to keep you connected to what matters most. that's because it's the only wireless network that automatically connects you to millions of secure wifi hotspots and the best lte everywhere else. switch now and see how you could save up to $400 a year. and get 50% off when you buy any new lg phone. xfinity mobile. click, call or visit a store today. the reckoning is coming. let's play hardball. good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington where the reckoning just drew more imminent. if you'd bet a lot less on donald trump getting impeached, bet a lot more today. this friday marks the end of a harrowing week in the house impeachment investigation. all foreshadowing the day of reckoning that's to come for

this president. if you're listening to donald trump bragging about what a perfect conversation he had with president zelensky you know he deserves what's coming. this tuesday congress heard from the first witness who actually listened to that trump call with zelensky, lieutenant colonel alexander vindman whose testimony validated the concerns expressed by the whistle-blower. vindman also filled in the blanks of the white house's summary of that phone call raising questions about why there were omissions in the first place. but most important his testimony and that of nsc advisor tim morrison yesterday affirmed that military support to ukraine was indeed conditioned on the investigation into trump's political opponents. and that means that as of this week three witnesses have now testified under oath to the quid pro quo. military aid in exchange for political dirt. finally we saw more evidence that republicans are not going to fight this on the facts, which they have neither

contested nor defended. the only person defending trump's conduct with ukraine is the president who still describes his call with zelensky as in the usual word, perfect. all this was capped by the historic vote in the house yesterday which formalized the path forward in the impeachment inquiry. in making her case to the american people on the late show last night, speaker pelosi portrayed the trump's call with zelensky as a smoking gun that could not be ignored. >> this was something that you could not ignore. in one conversation he undermined our national security by withholding military assistance to a country that had been voted on by the congress of the united states. at the same time he jeopardized the integrity of our elections, the heart of our democracy. and in doing so, in my view, he possibly violated his oath of

office to protect, defend and preserve the constitution of the united states. some people believe that this is one of the investigations where the smoking gun came out first, and that call was a smoking gun. >> well, today impeachment investigators have received over a hundred hours of testimony from 13 witnesses behind closed doors. yesterday's resolution will now bring the inquiry out in the open with public hearings set to begin this month. by the way, it's november according to speaker pelosi. as politico reports they plan to showcase the witnesses with the most compelling evidence. i'm joined by jonah goose of colorado whose a member of the house judiciary committee, chuck rosenberg, a former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official. aiesha, let me go to the congressman first.

tell me how this stands. i think you're on course to have the puck hearings this month, perhaps articles of impeachment as early as next month. how do you see it? >> well, it's good to see you, chris. i couldn't say it better than the speaker did. i think ultimately what we're talking about is a betrayal of the constitutional oath and power of the president. and it's like ely the public hearing public hearing of the impeachment process will begin this month. and we'll follow the facts ultimately where they lead us. and your description at the beginning of the program of a reckoning brewing is such an apt one. and really it's a reckoning for my republican colleagues of the house. i was on the floor yesterday for that solemn and serious vote we took with respect to codifying the procedures for the impeachment process and ultimately the impeachment inquiry. and i will just tell you i was really aghast at the republican arguments, these farcical arguments about process because none of them could defend the facts.

ultimately they're going to have a choice to make whether they choose country or over party. and i hope they choose the former as we move ahead. >> as a political figure, try to interpret for me why. why can't they see the essence of this charge? >> chris, i ask myself that same question and many of my colleagues in the democratic caucus are asking ourselves that same question as well. i think anyone who looks at the transcript of the call summary notes, anyone who reviews the text messages from ambassador volker who still reviewed this opening statements from these patriots recognizes an abuse of power. and by the way, chris, the american people know an abuse of power when they see it, which is why the polling has shifted to dramatically in favor of the impeachment inquiry that the house is engaged in. look, that's a question my republican colleagues are going to have to answer. ultimately this will be judged in the history books for decades and decades to come. and they're going to have to answer as to whether or not

