summer of 1974, all that began to unwind. >> right. well, tom brokaw, thank you so much. the new book is "the fall of richard nixon: a reporter remembers watergate." i think there's a lot more conversations we need to have on this show with you about that. and we'll be hearing from tom again on friday, ahead of

sunday's 50th anniversary of president nixon's famous silent majority speech. tom will have a piece for us on one of the most consequential and, ultimately, divisive speeches of nixon's presidency and what that silent majority might tell us about today's politi politics. tom brokaw, as always, thank you so much for being on. it's good to see you. time for final thoughts this morning. we'll give it to susan page. susan. >> so, unprecedented times. and i'll tell you what's unprecedented about today, a washington team in the seventh game of the world series. it's the first time since i've moved to washington. let's go nats. >> i like it! willie, do you agree? >> well, you've got max scherzer on the mound, strasburg got them here. anything can happen into game seven. all hands on deck. it will be fun tonight. also the president this morning, karine, is tweeting he wants congressional republicans to focus on the substance of the inquiry and not the process. i'm not sure that's a place they want to be. >> no. clearly, the republicans have

been running away from the substance and just been pounding, pounding the table and saying, you know, yelling and screaming and running away from the facts and the law. so, that's where we are with the republicans. >> i think we're all going to be really tired tomorrow. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. hi, there! i am stephanie ruhle. it is wednesday, october 30th, and here's what's happening this morning. we start with breaking news. state department employee katherine croft just arrived on capitol hill. she is the 11th witness to testify in the president's impeachment investigation, this as the administration's arguments defending that so-called perfect phone call between president trump and president zelensky of ukraine seemed to be falling apart one by one. the latest defense to bite the dust is this one. >> they tried to take that conversation and make it into a big scandal. the problem was, we had it transcri transcribed. it was an exact transcription of the conversation. i released