>> that's right, an extra hour of sleep. and we're talking about any number of things under the sun during the commercial break. thank you for that entertaining commercial break with you. >> thanks, alex. >> all right, see you tomorrow. >> yes. >> good day to all of you from msnbc world headquarters in new york. it is high noon in a couple seconds in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." coast-to-coast battle. a new report out hours ago about the lengths the president is going to keep his tax returns private. >> yesterday's vote by the radical democrats is an attack on democracy itself. >> we haven't even made a decision to impeach. >> impeachment clash. what new polls say about who's winning the messaging. testimony takeaways. who's made the biggest impression and how soon it will all go public. hear from someone who's heard the witnesses firsthand. fireside chat. how the president is taking a page from fdr's playbook in an effort to argue his case about

the ukraine phone call. but we start with a tale of two parties on this day four of the impeachment inquiry and the house entering a new phase after a week of damaging testimony against the president. republicans are weighing a new defense strategy. the "washington post" today reporting a growing number of gop senators are considering acknowledging trump's quid pro quo on ukraine and, quote, insisting that the president's action was not illegal and does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense. the president, on the other hand, taking a different approach, slamming democrats and trashing the impeachment inquiry in his first rally since the house voted to make the investigation official. >> corrupt politicians nancy pelosi and shifty adam schiff -- shifty -- [ audience reacts ] -- and the media are continuing with the deranged impeachment witch hunt.

this is one i never thought i'd be involved in. the word impeachment. to me, it's a dirty word. meanwhile, the other story line, house speaker nancy pelosi in a new interview saying there is no deadline to finish the investigation, telling bloomberg any case to impeach the president "has to be ironclad." >> we haven't even made a decision to impeach. this is what an inquiry is about. >> but you started a process the logical extreme of which would be removal of the president. >> i don't think it's so extreme if he has violated the constitution, but then, nonetheless, our responsibility in the house is to make a judgment about impeachment and then that would go to the senate. this is what changed everything for me. i don't like impeachment. it divides. and 2020 democrats taking on trump in iowa this weekend at friday's liberty and justice celebration dinner. 13 democratic candidates made their plea to voters with a

focus on defeating the president. >> number one is that vladimir putin doesn't want me to be president. and number two, donald trump doesn't want me to be the nominee! >> and i don't have to throw myself a military parade to see what a convoy looks like. >> a man who is a pathological liar, a man who is running the most corrupt administration in the history of our country, a man who does not understand the rule of law or our constitution and a man who will soon be impeached. >> in iowa, i stand here before you today for the people fully prepared to defeat donald trump. >> let's go from there to the white house now and nbc's kelly o'donnell standing by at her post. kelly, with a welcome to you on this saturday.

the president, as you know, held his first campaign rally since that house impeachment vote, in terms of getting the inquiry going officially. what more did we hear? >> reporter: well, in part, this was a trip about what's happening in mississippi, where there is a race for governor on tuesday. so that's why the president chose to be in tupelo, but it certainly gave him a background and a backdrop of supporters to argue his case on impeachment now that the events of this past week, momentous as they are, took place. so, the president was surrounded by several thousand supporters who were taking in his somewhat new arguments, going after the democrats, to be sure, but also poking some fun at the idea that as president running for re-election, he sort of set up joe biden as someone who wouldn't be that tough to beat, and if he were to need to go against biden, if he were ultimately the nominee, the president sort of mockingly saying, gee, he would need the help of ukraine to defeat him.

so, the president using humor at times, using anger at times, forceful in saying to those who were in attendance last night that it is not just an action of impeachment against the president, which is certainly what is outlined in the constitution, but making an argument that this is also a pushback on the voters who chose the president in the first place in 2016. one of the things he pointed out with some, it would seem pleasure, was he believes republicans have been sticking with him. here's a segment from his rally speech to make that point. >> yesterday's vote by the radical democrats is an attack on democracy itself. but i'll tell you, the republicans are really strong, the strongest i've ever seen them, the most unified i've ever seen them. right? the most unified i've ever seen them. >> reporter: and the president

has talked about the fact that he judges that vote from this week along those party lines. no republicans voted with the democrats. there could be the asterisk for justin amash of michigan, who had been a republican and is now an independent. he sided with democrats. and a couple of democrats from trump districts did vote on the president's side. so, the president's looking for that as some measure of support. but this was also a case where he acknowledged that impeachment is something he never thought he would have to deal with, and as he calls it, it's a dirty word. so, clearly, the president frustrated, concerned, but also looking to find support and to beef up his base as much as possible. alex? >> all of that not surprising. thank you so much, kelly o'donnell, from the white house. joining me right now is zerlina maxwell with sirius xm, james kindall and allen smith, nbc news political reporter. big welcome to all three of you. let's get into it.

allen, i'll reach out to you first here, because it sounds like the president is trying to convince himself that republicans are not going to abandon him. what's your read on that? >> well, trump, what he's really looking for here is for republicans to come out and state emphatically that there's nothing wrong with trump asking ukraine to investigate joe biden. as a matter of fact, trump should ask ukraine to investigate joe biden. that's really what he's holding out for here. we see in the president's defense here, he's been tweeting for days about "read the transcript, read the transcript," and to many observers, it can come across as kind of confusing, because this transcript seems to align with a lot of what the whistle-blower and what other witnesses have said, that has not shown to be very favorable to the president. but what he's holding out for is for republicans, which they have not done yet, i will note, but for a number of them to come out and say, yes, trump is right to have ukraine, ask ukraine to investigate joe biden. that's what trump should be doing. and this is where the president wants the argument to be going. >> yeah, i'm going to delve into that concept a little bit further, but james, to you now. with the president floating the

idea, really, of reading the ukraine call transcript in something of a fireside chat, borrowing a page from fdr there. how seriously is the president pursuing this and to what effect? >> he's not pursuing that at all. this would be a very bad thing for him because it would lead, obviously, to a lot of coverage before and after that evening, reminding the american people what was potentially in this transcript. of course, it's not a transcript. it's a detailed summary. there are a lot of words left out, as we learned earlier this week about some of the contents that was apparently left out. but it was obviously a very showy thing. it's a smart political play, trying to reiterate that, don't worry about reading the transcript or the detailed summary. what's in it is totally fine. i'm willing to even read it on national television. if he ever actually does it, i will be shocked. >> okay. zerlina, you think democrats are hoping for that fireside chat? do you think that america then could hear the president say all these words and the most important ones would be, i would

like you to do us a favor? >> yes. i think it might be helpful for democrats and maybe the white house, just like when they released the summary, unsure of just how bad the contents of the summary are for the president. i mean, let's get the facts straight just for a moment. we spent two years waiting for robert mueller to come out with his report after investigating the conduct by the president and his associates in the 2016 campaign. and what we established is, it is not okay to ask a foreign government for help in an election. maybe we didn't prove conspiracy, but if nothing else, we established that that is unlawful conduct. then the president went out and did it. then he released a summary proving he did it. then he went on television and did it in front of a camera. so, we have all of the evidence that we need to demonstrate that the president engaged in criminal conduct, because we established that this is a crime during the mueller investigation. so, i think that if he wants to

read this summary in prime time, go right ahead. you're just going to be reading your confession. >> can i follow up with you, zerlina, on what speaker pelosi said on the closed-door impeachment inquiry and whether there is a point of diminishing returns with the public, as this would drag on behind the scenes. is that why there's a pivot soon to public testimony? >> yes. i think that the pivot to public testimony is a critical component to ensure that the american people are educated on all the facts, right? and so, i think that, sure, you're probably out living your life, you know, paying your bills, taking care of your family, and you might have missed the president standing in front of a camera and asking china and asking ukraine to interfere in the upcoming election, but we're going to have all of these hearings with credible witnesses who are not partisan, who are civil servants who are coming to tell the truth under oath. and i think the american people will sit up and listen. i think that this might be the

moment that finally breaks through. and i think that you're already starting to see that in the moving polling that's showing that even republicans -- 25% of republicans support impeachment and removal. that's a quarter of the republican party supporting that. and i think that this is actually a moment in which the american people can collectively gather around their televisions and learn all the facts, finally, for the first time. >> weigh in on that, james, how dramatic a difference the shift is going to make to an open process in the democrats' fact-gathering strategy, and more importantly with the public. >> well, right. this is the only thing that really matters at this point. i don't think anyone in the house needs to learn anything more. we saw that kind of evidenced in the vote earlier this week. but what does matter is public perception of this process. is this simply just more politicians in the circus in washington, or is this actually going to matter? and in terms of that public sentiment towards this issue, all that really matters is the senate republicans.