they're going to ultimately choose country over party. so we'll have to see. >> natasha, what brings that point to a head very early in this process, unlike nixon they had to wait until june, had to wait until august practically to get the smoking gun, this inquiry began with the smoking gun. we have a summary of a conversation which has not been challenged. the president said i want you to do something for me, though. and it's been backed up by three star witnesses this week. the smoking gun is already smoking, and the republicans don't need more information. they don't seem to want to hear any information. they've found a way to hide from this. >> yeah, and i think democrats have been pretty smart about this. speaking to former prosecutors, they say democrats have been wise not to focus exclusively on that smoking gun call. they built an entire case around the call showing this was a vast wide ranging conspiracy before, during and after and that democrats with all of the witnesses they've managed to bring to capitol hill from the

administration, pentagon, state department, white house, they've managed to show this was a concerted effort being led by the president's attorney, rudy giuliani, to essentially extort the ukrainians. and by not focusing on that one phone call they have a whole mountain of evidence. that they can build a case around. >> it was your reporting that shows not only did they put this in this hideaway term, they had exciting stuff like this especially this political interview, they wanted to hide that conversation. but also mr. eisenberg, whose the lawyer for the nsc said don't talk about it. keep it secret. >> so we reported earlier that colonel vindman was very disturbed by not the fact that the lawyer john eisenberg had placed the call into this top secret nsc code word system where normally those calls don't go, that doesn't necessarily seem like a cover-up up to him but later he went back to him and said don't talk about this

phone call. that's significant because vindman was one of the people listening to the call and add firsthand knowledge of it. the other reason he said that to him is because he was trying to figure out a process to cleanup the mess the president had created but eisenberg felt it stymieing him from doing i see job because he wasn't able to talk to interagency folks to talk about this phone call. >> what do you make of that, before, during and after they had consciousness of guilt, they planned this conversation with the president of ukraine, they talked about the deal all the way up to it and afterwards they tried to hide it. >> narcotic . >> natasha maics a very important point. there's a nefarious explanation for what the nsc lawyer did, a cover-up. and there's a non-nefarious explanation. it could be he's trying to

figure out what happened, who knows about it and get a clean story for each witness. >> but butting it together, hiding it away, and then say don't talk about it two days later. >> this is more good reporting from natasha. so correct me if i'm wrong so i believe when the president's 2017 call with the president of mexico leaked out other phone calls with other world leaders of the president were also stored in a similar way. so i don't know this is the first time that that happened with a presidential phone call. that aside, i think what i'm seeing from the house is that they're going about it the right way, chris. they're talking to lots and lots of people, gathering as much evidence as they can. as you said, before, during, and after because all of that is part of the tapestry that tells the story. this is what good prosecutor do, what good agents do. this is what the house seems to be doing. >> there's so much evidence here the cake keeps getting baked again. every one of these witnesses

says the same as the other witness said, that this was a deal. >> and even for the witness that is white house is talking about now, tim morrison who's on the nsc staff, he didn't think the call was illegal, he still said he was concerned about the call and he immediately went to nsc counsel about it. and he's not voting in the house. but even there who the white house is calling a star witness said he was concerned about the call and by the policies. so i think that should be concerning to this white house, that even the people who they say are saying good things, if the good thing is that it's not illegal in this person's perspective, that probably means your argument might have a little bit of trouble. >> congressman, you're going to go home this week and looks like you're already home with the mountains there behind you, but i just wonder, in a purple state how do you make the case for impeachment this week with your people at home? >> look, chris, in talking with

my constituents if there's one thing very clear, they want us to follow the facts in a methodical way which is precisely what we've been doing. as chuck knows, chairman schiff is a former prosecutor as chuck is. so he has approached this in a very thoughtful serious way, and we've been able to uncover significant evidence of the president's misconduct. and as i said, the american people and certainly my constituents recognize an abuse of power when they see it. as i visit with folks, they want us to meet the moment, so to speak, underscoring the gravity of ultimately the impeachment process. that's what the house democratic caucus has done, what we're going to continue to do. i hope my republican colleagues will ultimately as i said make the right decision and start to engage in a thoughtful way. this matters a great deal for the future of our republic as a republic. >> mr. television himself,

mr. trump, believes he's fdr and is going to have a fireside chat. he's talk about where he's going to sit and talk to the american people presumably some networks will give him maybe fox, maybe other networks will give him a full opportunity to speak to the american people apparently in prime time and read through the summary of his conversation with zelensky with ukraine in a way that suggests his total perfection. let me read this to you. despite reports of the summary of trump's call with president zelensky, the president's still describes it as an exact transcript defending the conversation itself as i said before, perfect. here's trump in a radio interview yesterday. >> it's totally false. we have a transcript that was an exact transcript of the meeting. and anybody that reads the transcripts understands it was a perfect phone call. the democrats are desperate. they're desperate. they have nothing. >> he ignores the fact the call record is actually very damning, showing when zelensky requested more missiles trump asked him to

first investigate -- first investigate his political rivals. additionally disclaimer on that memo explicitly cautions it's not a verbatim transcript. he's the president and doesn't read his own stuff. >> let me tell you what it made me think of. when you look at the mueller report, volume 2, the whole obstruction of justice story, every pronouncement by donald trump, every tweet by donald trump in some way ended up in the report. what he was doing that whole period of time was creating evidence for prosecutors. i know you can't charge a sitting president, but every time this president talks about what he did, which apparently he thinks is perfect, he creates more evidence. i can't wait to hear him read the transcript because he's going to ad-lib inevitably and prosecutors and investigators and agents are going to be listening very carefully. when my subjects talked, when my targets talked when i was a federal prosecutor my reaction was have at it. >> would you put him on the stand? >> would i put donald trump on the stand if i were his lawyer or a prosecutor? >> lawyer.

>> not a chance. >> this president has enormous self-confidence and he does have almost 40% of the public who will eat it up. whatever he says, he won't use the word, though. i'd like you to do me a favor, though. i don't think he's going to mention that word, just guessing. >> i think the democrats would love for him to read it out loud, then they have it for their ads and whatever they want to do with it. look, the president clearly thinks this call was great. but what democrats are saying is that they don't think this call was great -- >> in your reporting do you know anybody besides trump who thinks this call was okay with zelensky? >> even when i talked to people at his rallies, these are true believers. even some of them said they didn't really like that call. they like trump but they're concerned about what he did on that call. so it's a very tricky thing if he wants to read that out. independents say this impeachment inquiry should go forward. so when he starts reading that

out, it's a risk. >> reminds me of mayor laguardy reading the comic pages to people because they couldn't get the newspaper. it is going to be a ludicrous night. he will be believed by some. thank you so much coming to us for the mountains, looks great behind you there. natasha bertrand, thank you. chuck rosenberg, as always. aiesha ras coe. coming up, my colleague rachel maddow joins me in this next segment to talk about the sobering lessons from this momentous week from the impeachment inquiry. plus, will trump follow through with his proposal for that fireside chat, i can't wait, about his ukraine phone call? and we're going to talk about rachel's fabulous best-selling book on the corrupting power of oil. plus, it's a big night in iowa for the democratic presidential candidates. a new poll shows the battle out there is wide open and looks like elizabeth warren is rising still, joe biden is falling still and the big surprise could be mayor pete winning the whole

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the most important thing for the american people to realize and understand is no one is above the law. [ cheers and applause ] whether the president of the united states or not. this for me has nothing to do with politics. people said, well, you didn't want to do it because you would jeopardize some of your -- it had nothing to do with politics, only about patriotism. >> that was speaker nancy pelosi last night hours after the house voted to formalize the public phase of the impeachment inquiry into president trump. members of depress are back to their districts for a week-long

recess where they'll make the case for impeachment at home. a "the washington post" abc news poll just out this week before the house vote showed 49% of americans say president trump should be impeached and removed from office. 47% say he should not. president trump is floating a new idea, by the way, of how he'd like to make his case to the american people. he told the washington examiner, quote, at some point i'm going to sit down perhaps as a fireside chat on live television, and i will read the transcript of the call because people have to hear it. when you read it, it's a straight call. joining me right now is my colleague rachel maddow, host of "the rachel maddow show" and the author of "blowout, corrupted democracy rogue state russia and the richest most destructive industry on earth." thank you, my friend. we'll get to that book in-depth in the next segment. >> great to see, my friend. >> thank you. i never know when you're going to wear the glasses but this is great. let's get serious then. first of all a little frivolous