as you know, you need 20 senate republicans to remove him from office. if not, you'll just have impeachment. and if there's any chance for democrats to even get close to that number, they're going to have to sort of convince more of the american public and more republicans to -- that this is actually a very serious matter, not just politics as usual. and the way that happens is by having public hearings. >> allen, i want to dig further into what you got into at the top here, the "washington post" reporting a growing number of gop senators consider acknowledging trump's quid pro quo on ukraine. how significant is this and what's the impact going to be? what's the white house going to counternarrative with? because currently they're saying there was no quid pro quo. so how do those two concepts clash? >> well, the "washington post" report, obviously, follows mick mulvaney standing at the white house podium and saying that, in fact, a quid pro quo did take place, which he then walked back, or tried to walk back later that day by simply saying that he was misunderstood, when

you know, anyone who was watching that segment knew exactly what was said. and since then, he had been a little bit iced out. but those comments have made it more difficult for republicans to argue that no quid pro quo took place. i mean, the partial summary of the call transcript shows that trump was interested in having such an arrangement take place. and again, as i said earlier, he really wants republicans to come out and say that he should have asked ukraine to investigate biden, that there's nothing wrong with doing that and that, in fact, he should do it. so, part of that is acknowledging that there was a quid pro quo that took place. >> zerlina, we've got the gop alliance to trump pretty strong. do you think there's anything in this process that changes any gop senator's minds? >> i don't know if it changes their minds, but i think that they need to be thinking about their role in our government in a different context than they are currently. right now they're thinking about their own personal re-election prospects, and they should be

thinking about the national security of the country. we're talking about the integrity of an upcoming election, the undermining of our national security, which they've swore to uphold. they swore to uphold the constitution and protect the american people. they are not doing that. and so, whether or not they change their minds, i don't know. they should at least consider the evidence, because we actually have the president confessing to a crime on camera because we went through the two years of robert mueller to establish that this conduct is inappropriate. you cannot ask a foreign government for help in an election, and the fact that this behavior has become normalized is something that the republican party is going to have to hold -- they're going to be held to account for allowing this to take place for the rest of history. so, i hope they go to bed with that message every single night, that they are betraying the country, essentially, for their own political interests, and that is very dangerous. >> can i ask you, james, about a piece that you've written about republican senator susan

collins, in which you write that the latest political head quake for susan collins -- what to do with impeachment. where does she stand on this? >> you know, she may be the person, besides president trump, who is facing the hardest pickle here or the most pressure. on the one hand, she represents a state that suddenly went to hillary clinton just by about four points, but if she were to -- the poll just came out, and if she were to vote to keep him in office as a senator, she would lose re-election by seven points. if, however, she votes to remove him from office, votes largely with democrats, she would easily lose a republican primary. so, it's a lose-lose proposition. so, i think for her, she's hoping that it's the kind of thing that sort of just goes away somehow, but this has been a very tough pickle for her. and of course, she's up for re-election next year and faces very strong competition. >> all right, allan, last question to you because you have a piece out about the president's coast-to-coast legal battle that's trying to keep his taxes hidden.

what all have you learned? >> as impeachment has ramped up, the tax battles which we spent much of the past year discussing, have gained momentum as well. we saw this past week that the president changed his residency from new york to florida, and i saw that on this network yesterday. governor cuomo speculated that some of the tax cases might have something to do with that. but essentially, the president is arguing in about four or five legal cases that prosecutors have no ability to not only prosecute a sitting president, but investigate him while he's in office, and that congress has no legitimate oversight authority on the president, unless there's a legitimate legislative task attached to it. so, he's basically plugging all of these holes to keep those returns private, to keep them from coming into any democratic hands. and he's got a number of cases he's got to keep plugged in order to do so. constitutional law experts i spoke with thought there was not a good chance of even justices president trump appointed on the

supreme court upholding his legal argument. >> okay. james pinnedle and allan smith, thank you. zerlina, i'll buy you a cup of coffee if you stick around for another 30 minutes. >> okay. >> thank you so much. from one financial question to another big one, the president's d.c. hotel records. my next guest, a member of congress, is demanding to see them. we'll ask her why. plus, she's heard some of the most sensational closed-door testimony in this impeachment inquiry. what's struck her the most about it next. what's struck her the most about it next. related to aging? prevagen is the number one pharmacist-recommended memory support brand. you can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. t-mobile's newest signal reaches farther than ever before... with more engineers, more towers, more coverage. it's a network that gives you... with coverage from big cities, to small towns.

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the impeachment inquiry into president trump entering a new, more public phase. the white house voting this week to proceed with open hearings for the first time after hearing over 100 hours of testimony from 13 witnesses behind closed doors. one of the members of congress who has been in the room for several of those hearings, congressman dina titus of nevada, is joining me right now. congresswoman, welcome back to the broadcast. it's nice to see you. let's get right into it because i know you've been in the room for these depositions. what is your biggest takeaway from what you've heard so far? >> several things. one is that the evidence just keeps building. one witness corroborates the previous one. second, these are people who are very brave. you've got military officers, longtime diplomats who are willing to come in and tell their story because they care about this country and they've devoted their life to service. and the third thing is, when we get caught up in the politics of the moment, we need to step back

and realize the gravity of the situation. you don't just casually move to impeach a president. it's not been done many times. and it's a burden that you need to accept and understand the responsibility of. >> yeah, absolutely. and clearly, you're taking that responsibility. but do you think you have heard right now enough to impeach this president? >> well, i do. i think that when the military officer just laid it all out and the serge de affairs laid it all out, plus the president said it on television -- >> so, in other words you're not taking the word of one testimony. you're taking many accounts and they're reiterating what the other has said. >> exactly right. and now we are going to continue to do a few more depositions, then move quickly to the public stage, but it's about building the strongest case we can for the public and for the senate. >> how does that change the perceptions of donald trump? what do you expect to gain from the public testimony?

>> well, i think it's the way that it's always been done in the past, and we've put it out there to the public, and the republicans can no longer say it's behind closed doors, even though they were behind the closed doors themselves. and i think it just helps to build the case, and it puts more pressure on the members of the senate, because as they see public opinion move in our direction, they will feel that pressure. >> okay. let's look at the vote this week, which took place making the impeachment inquiry official. your caucus, the democrats lost two votes. not a single republican voted in support. so, if you couldn't win even one single republican for a process vote, despite them clamoring for process, do you have any realistic hope of winning them over for an actual impeachment vote? >> well, as this becomes public, then more people will start to ride in or call in to their members, and if they are in any kind of swing district, perhaps that will have some influence

over them. they have no defense of the facts. we have seen that. so, first they said he didn't do it then he did do it, then it didn't matter. then they tried to blame the messenger. then they said it was secret and went in and ordered pizza. now, it's not going to be secret. they're kind of running out of defense. >> what about the new poll from the "washington post"? and that shows how divided americans are about impeachment. the poll has 49% saying the president should be impeached. removed from office. 47% say no. you've got 82% of democrats supporting impeachment, 82% of republicans posing. it couldn't be more divided. what do you say to your constituents who say this investigation is just some sort of partisan endeavor? >> well, i try to say look at the facts, that this is something that the president has done, has admitted to doing. and you focus on national security. maybe they don't understand the emoluments or they don't understand obstruction of justice, but people understand when a president goes to a