question. trump as fdr in front of the fireside warming the cockles of the hearts of the american people, but in this case defending himself against impeachment. >> you know, alexandria ocasio-cortez, she responded to the president's announcement that he was going to do this thing and he tweeted in all caps, read the transcript. her response to that online was we did read the transcript. that's why we started impeachment proceedings. and i checked just before we got online and i think that's got something like 340,000 likes at this point. 40,000 re-tweets. i mean, the idea that the transcript is going to be his way out of this when the transcript is literally what led nancy pelosi to open the impeachment proceedings, i just -- i don't know. sometimes i can follow his logic and this one, i don't get it. >> what do you think of pelosi in these last several weeks

especially, her strategy, her thinking, her leadership? >> nancy pelosi knows her caucus and has never as far as i can tell ever been caught out with the behavior of her caucus surprising her. we've both been following her for years. i can't think of a single vote particularly a single major vote where things didn't go the way she intended them to go and the way she knew them to go. so i feel like she's not ever going to be out there crusading for her caucus to do something they might not do. she's only ever in front when she knows she's already got them behind her and when she can lead from a position of confidence and strength because she knows where the people are because she's got them there. i feel like watching nancy pelosi right now, i'm less interested in sort of figuring out what she might want or what might be her own analysis of the political impact of this impeachment.

i feel like watching her tells you what the democrats are going to do because she's never wrong about her own folks. >> i think she's got a great listening network out, people who tell her what people are thinking. thursday's house vote, that was yesterday, was almost entirely on party lines. almost every single republican voted against the resolution. "the washington post" poll shows the public is just as divided along party lines. catch these numbers. 82% of democrats say president trump should be impeached. 82% of republicans say he should not. the symmetry, the mirror imaging of this is, i guess -- i live in maryland, you live in massachusetts and new york. i know we all live in different geographies, i do know people, though, relatives who just will not give. how do you account for that? evidence is not moving people. >> well, i think it's important to recognize where we are in the process. i mean, they're going to move to their public hearings now. and they believe that they have

-- i mean, what we know about how they're planning the public hearings right now is they're taking witnesses who they've already heard from behind closed doors, selecting some of them and they're going to put them in front of the public with staff questioning them in a way designed not only to elicit information, they've already got that in the depositions. they can just take that information from the depositions and put it in the report if they wanted to. but they're going to pick the witnesses who they want who they believe can tell the story to the american people. if people are pay attention, if people are watching the way the evidence is laid out i think the idea is honest people will be persuadable. i think the president will have his defenders no matter what he does, even if he does shoot somebody on fifth avenue. but the impeachment process is supposed to be one that persuades the public and that hasn't started yet. >> you and pelosi have one great strength, or one clear strength in common. you're both teachers. and i think the way you go about

your business are very illustratetive and how people ought to think and report. and are people learning right now about our constitution? are they learning? >> yes. well, i think so. i mean, i don't know that i have my finger on the pulse of anybody other than myself and i'm not even sure how well i know myself sometimes. but through our own process of reporting on and trying to explain this presidency for the past two plus years i feel like, boy, have i learned a lot about, you know, the federal court system. boy, have i learned a lot about foreign influence operations. boy, have i learned a lot about the fbi and the cia and presidential scandal and the ways that, you know, witnesses can be compelled or not. i mean, there's so many aspects of this presidency that we've had to learn in detail simply because it's been scandal after scandal after scandal, and we have to learn it just to stay up on what's going on.

now, at the same time, our democratic processes are under direct attack from the president in a way we've never seen in u.s. history before, and i think that's making us learn about them if only to understand what it is that's threatened. and so it's a -- this is time for sort of i think for specific -- civic e -- dedication, to be dedicated to learning what our own responsibilities are as citizens and to pay attention what's happening right now. this is not a time where you can just let the news wash over you. it's a new book called "blowout" by you. i've learned so much. i hope we can get a couple of teasing aspects so people can go out and get a copy of this. you learn so much about putin, what's been motivating his end of scandal, why he is the way he is especially on sanctions. his insanity in going after them. i learned it from you, and that's coming up next. what's motivating vladimir putin in this ongoing trump scandal. why is he obsessed with getting

all those meetings with trump people up in trump tower and his family members? what's all this oil got to do with all this? it's all in rachel's new book "blowout" and we're going to talk about it next. -excuse me. uh... do you mind...being a mo-tour? -what could be better than being a mo-tour? the real question is... do you mind not being a mo-tour? -i do. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

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welcome back to "hardball." for the past three years the country has been following along as investigators pursued russian interference in our 2016 election. specifically the role president trump and those around him played. but understanding what motivated trump is only half the story. why was it that russian president vladimir putin was so intent on messing with our elections? why were there 100 contacts between trump associations and russians during the campaign? those are just some of the questions that led rachel maddow to write her new book, "the new york times" best selling book

"blow out, rogue state russia and the richest most destructive industry on earth" as this country's sole economic industry of oil and gas was being strangled by u.s. sanctions. as she graphically puts it, the russian federation ultimately embarked on a deliberate and aggressive campaign to tear apart western alliances, to rot democracy and to piss in the punch bowl of free elections all around the world. well, that desperation was understood by one world leader, german chancellor angela merkel. quote, i understand why he has to do this to prove he's a man. he's afraid of his own weakness. russia has nothing. no successful politics or economy. all they have is this. rachel maddow is back with me. that is delicious set of paragraphs, rachel. you have nailed it. the key here, i'll get to a couple of things. one is sanctions, they needed

western technology to explore the arctic circle. if they couldn't get more oil and gas, they were going to go broke. they needed though sanctions broke. that explains all those god damn meetings. >> basically. it explains their dispassion. russia's only got one game to play in terms of their economy, putin could have developed a diversified economy and he didn't in part because he likes what he can do with oil and gas. he likes the way he can use it as a weapon around the world, but he also wanted to have complete control of it, so he consolidated all power in the oil and gas industry in his own country under his own control. he's got his henchman running the russian oil and gas industry, they're terrible at it. geologically russia is running out of all the easy to get oil and gas. they now need to be doing the more high-tech stuff, but they've got these terribly run companies. they need to be able to run these in order to get at their future oil and gas. and they can't get it because of the sanctions on them because of

putin's gangster behavior. and putin is strategic but he's short-term strategic. and in the long run his short-term behavior, it all made sense in terms of grabbing up that industry and wielding influence around the world in such a maligned way. those things got to be on a collision course, and he threw a total hail mary when it came to us in 2016 to try to get hillary clinton out of there and specifically get those sanctions undone. and all of those meetings you were just describing basically all of them during the campaign had something to do with sanctions. >> and this gigantic country as we look on the map that includes europe and asia, that gigantic country has a gdp smaller today than italy's because of that awful decision he said let's just do oil and gas, let's not have a real modern economy. that was his decision to choose personal interest where he could be a dictator over one sector

over the interests of his country, just like trump. >> well, you know, the thing about a diversified economy is that in order to have one, in order to have a growing, vital economy you need a few things. you need the rule of law, you need property rights. you need a relative lack of corruption so that people can, you know, get permits and higher -- hire people, and businesses can grow and compete on the basis of their merit. putin wasn't willing to concede any of that because all of that would have meant him giving up some power and him being susceptible to power -- pressures within russia's bounds. he was so personally weak and paranoid about his own stature. and so instead of allowing russia to grow in that way which they could have done, they could have absolutely be a super power once again in the world instead of having their major exports in the world be oil, gas and organized crime. they could be a big deal in the world except for putin keeping his foot on the neck of his own country.

and it's come to roost for him. >> did you think about it parallel between oil and gas and gold and silver in the days of the colonizers where the spanish, and they never did trade, they got to get the gold and silver and destroyed their economies through the mechanism and destroyed it because it inflated the economy, and doing the same thing with russia, committed the old crime of going after subterranean minerals as opposed to developing a modern economy like the brits did and we do. >> and in the modern era you see the resource curse. countries that have natural resources that need to be extracted and then sold on the international market, those countries no matter how that resource is and is on paper, it almost always makes your country more poor. it almost always hurts the rule of law. it almost always results in a worse society with more violence, more propensity to get involved in war and your

citizens end up worse off even as the elites get rich and corrupt. that resource curse is an academic thing people have talked about for years. i think we should see russia as suffering from that sort of its on its own terms and i think that's part of how we got them in our sights in 2016. >> there's so much in this book. i get thinking of of frank norris' book, "the octopus." muckrakers of the early part of -- you're smiling because you know you're on the same terrain. you're a great muckraker because you pointed out there's something malevolent about oil and these extractive industries, not just destroying economies but destroying culture, the corruption that comes from it. you talk about these oil guys like tillerson and their coziness with russia. the fact that russia gave this guy a medal before he even became secretary of state. what is it about the malevolence of oil? i don't know what to say except you've really captured a point of view.