foreign country, asks them to interfere with the elections for his own personal gain and that threatens our national security. everybody gets that. and so, the more you hear that and explain it, i think the more people, especially those non-partisan voters will move in support of this person has to go. >> flipping the topics here. it's the last question, as you are a member of the house transportation committee and right now leading an investigation into the trump d.c. hotel. and i know that last week you subpoenaed the general services administration seeking financial records. >> that's right. >> regarding the president's d.c. hotel. tell us about that. >> well, i chair the subcommittee that oversees public buildings, and the hotel is in the old post office, so that's a public building. we issued those subpoenas. they have until monday to give us the financial records and the legal emails and letters in exchange for the lease. if they don't do it, then we are going to fight it in court because this is a clear violation of emoluments clause of the constitution that says

and was put there specifically by the founding fathers for this reason, that a president can't accept funds from foreign governments. >> well, i'm going to bet that based on precedence, you're expecting to go to court, true? >> i think that's right. >> all right. representative dina titus, thank you so much. >> thank you. a new threat from isis. how the raid to take down the terror group's leader could have lasting effects on u.s. foreign policy. sting effects on u.s. fo policy [ applause ] thank you. it's an honor to tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. i love you! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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a new and direct threat from isis to the united states as the group reacts to the killing of its leader as well as to president trump's description of abu bakr al baghdadi's final moments. the president doubling down on those details at a rally last night in mississippi. >> special operators executed a masterful raid that ended his wretched life and punched out his ticket to hell, i guess you could say. [ cheers and applause ] he spent his last miserable moments on earth cowering and trembling in fear of the american warrior that was right there going right up. >> joining me now, brett mcgurk, former u.s. special envoy to the global coalition to fight isis

during the president and trump administrations until december of last year. he's now an msnbc senior foreign affairs analyst. i'm curious your reaction to that. do you think he's doubled down to what he used that abu bakr al baghdadi is dying like a whimpering dog. >> i think it's come out that nobody knows such information so the president's making that up. if you want to say he's trying to delegitimize baghdadi and the fact that his claim to lead this caliphate is totally false, but obviously, president trump was doing that in a very crude way that i don't think is particularly effective. >> is it effective or is it not helpful? might it be effective to our detriment in terms of safety? >> well, in terms of safety, i think you have to look at what's happening in syria and this is far more important. look, the raid carried out in syria by our special operators, and i worked with them for many years, these men and women who

put this together, it's extraordinary, it's heroic. it also took years to put this together and it was achievable because we built a force in syria called the syrian democratic forces with 60,000 syrians under arms to advise and enable our u.s. special forces. president trump is basically pulling all of those forces out of syria. we've basically given up two-thirds of the territory that we were basically influencing to help fight isis. that's now under control of mostly russia and the assad regime. and we are sending in heavy armored mechanized units to guard oil fields. >> right. >> so, this is really important, because president trump says he's pulling forces out, bringing troops home. he says that to his rallies. but in fact, he sent 14,000 u.s. forces to the region since may, to the middle east. and now in syria, we're on track to have a more expensive, more manpower-intensive mission, ill-defined mission, than what was there before, really to guard oil fields rather than

focus on the fight against isis. so, that is what will increase the risk, ultimately, to our common citizenry and our homeland. >> brett, i'm going to ask our director to put up the full screen that shows the spots that you are speaking of right now where the u.s. is being sent in to protect oil facilities from isis. but let's take a listen to what former ambassador nancy soderberg said should be happening, versus what the president said, which is we're outright keeping the oil. >> last thing we want to do is talk about taking oil from other nations. that's the talking point of isis, that we're there to take their natural resources. defend our interests in the region, which is not to take the oil, but to secure our interest in the region, which depends on working with the kurds, making sure we don't hand the region over to russia and iran. >> look, brett, you know the president said the u.s. may have to fight for it. i mean, what's behind this oil grab? >> look, we are in syria -- we

are in syria for isis. that is the legal basis for which we are in syria. that is the basis on which we have built this huge global coalition to share the burdens. it is illegal to be in syria for the purpose of protecting oil fields or exploiting those oil fields to somehow make use of those resources for us. that just can't happen. you cannot take oil unless you own it and put it legally on to international markets. that's not how the oil markets, the system works. so, this is just very strange. look, what happened here is president trump on a call with president erdogan on october 6th was not prepared for that phone call. he basically gave away the store. he gave a green light to erdogan to come into syria with extremist backed forces that turkey supports. and you had a total unraveling of what was a very stable situation in northeast syria. the mission that was built really to protect us against isis. and out of that unraveling, the president was convinced to keep some forces there to protect these oil facilities, but it turns out, that's more expensive, it takes more troops. so now we're on track to have more troops in seer were, spend

more money than before for a mission focused on this strange protection of oil. and by the way, those oil fields were already protected because we had about 1,000 special forces in the country and the syrian democratic forces that we were working with. so there was no risk before of these oil fields coming into the hands of bad actors. so, this is just -- it really makes very little sense. and i fear that isis will really try to reconstitute in this maelstrom and is probably trying to do that right now. >> so brett, i want to reiterate what defense secretary mark esper said, which is that u.s. troops will be allowed to use overwhelming military force on this oil mission. i know that you resigned when the president ordered the complete syrian withdrawal of troops, though. but yes, there are troops that are going back in, reassigned to the oil fields. the president flips. he changes his mind frequently on any number of issues, including this one. is it now something good that at least there is a presence of u.s. troops there?

might he change back again? and would that be to your liking, if he reconstitutes the mission? >> so, in foreign policy and national security policy, when you make a decision that is ill-informed, ill-considered, you don't then preserve your options down the road. so the president seems to think that he preserves options. he said, when he said we're pulling out of syria, said we can go back in and blast isis if they come back. actually, you can't, because it took many years to build up this very careful presence that we had on the ground. again, it was stable. american forces were not fighting. they're not taking kablts. espning very little money. that special forces focused mission is now basically gone, and we're putting in very heavy units, national guard units from south carolina, as dod has reported, are going into syria. so, this is a totally different mission. again, more expensive, very ill-defined in terms of why they're there and what they're doing. and we've already given up all the territory that was the isis

caliphate. the cities of raqqah, which was isis' headquarters, was planning and plotting major attacks around the world, the same thing, the attacks in paris came out of one of the cities. we've left those areas. we've left the predominantly kurdish areas up on the northern syrian border, which are now under threat from turkish-backed opposition streamist forces and are now basically protected by putin and russia. so, the whole situation has been turned completely upside down. the mission makes very little sense. and we have to remind ourselves, we were there to fight isis, and we would never have gotten baghdadi without the careful work of our special forces and the syrian democratic forces that we helped build. so, it's really unclear where this is heading, other than to say we'll have more troops in syria, spending more money than before. so president trump cannot say he's bringing troops home. it's actually quite the opposite. he's sending thousands of more troops into the middle east than were there before. >> brett mcgurk, i hope people are listening. i very much appreciate all of

your insightful details based on your experience and clarifying a lot of questions for me. so come see me again. thank you very much. >> thanks, alex. thank you. how president trump wants to be like fdr in his battle against impeachment, but could it possibly backfire on him? cod it possibly backfire on him? hmm. exactly. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. nice. but, uh... what's up with your... partner? not again. limu that's your reflection. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪

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i'm on the phone, and they want me to say to this brand-new president who just got there, called to congratulate him --

please, could you help me, please? i don't know who he is. i didn't know his name until i looked on the card. >> president trump there at his rally last night talking about that july 25th call with ukraine's president. zerlina maxwell is back with me, also danielle moody mills, co-host of the democracyish podcast and rick tayler, msnbc analyst. welcome to you three. we saw the president downplaying what's becoming a defining moment for his presidency. what is your reaction to hearing him frame it that way? >> well, we know it's not true. we know what happened because he released a summary of what happened and he confessed to it on television. and so, we know what rudy giuliani and the other staffers in the white house, including secretary rick perry, we know what they were doing running a shadow foreign policy. and so, what the president said there is not true, it does not match with the facts as we know them today. so, i think that the president

is in an interesting place because he's cornered republicans essentially defending a narrative that is not the case. >> i mean, rick, what do you think of the president saying he had to look at a card and see what the guy's name was? i mean, first of all, wouldn't he have known who he was calling, first off? but i mean, what do you say to that? >> it's just remarkable that the president could demonstrate his complete ignorance of foreign policy and why ukraine is so important to us and important that it would emerge as a democracy, not another buffer state for the former soviet union, the russians. the russians, they're now in a hot war because the russians occupy crimea, which is a sovereign part of ukraine. so, it's just remarkable to me that the president would just demonstrate his ignorance. and by the way, look, this isn't a shadow foreign policy. this is just corruption. shadow foreign policy suggests that there's an alternative -- i

just don't like the term. this is just pure corruption. this is arms for dirt. this is trying to get a sovereign country, a president, to extort him for personal political gain, and that is just pure corruption. >> do you, danielle, think that for the president to make good on his suggestion that he reads the transcript of the phone call in a fireside chat, a la fdr, would that just turn out to be a gift for democrats? >> yeah, but it would be torture for the rest of us that have to watch it. i mean, look, every time that the president opens up his mouth, he exhibits the fact that he can't string together two sentences. and so, to think about comparing him -- to comparing what he would do with the fireside chat and what fdr did to reassure the country that we are going to be okay is just crazy. donald trump is going to get up in front of the american people. he is going to lie to them like he does on a day-to-day basis, but this time, all attention is going to be on him and there's not going to be a chopper in the background for him to rush onto.

and so, i think that, yes, it would be a gift, but i also think it would be a curse as well, because we cannot have the leader of the free world, the quote/unquote free world, continue to get up and lie in front of the american people, because there are a whole contingency of people, 40%, that believe him. and so, i think that it would still be problematic. so, there would be a need for a lot of fact-checking to happen. >> do democrats, zerlina, think that the president really believes it was a perfect call, after everything that's happened? >> i don't know what the president believes, alex. i wish i could tell you after two years i could figure out what this man is thinking, and i could figure out why he tweets the things he tweets or does the things he does, but that's for another day. the point is, is that the president is not telling the truth, and the american people finally can see through that because we have more evidence than we've ever had before of his misconduct. we know it was in the summary of the call. we saw him confess to it on camera.

and now we have a flurry of credible witnesses that are corroborating the original narrative set out in the whistle-blower complaint. so, we have all the information we need. and whether the president believes the lies that he is telling is really, you know, a question for a professional that's above my pay grade, alex. >> mine, too. all right, guys, there is a new politico morning consult poll which found 48% of voters disapprove of democrats' handling of the impeachment inquiry, 39% approving on that. is there a link between this and house speaker nancy pelosi now saying that she expects public hearings this month? danielle, i'll let you go at that first. >> i mean, look, democrats are not very good at messaging, and they have never been, but i think in this particular case that they are handling the impeachment inquiry much better than they did the mueller investigation. and so, they just need to continue to spread the facts around to the american people, whether it be social media, cable news, regular news, what have you, they just need to continue to beat the facts into the american people, because

what we know is that the republicans can't dispute the facts. they dispute process. and in fact, because of that, nancy pelosi and the rest of the democrats have opened up the process -- >> right, acquiesced. >> exactly. they have given so much room to republicans to be able to refute the facts. but they can't, because the facts are clear that the president's call was far from perfect. and like rick said, it was absolutely corrupt. >> rick, i'm going to give you the final word on this. what are your thoughts on these numbers and how it's all going to play out? >> so, look, we don't have corrupt -- we don't have impeachments very often, which is why it's easy to sort of exploit the process and what it means, and it's because we don't have aine dependent counsel. the independence counsel would have done all of this investigation in private. and so, but what the democrats need to do is they need to explain the process as they go along. i agree, they're doing a much better job than they did with the mueller report. they have to find a way to move the process along quickly and keep the voters focused on what they're doing. and i do think with the public

hearings, this argument that the republicans are having with this process is going to quickly evaporate. >> okay. zerlina maxwell, danielle moody mills, rick tyler, always good to talk with all three of you. thank you. just three months before the iowa caucuses, the 2020 race gets a little tighter. some new numbers that show it may be now a four-person game. t mabey now a four-person game. ms your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. i wish i could shake your hand. granted. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ if you have moderate to thsevere rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. humira can help stop the clock. prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections

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with just 93 days before the iowa caucuses and one contender, beto o'rourke, among those you see here, now dropping out of the race, the pressure is on for remaining democrats who have their eye set on the oval office. we had 13 taking the stage last night in hopes of finding their breakout moment. senators elizabeth warren and bernie sanders, south bend, indiana, mayor pete buttigieg and former vice president joe biden leading the pack. warren is ahead with 22% of iowa voters, sanders with 19%. buttigieg has 18%, biden right behind at 17%. joining me from iowa, shaquille brewster and vaughn hillyard. good to see you both. shaq, i'm going it start with you. you're there in des moines. i want to talk about what the 11 candidates are scheduled to do when they speak at the ncaa

events today. from this latest poll -- naacp, pardon me. it is clear that elizabeth warren has made a name for herself in the state, but how about the other candidates? what are they trying to do to stand out in this still very crowded field? >> reporter: well, alex, the focus this morning has been on african-american issues, which as we know, is a wide variety of issues. so we've heard the candidates talk about education, the economy, health care reform. in all, 11 presidential candidates were here on stage today. they got pressed on their records as interactions with the moderators. beto o'rourke was supposed to be here, was scheduled to be here before he dropped out of the race yesterday. but to kick things off this morning was senator cory booker. listen to a little bit of what he had to say. >> the staggering black-white wealth gap in this country, which continues to grow under this president, is costing us trillions of dollars a year as well. if this nation is to be who we say we are, a nation of liberty and justice for all, then we all

have a stake in addressing this issue. >> reporter: now, one moment that did stick out was when senator amy klobuchar was pressed on her record as district attorney back in minnesota. she was asked about her handling of police-involved shootings, and she actually apologized for that process that's been in place. she is proposing reforms now, instead of going to a grand jury automatically, take the process out of that and allows more transparency, she says. so you see candidates being reflective, but also making their pitch to african-american voters here in des moines. >> all good from there in des moines. shaq, stand by. vaughn, let's go to you in cedar rapids. that is where the leading candidates, warren, buttigieg, sanders, biden, they're all expected to speak to voters at the local fish fry. we're back at that again. so, what can you tell us about the atmosphere there surrounding these top candidates? >> reporter: exactly. those four candidates as well as four others will be making their way from des moines up here this afternoon. if you look at where polling has taken this race, essentially

you're seeing those four individuals pull away largely from the rest of the pack. and i want to take you back. you know, we drove up this morning from des moines ourselves, where the candidates spoke to more than 10,000 democrats inside of wells fargo arena in downtown des moines last night at the iowa democratic party's liberty and justice dinner. that was sort of the pinnacle event heading into these final three months before the iowa caucus on february 3rd. and there's one particular campaign i want to point out, which had a certain energy to it, not only last night, but we've seen a growing presence, an activist presence on the ground. and you've also seen his numbers essentially surge back up. and that would be the likes of pete buttigieg, who is beginning a couple-day road trip around the state of iowa and will be speaking at this fish fry. i want to let you hear, though, a little bit of pete buttigieg as well as elizabeth warren last night at that event in des moines. >> the purpose of the presidency is not the glorification of the president, it is the unification

of the american people. >> i'm not running some consultant-driven campaign with some vague ideas that are designed not to offend anyone. i'm running a campaign from the heart because 2020 is our time in history. >> reporter: alex, taking place next to the fish fry, there is stock car racing taking place over here, and i just met holly coates, who had no idea this event was taking place. and she said, oh, mayor pete's here. and i said, yes, as well as the other contenders. she said i was all on board with warren, but now i'm considering mayor pete buttigieg. >> interesting. we like that anecdotal discussion. thank you very much, shaq from des moines and vaughn from cedar rapids. thanks, guys. well, the president declares himself a resident of florida! the reason why in our next hour. ! the reason why in our next hour.