by the way, interactive -- commercial ports like seattle, new york, boston, women can get ahead in those places because of commerce. women can rise quickly in those companies. but extractive industries are particularly deleterious to women. did you give thought to that? i gave a lot to it. your thoughts? >> it's part of the reason why microfinance is important for women because they promote diversified lower level economic growth where people can write their own plot. when you've got industries like oil and gas coming into wherever it is they're going to drill wells, what you get is billions of dollars of up front capitalization. that means they are in there and they have to pay off for decades to make it worth that up front capital investment. you get construction jobs for a minute, a few jobs associated with the ongoing production of the oil once the well is drilled. but really you end with environmental damage, very few jobs for very few people, and a revenue stream that comes from outside the country to the

elites. and that benefits when the rule of law favors the outside industry rather than people who live in that country. and you just see it over and over again. >> i'm so excited about the book. the first action of the trunks in your book, i didn't know this, was to get rid of the public disclosure requirements on american corporations, oil companies doing business with african countries like nigeria. so it was meant that law to expose the payoffs, the corruption that allowed these government leaders to have houses in malibu and london and everywhere else in south africa while their people are starving to death. and they got rid of that transparency law as the first act of congress under trump. >> and never talked about it. never talked about it. we didn't have big national fights about it. we didn't know what was happening. they just quietly got that done. that's the power of the industry in our own government that they got that done as the first order of business with the republican house, republican senate and a new republican in the white house. literally a provision that

singly and only allows oil companies to bribe other countries and get away with it. it's the first thing they did, and the power of the oil and gas industry to get that done tells you something about how big a deal they are in our own politics and around the world. >> well, read this book, everybody. know friday night is good night to have a book. i'm glad reich is on tonight. when you're out wandering around -- at least people used to wander around the malls on saturday and occasionally see a bookstore that's still there. get into that bookstore and buy this book. this is an education right here. this is your -- at least a year of good college right here. it is fantastic because it ties together all the things we've been talking about here, all the things. all this scandal. i'm not a marxist but i do accept there's a lot of economic determinism. richard nixon went down because the economy sucked when he was in trouble. bill clinton survived because the academy was good. watch the economy, follow the money. rachel maddow has done just that. "blowout," get a copy this

weekend. >> god bless you, my friend. thank you so much. up next, presidential candidates and their supporters are converging on iowa tonight. now it's called the liberty and justice celebration, very woke. that's out there in and this is new poll. shows an increasingly tight race out there. can warren sustain the latest surge she's on. can biden reverse his fate, can mayor pete, and i'm big on this guy, surprise everybody in iowa? you're watching "hardball." (vo) the moth without hope, struggles in the spider's web. with every attempt to free itself, it only becomes more entangled. unaware that an exhilarating escape is just within reach.

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welcome back to "hardball." thousands of people have descended on downtown des moines. for the annual iowa democratic party's liberty and justice celebration known for years as the jefferson jackson dinner. 13 presidential candidates are

expected to speak tonight at the party's annual dinner which is expected to draw about 13,000 people. look at that crowd. back in 1975 a little known georgia governor named jimmy carter began his run for the white house with a victory, a vote at that dinner tonight. since then it's helped propel several other candidates to the front of the pack. one columnist called senator barack obama, jefferson jackson's speech out there the best of his campaign. >> america, our moment is now. [ cheers ] our moment is now. [ cheers ] i -- i don't want to spend the next year or the next four years refighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s.

i don't want to -- i don't want to pit red america against blue america. i want to be the president of the united states of america. >> well, tonight in front of the biggest crowd in the dinner's history 13 democrats will try to convince iowa voters they're best suited to take on president trump. so could tonight be the start of something big? that's coming up next. you're watching "hardball." as soon as the homeowners arrive, we'll inform them that liberty mutual customizes home insurance, so they'll only pay for what they need. your turn to keep watch, limu. wake me up if you see anything. [ snoring ] [ loud squawking and siren blaring ] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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judge welcome back to "hardball." with just three months to go until the iowa caucus that's february 3rd, a now poll shows four candidates locked in a close race at the top. the poll from "the new york times" and sienna college shows senator elizabeth warren pulling ahead with 22 points among likely caucus voters these are good polls followed by bernie sanders. pete buttigieg has moved up to 18 and guess who's in fourth, joe biden the previous front-runner. but uncertainty remains about which direction iowans want to take the democratic party. two thirds say they still might choose a different candidate than they have now before the caucuses. late tonight one campaign came to a sudden end as former congressman beto o'rourke is withdrawing from the race hours