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good day, everyone, from msnbc world headquarters in new york. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." it is day 40 of the impeachment inquiry. democrats have entered a new phase. several critical and rapid developments over the last 24 hours from the white house to capitol hill. here's a snapshot of what's transpired here on msnbc as we bring you the very latest. >> the urgency of the impeachment inquiry is growing

for democrats as the timeline is shrinking. >> the reason there's a time crunch is that my republican colleagues in the white house have orb instructed the investigation. >> next week, house democrats have 11 more witnesses on their deposition calendar, and their testimonies could prove pivotal. >> donald trump went on the attack while speaking in tupelo, mississippi. >> yesterday the democrats voted to potentially nullify the votes of 63 million americans, disgracing themselves and bringing shame upon the house of representatives. >> nbc news confirming reports that alexander vindman, member of the national security council, told congress he was instructed to keep quiet about that july 25th phone call between president trump and ukrainian president zelensky. >> a growing number of republican senators are now considering acknowledging there was a quid pro quo on that phone call. >> the phone call with the ukrainian president, according to trump, was so perfect that he told the "washington examiner"

that he wants to read it -- that is, the edited notes of the call -- in a live, televised fireside chat. house speaker nancy pelosi in a new interview saying there is no deadline to finish the investigation, telling bloomberg "any case made to impeach the president has to be ironclad." we are going to break down today's biggest stories with nbc reporters and a team of analysts, so let's start with a tale of two parties. president trump not backing down from the impeachment fight, as you heard from that rally in mississippi last night, as house speaker nancy pelosi is making headlines telling bloomberg that public impeachment hearings can begin as soon as this month. meantime, in a campaign rally last night, the president railed against the impeachment process, slamming the inquiry as "an attack on democracy itself." let's go to nbc white house correspondent hans nichols, who's joining us with more. hans, a welcome to you, just down the street from where we are outside of trump tower, what more did the president have to say? >> reporter: well, he had a lot

to say and took a long time saying it. we're seeing the emergence of his impeachment defense after this gets more formalized in the house of representatives. it's a version of what he's been saying all along, and that is, this is an illegitimate inquiry, congress doesn't have the authority to impeach him because he's doing such a perfect job. but when he's in front of those audiences, what you're starting to hear him say is that an attack on him through impeachment is actually an attack on his very supporters. >> yesterday's vote by the radical democrats is an attack on democracy itself. the democrats' outrageous conduct has created an angry majority that will vote many do-nothing democrats out of office in 2020. make no mistake, they are coming after the republican party and me because i'm fighting for you. they don't like it.

>> reporter: now, what we're also hearing from the president is this idea that the economy is raging, it's doing very well. this is part of what he talks about to his supporters, but there is a subtle message in even going to where he went, right? we're here in new york city. we're just in tupelo, mississippi, about 14 hours ago. it's important where he lands the plane because it gives you an indication of where the president might feel he needs to strengthin his defenses. mississippi has a governor's race. we have a governor's race coming up in louisiana. the president confused the two the other day. and on monday night, he'll be in kentucky. those are important because those are red rock republican states. and if there's any erosion of support among the president's base, some of the republican senators may start feeling differently about the president's strength heading into a potential senate vote on impeachment on conviction. and the president hinted at this last night, talking about mitt romney, seemed to be veering in the direction of criticizing mitt romney but then pulled himself back and said, i don't know, maybe he'll change, maybe he'll sort of wise up. so, a subtle message from the

president as he's trying to really calibrate his impeachment message after this vote has been formalized. alex? >> hans, i've got to assume that the reason you're standing in front of trump tower today as opposed to the white house is because the president has made it clear, despite being a lifelong new yorker, he no longer considers himself one. is that true? >> reporter: well, i don't know. i think once you're a new yorker, always a new yorker, right? the president's dome sil will be changing and he's heading to new york tonight so that's why we're in front of trump tower instead of the white house and we're getting some heckling from audience here. a little kind of different heckling than we got when we were in tupelo, mississippi, a slightly different, should we say, cultural values. >> i would be that to be the case. i have walked right there where you are as well and have heard the heckling as well. thank you from new york city, midtown. joining me, jacquelin al ama think from the "washington post," john nickals, national affairs correspondent at "the nation" and michael beshlosh,

author of "presidents of war." i'd like to play something else that the president said last night and get your reaction. here it is. >> yesterday's vote by the radical democrats is an attack on democracy itself. but i'll tell you, the republicans are really strong, the strongest i've ever seen them, the most unified i've ever seen them. right? the most unified i've ever seen them. >> so, jacquelin, listening to the president, he appears to be confident about keeping republicans in line, but your paper is reporting that a growing number of gop senators consider acknowledging trump's quid pro quo on ukraine. so what's behind this? >> that's exactly right, alex. and as we are seeing this white house scramble to come up with an argument here to, you know, combat these substantive facts

put forth by these testimonies, these white house officials, national security officials, pro-trump republicans who have e president engaged in with ukrainian president zelinsky. i think it's important to remember here that there were grave concerns inside the white house, that white house officials went to great lengths in order to conceal this transcript that really caused the whole impeachment inquiry to begin. and republican senators are starting to panic over those facts. they're, again, scrambling to come up with an argument against this, realizing that their initial argument, that there was no quid pro quo, is not really holding right now, when you have people like alexander vindman, a decorated iraq war veteran and a current nse official, getting up before congress and testifying that, one, he was concerned about the conversation that the president had with president zelinsky over an exchange for an investigation, withholding military aid to ukraine, and

also that there were other officials, like ambassador gordon sondland, who said that there was a quid pro quo and that that directly came from the president. >> yeah, well, and like mick mulvaney, acting white house chief of staff, who then quickly walked that back. but michael, from a historical perspective, when you hear the white house's counternarrative here, the allegations that have been leveled against democrats, what strikes you most about how president trump is handling the impeachment process? >> well, he's doing it in an aggressive way, obviously, rather than in a passive way, which doesn't surprise any of us. and it does have some echoes in history. when richard nixon was campaigning against the possibility of being impeached in 1974, he said that the impeachment was actually an effort to reverse the mandate of 1972, in other words, the fact that he had been re-elected by a landslide. it was an effort to overturn that. and he even on occasion used the word coup, which has been

revised in recent weeks. and that's something that has another echo, which is that if richard nixon had gotten to an actual impeachment, rather than resigning or an impeachment trial, he later on said that the argument he was going to make was, when he asked the cia to interfere with the fbi's investigation of watergate, he was going to say that to call that obstruction of justice required a corrupt motive, and he said, i did not have a corrupt motive, and who knows what the effect might have been? >> michael, is there anything significant about the fact that this president is facing the possibility of impeachment during his first term? >> that's something that we haven't seen before in history, and that's why, in a way, the historical precedent doesn't apply very much. and the other thing is to see an impeachment inquiry unfold against the backdrop of a presidential campaign. that happened in 1868, but it was not a year in which the

incumbent president was going to run for re-election, andrew johnson. >> john, to you now with politico reporting that the president is rewarding republican senators by tapping his fund-raising network for members that are facing some pretty tough re-election bids. the report says, "trump is exerting leverage over a group he badly needs in his corner with an impeachment trial likely coming soon to the senate." so, aren't these senators set to be jurors when and if this reaches the senate for trial? i mean, if anybody looks at this as being a form of bribery, is there any truth to that? >> well, you really are going right into the heart of the matter here, because of course, impeachment is not a legal act, it is a political act. it has many of the trappings of legality, of a court, of jurors, but because these are politicians, you end up in these gray areas. i think it looks terrible, and i think it's something that will be much discussed.

because these are politicians running for re-election, you get into the question of what the president actually says about it and what others say about it. of course, an incumbent president often fund raises for members of his own party, but this is a messy, messy area. and one of the things that i think is important to understand is that because this is a political act, because impeachment is something done in the area of governance, not in the courts, you're going to have a lot of political overlay on this. and one of the things that the president keeps saying is, you know, impeachment tries to overturn an election result without noting that his opponent got 3 million more votes than he did. and many of these republican senators are going to note that reality, that trump's poll numbers aren't all that great and that, frankly, he didn't have the sort of nixon mandate in '72. >> yeah. speaker pelosi spoke about the impeachment inquiry and what it

all may entail. here's part of that. >> there were 11 obstruction of justice provisions in the mueller report. perhaps some of them will be part of this, but again, that will be part of the inquiry to see where we go. >> so, jacqueline, pelosi also acknowledged the public's attention span is limited. so did democrats feel the need to keep this narrative moving forward because they sensed the public was growing kind of wary of the closed-door process? >> yeah, the public phase of this inquiry is crucial. and democrats realize that. and as we saw with "washington post" polling that came out yesterday, the public opinion on this matter has stalled for the moment. it is split along partisan lines, which is why this public phase is going to be really important in order to change that public continue and keep things moving forward. pelosi has said that they want to get the public aspect of these hearings going by november. we are moving into that phase as we speak. there are a number of witnesses

who have already agreed to testify publicly. that includes ambassador bill taylor, alexander vindman. so, things are on a good track. we also know that democrats do not want to engage in these protracted legal battles in order to get some key witnesses on the stand. so, they are trying to move as quickly as possible. you know, it's clear that they don't want this going too far into the presidential campaign as well. this is going to be a big impediment to a handful of the senators who are running for the 2020 presidential race right now, like elizabeth warren and bernie sanders, who are going to have to sit on trial for six days a week in the middle of a primary. >> right. >> so, this is a distraction and it's important to keep the public's attention and keep them tuned in and have them hear directly from these witnesses who have pretty powerful stories to tell. >> yeah. okay. i have a couple other stories to get into and get your reaction on the other side, everyone. today we are following the president who is standing by his defense that his phone call with ukrainian president zelinsky was "perfect." now he's considering a fireside chat of that call, this as he is

also changing his residency from manhattan to palm beach, florida. the lifelong new yorker announcing that move via twitter, writing "despite the fact that i pay millions in city, state and local taxes each year, i've been treated very badly by the political leaders." so, with my panel once again, let's get into it. jacqueline, what are you hearing on this? what are the chances the president could actually pursue this in terms of the fireside chat? do you think it's going to happen? >> well, it's funny. per usual with a lot of what the president puts out there into the universe varies greatly from what his aides actually want him to do. if you remember, white house officials did not want him to release this transcript in the first place, and trump who insisted this was a perfect call, wanted to go ahead and get it out there. but i think it's important to remember the facts here, because this president sort of operates under this thinking that if he says something out loud, if he acknowledges it, it nullifies the fact that it's improper or illegal. but again, there were many officials inside the white house who were gravely concerned about

the contents of this transcript, that it was not a perfect call, that there was quid pro quo. my colleagues also reported yesterday a really important fact that vindman testified during his hearings on the hill this week, which is that there were key phrases omitted from this transcript, likely not to be included when trump does read this transcript during a fireside chat, which is the phrase burisma, which is the company in ukraine that employed hunter biden, joe biden's son. and what the omission of this word suggests is that president zelinsky, the ukrainian president, did realize that, you know, an agreement to meet with the president or get ukrainian aid was contingent on the fact of launching an investigation into burisma and that he was aware of that. so, we'll see if, you know, white house aides ultimately allow the president to do this, but it's not really their decision. the president is running the show on strategic communications when it comes to the inquiry right now. >> beyond that with democrats, john, is it something democrats want to see help them?

could it help them? happen, rather, help them. >> could it help the democrats to have the president read a transcript -- >> read this transcript. >> -- which republicans in the house and senate have quietly, at least, and sometimes even a little more loudly, suggested was quite incriminating? yeah, i think the democrats would love it. in fact, my sense is that the democrats would be glad to buy time for the president to do the reading. one of the things is -- i doubt the president will actually do this. and it sounds very gimmicky. and at the end of the day, this president's actually pretty savvy about social media and what happens when you put something out there. i can tell you right now, if the president reads this transcript on national television, it will be closely watched. but as we all know from debates and other things, it will then be chopped up into segments, and the line "do me a favor" will be just sort of radiate through the

media. so, yes, i think democrats would love it if he did this. also, finally, i would just add one other thing, i think this looks like a desperation move. this is -- this is not the sort of defense that you want to be mounting in a situation like this. and i just don't think that the white house has its act together on this even now. >> and to jacqueline's point, there's no saying the president will read an exact verbate of how that call went down. i'm curious as we talk about this fireside chat, i'm curious, michael, what uyou think of the president referring to this, given the weight of what fdr did with his. >> right. roosevelt gave maybe a little bit less than three dozen fireside chats over the course of his 12 years in office, and those were on radio. and as you know, alex, from studying this, that roosevelt did this to discuss such things as what he was going to do next in world war ii or what he would

do to solve the great depression. so it was a little bit different. but i think what they're referring to here is the fact that franklin roosevelt had great faith in his willingness and his ability to explain unpopular things to americans in a way that would convince them, in a way that they would understand, so i think what donald trump is doing is aying, i have some of that same quality, and who knows what the effect might be? >> michael, you wrote the book "presidents of war." president trump, he's positioning himself as someone who wants to get america out of wars. how do you interpret that? >> well, that's what he said in 2016 and that is certainly the context that he put this recent decision on syria in. and what i wrote about in that book was, you know, all the way back to the beginning, as you know, alex, was presidents who make an effort to get into war as a way of helping themselves politically in expanding executive power.

fortunately, we have not seen that happen in donald trump's case yet, and you know, all who love peace and worry about presidents who got us into wars that may be unnecessary should think that perhaps that will be a record that would be nice to see him emulate. >> all right. michael beschloss, john nichols, jacqueline alemany, good to see you all. thank you. up next, the congressman who led a bipartisan delegation to ukraine talks about what is left unanswered. n to ukraine talks about what is left unanswered along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting. chantix reduces the urge so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away

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we're going to meet hopefully with the appropriate ministers. i've requested a meeting with the president, mr. zelinsky, and we'll discuss ukraine's future. >> that was congressman john garamendi on my show six weeks ago discussing a visit he was planning to take to ukraine, and that was right before the impeachment inquiry into the president was launched. it is now on day 40. joining me now is california representative john garamendi, a democratic member of the armed services committee. so, congressman, with a welcome to you. you went to ukraine since you were last here, you met with bill taylor as well as senior ukrainian officials. what did you learn from them? what were your biggest takeaways? >> several things. first of all, we learned that ambassador taylor was an extraordinary individual that was deeply, deeply concerned about the american support, continuing american support, for ukraine.