before he's supposed to be talking at the dinner. for more i'm joined by axios political reporter who's covering the race. evan mcmullin, executive director of the stand up republic and a 2016 independent presidential candidate. jason johnson, of course, politics editor for the root. what do you smell particularly with regard to the rise, the dynamic of mr. pete buttigieg? >> you know, it's interesting about that poll that you just showed on-screen is that i've been talking with a lot of democratic strategists in the showed on screen is i've been talking with a lot of democratic stat gists in the last few months who said -- a few months ago i was sort of like, yeah, i don't know if that's really going to happen. but now this poll is confirming these rumors and ideas and hypotheses these strategists have been floating for a while now. they think pete buttigieg,

especially being from indiana, a midwesterner plays well in the midwest. >> i think elizabeth warren is going to win. mayor pete is improving because he's got the money and because he's got the connections. i think you have a three-way split with the first three primary states. warren wins iowa, bernie wins new hampshire, biden in south carolina and then a mad scrum on super tuesday. >> pete's going to win iowa. bernie is going to win new hampshir hampshire. we agree on one. >> i don't think mayor pete has to win iowa. of course he would like to. >> you see it's projected how fast he's moved. >> in iowa he's been gaining ground for the last couple of months. it's just as much about

expectations, i think, as it is about the result. >> okay. let me ask you this question. is a vote in iowa a real presidential vote or a february vote? they don't have to pick the president. they can say right now i think the best of the candidates is buttigieg, i'm voting for him. >> i think mayor pete is going to have a moment after iowa. he's the only one below 70 years old. he's proven himself. >> he's 37. >> he'll have a moment. he's very young, but i still think he will really arrive on the stage after iowa completes. >> former joe biden still seen by voters as the best candidate to beat president trump. at least that's the way they pick it. the former vice president leads trump by five points. senator sanders lead by gtwo.

i don't know what to make of this. we're all guessing. >> people may not want to pick their president in iowa but they are thinking they want to pick somebody who can beat the president of the united states, which is donald trump. if he pulls off some obama surprise -- giving a speech now in november. >> next november, a year from now are they picking the president of the united states or the person who's going to beat trump or are they saying the smartest of the candidates, the one i like the most is pete buttigieg. yes, he's married to a man. we know all that. that may be a problem in some parts of the country, but me i'm voting for him because i like the cut of his jib. >> based on the conversations i've had with voters, i think people want to feel courted by

these democrat candidates. that might be found by someone like elizabeth warren, who is someone who is new to a lot of people at least on the national stage. one thing remains to be seen. that's how and whether voters sort of define what it takes to beat donald trump. is that somebody who can win over voters in the upper midwest? is that someone who is a woman? i think voters inkreeszingly act like pundits and this question of electability has a lot to do with those folks who can win the electoral college, not just the popular vote. >> there is this obvious tension between those on the democratic side who want to see this progress agenda and this even populist agenda, but then there

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let's play hardball.

i've got to explain terms. i haven't done this before on the program but here's the definition of hardball. it's clean, aggressive politics, it's the discipline of gaining and holding power. practiced most openly and unashamedly in the world of politics. that was from my book from 1988. that was the first episode of hardball on msnbc. 20 years ago next week it's a big milestone for us. we're going to take a look back into the hardball vault for some of the most exciting moments of the past two decades. this is an important chair right here. over the last two decadingses i had the privilege of a seat inside the country.

tonight on a special edition of "all in" impeachment begins and the use of a trump talking point ends. >> what we do know is there was definitely no quid pro quo. >> tonight the mountain of evidence there was absolutely a quid pro quo no matter who you call it. >> there is no pro quo. >> new signs that the facts of impeachment are penetrating the trump tv bubble. >> you have the difference between donald trump and richard nixon. >> how rudy giuliani went from prosecuting corruption to dabbling in