similarly, when we met with a foreign minister and the minister of defense, we knew and could actually perceive that they were very concerned that america would get all caught up in this whistle-blower and the ukraine investigation, that they might not have the kind of support that they needed to fight off russia. and finally, we learned that the russia incursion and the war with russia is deadly. we've participated in a memorial ceremony the morning that we met with the defense minister in which they were honoring about 12 soldiers that were killed on that day in the previous five years. one of the 13,000-plus ukrainians that have been killed in the war with russia. so, it was a very delicate situation. ambassador taylor, extraordinary individual, deeply concerned. the ukrainians equally concerned about continuing american support. >> republicans have been demanding, they've been clamoring for proper process

here. yes, indeed, the vote was taken on the official impeachment inquiry, so check that off. what comes next? what kind of pushback do you expect from republicans now? >> well, i think they're going to be in a very difficult situation because we will very shortly begin public hearings. all of the depositions that have been taken, and apparently, if the speaker is moving towards also picking up the mueller investigation, all of that will now be in a public setting where the democrats and the republicans will have an opportunity to ask questions, but much more importantly, there will be trained lawyers that will be asking the first 45 minutes of questions, both democrat and on the republican side. it's going to be an extremely important opportunity for the american public to see what actually went on, that there really was an extortion by the president of the united states extorting from ukraine

information or a false investigation on the bidens in exchange for $391 million of essential military equipment. >> but can i ask or confirm that in these public hearings, democrats and republicans will be afforded equal time. so republican claims that the democrats are big-footing this, that's null and void? >> that is -- you're correct. both null and void, and in fact, the republicans have the same amount of time as do the democrats. and in the private deposition hearings from the three committees, the republicans also had the same amount of time available to ask questions or to refute any information that came up, as did the democrats. so, it was equal time, even in the deposition hearings, which were private. now, in the public hearings, it will be equal back and forth and the president can have his own lawyers participating in those

public hearings, which hopefully will commence in the next few weeks. >> congressman, i'm curious from what you've seen and heard from your colleagues in the committees leading the investigations, do you at this point think there is enough evidence to bring forth articles of impeachment against donald trump? >> yes, i do. and actually, i thought there was back in the mueller testimony. despite what attorney general barr tried to do to frame that in a dishonest way, when you get into reading the pages of the mueller report, there were 12 instances of obstruction of justice in that report. and now with the ukraine situation, we also have by the president's own admissions, his own admissions, his own words, that he was extorting a political favor, which, by the way, is illegal for a foreign government to participate in an american election. but the president was asking that government, the government of ukraine, to participate in an

illegal act to support and to help the president in his election. it's plain and simple. it's all there in the president's own words and now confirmed not by the whistle-blower, but rather, by the testimony of people that actually heard the call, not the least of which was major vindman. >> mm-hmm. california congressman john garamendi. always a pleasure, sir. thank you very much. >> thank you. speaker pelosi's warning to dems, ahead. speaker pelosi's warning to dems, ahead. if you live with diabetes, why fingerstick when you can scan? with the freestyle libre 14 day system just scan the sensor with your reader, iphone or android and manage your diabetes. with the freestyle libre 14 day system, a continuous glucose monitor, you can check your glucose levels any time,

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developing this week, republicans launching blistering personal attacks against lieutenant colonel alexander vindman after he gave ten hours of testimony tuesday in the impeachment inquiry against president trump. >> it seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about ukrainian defense. i don't know his concern about american policy, but his main mission was to make sure that the ukraine got those weapons. i understand that. we all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from. >> we also know he was from the soviet union, emigrated with his family young. he tends to feel simpatico with the ukraine. >> well, this prompted a vigorous defense of the highly decorated officer in a

"washington post" op ed, and the writer of that op ed is joining me now, ambassador michael mcfall, who worked with vindman in moscow. ambassador, always happy to talk with you, but i want to get right into this, because you got to know him when you were the u.s. ambassador to russia and he with a military attache at the u.s. embassy in moscow. so, first of all, was this some sort of immigrant smear that we heard the republicans talking about? >> yes. i mean, in multiple ways. first of all, when they say he supported ukraine military defense and not american policy, whoever just said that in your clip doesn't seem to know american policy, because it's american policy to support ukrainian military defense. number two, this idea that he has some affinity for his homeland, on what basis were people making that? did they talk to him about that? and they're a little confused about his background there, too. he left totalitarian soviet union. ukraine did not exist as a

country when his family left. he's also jewish, by the way, so this ethnic thing that they're saying oh, he has some sympathies to ukraine, assuming he's ethnically ukraine, is also incorrect. but third, what i know, because i worked with him, he's an american patriot! you don't sign up for the military and serve 20 years if you don't believe in the united states of america. and he's had some incredibly difficult, tough assignments, including being wounded in iraq, and he's also very talented. you don't get to serve in the embassy in moscow if you're not part of the best and the brightest, and you don't get to serve as a director at the national security council working at the pentagon if you're not one of the best and the brightest. so, i did, i took real offense to people that were making innuendos about, you know, hyphenated adjectives to describe americans. colonel vindman, he's an american. >> so, the president's defenders, that would include republican senators there, they're saying, yeah, it was a

quid pro quo, but no, it's not an impeachable offense. vindman said the president's actions would undermine national security. what do you think he was focused on when he said that? >> well, first that these senators are now saying it just to underscore, they're contradicting the president of the united states. >> right. >> and they're going to have to work out their talking points as to what exactly their argument is. >> are they doing that because the facts are coming out, that they can no longer ignore the truth? >> i think so. i think the truth is pretty obvious, the facts are really clear, and so maybe they have to pivot to that. but to answer your question, what colonel vindman saw there was the use of public resources and the office of the president of the united states for a private interest, a re-election interest. and that's wrong. that's corruption. and that he would do what he did -- i wand to underscore, if you're trained in the military, you've worked in the u.s. government in embassies and now at the national security

council, it is not instinctual for you to go outside of the chain of command and to raise a concern like this. i think the extraordinary facts that -- well, not fact for him, he heard it on the phone call, but for us, led to this extraordinary action that colonel vindman did. >> okay. politico broke this story, that vindman told congress he became concerned when a white house lawyer, john eisenberg, told him, don't tell anyone about this call. a source familiar with the testimony confirmed this with nbc news. what do you read into that? >> well, first, just to explain. colonel vindman is a director in the eurasia direct rate at the nse. i used to work there for three years in the obama administration. and so, his job after a telephone call like that is to sit in the white house situation room with other members from the interagency, from the state department, from the pentagon, from the cia, and to do the

debrief on that phone call. i did that all the time. my staff did that all the time. so that he was told not to brief them is unusual, and it means that the rest of the u.s. government doesn't know what u.s. policy towards ukraine is, right? when the president speaks, he makes policy. and two, i just think it underscores, you know, the paradox or hypocrisy here. if the call was perfect and everything's fine, why were they going to such great lengths to not reveal the facts of that call? >> former ambassador michael mcfaul, our conversations are always illuminating. thank you so much. >> certainly. coming up next, elizabeth warren's medicare for all plan. will voters buy into it. plus, a new warning from isis. did president trump's tough talk light a fuse? ump's tough talk light a fuse i have moderate to severe pnow, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are getting clearer, yeah i feel free ♪ ♪ to bare my skin ♪ yeah that's all me. ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand ♪ ♪ nothing on my skin ♪ that's my new plan. ♪ nothing is everything.

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but i'll tell you, the republicans are really strong, the strongest i've ever seen them, the most unified i've ever seen them. right? the most unified i've ever seen them. >> president trump there at his campaign rally last night in mississippi. joining me now, chris lu, former senior aide to president obama and a dnc superdelegate, and political columnist amy holmes, former speech writer for senate majority leader frist. amy, kind of sounds like the president's trying to convince himself that the republicans are not going to abandon him. how do you read his approach at that rally? >> well, i think donald trump is doing what he always does, which

is rallying the base. and if you watch, the base was thrilled. they agree with them, that they're not going to leave him through this impeachment process. but of course, those aren't the voters that the president needs to worry about. he needs to worry about those suburban women who might be getting a little bit frustrated with the president's approach and some of his tactics, but then again, of course, he'll be trying to sell his policies. as we know, at this point it doesn't look like senate republicans are going to be abandoning him, so it doesn't look like he's going to be removed from office. >> you don't think any of those republican senators are thinking about all that's being compiled, if you will, and that it's going to be hard to look at a stack of papers and facts and research and all that when it comes to voting in a senate trial? >> well, i don't think it's a matter of our individual senators looking at this. we know that mitt romney for example says he's very disturbed by what has been revealed thus far. but of course, to rvemove

president trump from office, you need a supermajority in the senate, 66 senators. so, where are they going to find 20 united states republican senators who would be making that vote? they're just not there. >> point well taken. what about you, chris? do you think the public impeachment inquiry this month could force republicans in the senate to rethink their support for the president? i mean, is the ultimate goal to remove him from the office? >> well, look, i think it's too early to speculate what's going to happen, whether it's in the house or in the senate. what i think is an important wild card in the house, certainly, is the 17 retiring house republicans. these are people who don't have to fear the wrath of trump's base. and i think it is possible that a significant number of these people could break, and i think in terms of the senate, you see a bunch of people holding their powder dry. it's not only susan collins, but people like lamar alexander, who are also retiring and ultimately will depend on the weight of the evidence as presented by house democrats. i think this is why the process is playing out the way it is. this is not about, we know what the out lines of this picture

look like and we've always known that the moment the white house released the transcript of the july 25th call. what house democrats on the intelligence committee are really trying to do is to build as strong a case as possible to sway not only republicans in the house and senate but also the public as well. >> all right, you mentioned the democrats. let's get to that and i'll start with you, chris, on this, because there are big 2020 headlines. senator elizabeth warren, who is out with her plan on how she's going to pay for medicare for all, but in a separate, new interview, house speaker nancy pelosi said, "protect the affordable care act. i think that's the path to health care for all americans. medicare for all has its complications." then she added "the affordable care act is a better benefit than medicare." are democrats concerned that warren's medicare for all plan may be a bridge too far? >> well, you know what's interesting about this is i think most democratic voters have gotten a little bit lost in this debate. the american public basically wants broader health care coverage and lower costs. and really, whether you're talking about a public option or you're talking about medicare for all or some kind of hybrid

proposal, all of those things do this. this is really not about the policies but it's about the politics, and i think this is a good debate for both elizabeth warren and joe biden to have, because elizabeth warren can talk about herself being a fighter who can change the system from the outside. joe biden can talk about himself and what he's accomplished in washington to get policies done. and i think this really plays to both of their strengths and it really is about what the democratic electorate and ultimately about what voters want in terms of where their country should go. >> well, speaking of voters, amy, i want to get your take on a new politico morning consult poll. they have the matchups between five top democrats and the president. of those five, only biden and sanders are leading the president, and the margin for biden, that's just five points now. it's down from 11 points back in june. to what do you attribute that? >> well, in answer to your previous question about medicare for all, democrats are concerned that as it a big loser. it's a lead balloon. even nancy pelosi, the speaker, is saying remember november.

and she remembers obamacare and democrats passing that piece of legislation and then losing control of the house, getting wiped out. moderate democrats were decimated by obamacare. medicare for all? you know, that is political disaster for democrats. i think as, you know, voters get to know these plans, it is about policy. medicare, as it stands, actually takes in far less than it pays out. the average person puts in about $150,000 and takes out about $400,000 and you want to extend this to 323 million americans? it is not a popular policy. people do not want their private health insurance outlawed in order to make way for medicare for all. and nancy pelosi's warning democrats, again, remember november, because medicare for all is not going to go over. >> i have to say, i can't confirm those numbers, but if you are accurate in those numbers, that's pretty staggering, i've got to admit. but chris, quickly to you on this because the democrats are ramping up focus on new hampshire and iowa.

i'd like to look at nbc's steve kornacki, who's breaking down just how critical these races are. take a look. >> look at this. this is where new hampshire stands right now, also cluttered. by the way, sanders, newest poll this week, in first place in new hampshire. what happens if sanders sneaks up and wins iowa? roll it into mondnew hampshire win there? what's the record of candidates winning both iowa and new hampshire? in the modern era, candidates who have done that are undefeated for winning the democratic nomination. >> put that together, if you're not a democrat in the top four spots or so in these states right now, how worried are you? how long do you have? >> well, look, democrats, iowa's always been sort of a bellwether in recent years, but i think if you look on the republican side, the last three winners of the iowa caucuses were ted cruz, rick santorum and mike huckabee. and i think given the strength of the democratic field and the number of potential candidates as well as the way the calendar is scheduled and that first

super tuesday, there are some huge states in it, i'm actually thinking the winner of iowa and new hampshire might not be the nominee and that this race could go well into the spring and all the way into the convention. >> really? you don't think super tuesday's going to wrap it up, do you, chris? >> i think a lot of this is about money and with beto o'rourke jumping out, texas is more in play. but for somebody like kamala harris, who has california in that first bucket, i think that will help her a lot. i think a lot of candidates will get a lot of delegates early on. >> chris lu and amy holmes, thank you so much. >> thank you. a new warning from isis. even after the u.s. took down its leader. why our next guest says the group is damaged but hanging on. group is damaged but hanging on. chevy's the only brand... to earn j.d. power dependability awards... across cars... trucks... and suvs. four years in a row. since more than 32,000 real people... just like me. and me. and me. took the survey that decided these awards. it was only right that you hear the good news from real people... like us.

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we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. even a- (ernie) lost rubber duckie?

(burke) you mean this one? (ernie) rubber duckie! (cookie) what about a broken cookie jar? (burke) again, cookie? (cookie) yeah. me bad. (grover) yoooooow! oh! what about monsters having accidents? i am okay by the way! (burke) depends. did you cause the accident, grover? (grover) cause an accident? maybe... (bert) how do you know all this stuff? (burke) just comes with experience. (all muppets) yup. ♪ we are farmers. ♪ bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum fresh insight today into the new leader of isis following the death of al baghdadi and what to make of a new morning with isis and whether the president lit a fuse inside that group. writer from "plolitico"politico, glad to have you back on the show. tell me about this new leader.

al quraishi, what do we know about him? >> nobody really knows. al baghdadi wasn't his real name either and read the tea leaves a few things stand out. al quraishi is emphasizing the pre-condition for any caliphate of isis. it is the tribe from which the prophet muhammad descended, claiming direct descent from the founder of islam. the al hashimi bit claims his an tesstry is from a dynasty and already there are clues. probably he is a roiraqi, becaut was heavily filled with iraqis and i've noticed this is a franchise changing quickly. not only exclusively arab.

some of the famous fighters, a georgia chechen, the warrant officer running the entire operation in aleppo in 2012. isis is increasingly internationalized. it fields commanders, fighters from all over the world, including north america, europe, russia, particularly the north caucus region, and southeast asia now. it is not beyond the realm of possibility, not saying this guy is not arab. he probably is, but not beyond the realm of possibility this franchise could be led by a non-arab. >> the global infusion of power and talent into the isis realms, does that make the united states less safe? i mean, how does that affect us? >> the important thing about dismantling this caliphate, originally it was huge. the fact they could akwai a quote/unquote state roughly the

side of great britain, no other organization was capable of doing including al qaeda. that project has come to dust. the problem, though, as i said earlier, is, this has become a global if a none nam aphenomeno. able to recruit and using social media platforms like telegram and access to internet technology. yes, still very much a lethal threat and death of the leader baghdadi does not mean isis is defeated. it hasn't. the adaptability across syria and iraq where they still command probably around 20,000 hard-core fighters. not to say anything about the travelers, sympathizers and loyalists they used to lord over are still a concern here. >> does the fact the president calls baghdadi, died like a whimper be dog does that light the fuse we talked about earlier? >> to be honest, the way isis

talked about donald trump, moron, idiot. incompetent commander in charge of the united states. they don't care. this fuse was lit 16 years ago, around a long time and come back with a vengeance even when we have strategically defeated them. it doesn't matter what donald trump says and they're not particularly interested in his claims offing a baghdadi's agonized demise. >> michael wise, come back and see us soon. and rudy giuliani. next hour, how much he's changed since being america's mayor. for the drive to create a new kind of family car, that became a new kind of race car. for the drive to rebel, zag. for the drive that's inside you. and inside us. that's the drive under the hood of every mini. because every mini is... for the drive.

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as we approach the top of the hour, it's a wrap for me. i'm alex witt and i hand it off to my esteemed colleague kendis gibson. >> thank you. and i'm kendis gibson at world headquarters in new york. a day of the impeachment inquiry, ready to accept the quid pro quo on ukraine. after weeks of damaging testimony the president is laying out his own strategy. >> make no mistake. they are coming after the republican party and me, because i'm fighting for you. they don't like it. >> all right. who would be next in the witness chair? outgoing energy secretary rick perry and former national security adviser john bolton say they will not appear,