>> also, it is one year to go from election day. yes, you heard that right, one year. and new problems for the top candidates and plus congresswoman tulsi gabbard on her 2020 vision. we start with breaking news as this is day 41 of the impeachment inquiry, and we are learning lots of new information about the house's process and we have an idea of when closed door depositions will end, when public hearings will likely begin and when transcripts of those depositions will be released. >> this week, we are releasing the transcripts of all of the depositions, and everything else is going to be public. the public hearings will be very, very soon. this week, we are having a last of the witnesses come in, and then it'll be released, the transcripts will be released. >> when are the public hearings going to start? >> my best guess, chris, you will start to see the public hearings in the next two the three weeks. >> this has some democrats

saying that they are already have enough evidence to impeach. >> do you at this point think that there is enough evidence to bring forth articles of impeachment against donald trump? >> yes, i do. and actually i thought that there was back in the mueller testimony. >> do you think that 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 president said it himself on television. >> meanwhile, the president's allies are making their rounds on the sunday shows this morning with a new line of defense. >> ukraine got to aid and as you and i sit here, one presumes they are using aid, and what is not there is saying they are holding up the said. they have the aid and they are using it. >> and the law requires president trump or anybody else when they are sending foreign aid to another country, that there is no corruption.

>> and a brand-new nbc "wall street journal" show 49% support impeaching him from office. hans nichols joining us a little farther away from the white house, but let's talk about the white house reaction, hans, any better sense of the impeachment defense? >> maybe a little bit. he is reviving the idea that we need to hear directly from the whistle-blower and he had a tweet that the american public needs to hear from him in person, which is what is different from what he heard from hallie jackson that they are looking for the identity and they wanted to know, and he is claim nag the media knows the identity and the sunday talk shows and lawmakers are saying that while there may have been a

quid pro quo it is not rising to the level of the impeachable offense, but when kellyanne conway was press on this issue, she did not necessarily say whether or not she thought that there was a quid pro quo. >> all of them, top foreign policy officials for this president have all testified about repeated instances where they saw that support for ukraine was dependent on ukraine investigating the bidens. isn't that the definition of a quid pro quo? >> the fact is that ukraine has that aid and they are using that aid as we sit here. we cannot impeach the president of the united states based on the interpretation of any staffer. >> let's just say that president trump did condition giving the military aid and held it and said that it is going to be given out only if you investigate joe biden. >> i have not seen that anywhere. that is a hypothetical. >> is that an impeachable defense. >> you are giving me a

hypothetic hypothetical, and so does that rise to high crimes and misdemeanors, no. >> so it is back on the definition of impeachable defense. and talking about how all of the transcripts will be public and this is something that president trump has been pressing on, and you saw him say that before he left and talking to kelly o'donnell on the south lawn of the white house before he came to new york for the mixed martial arts fight and he was clear that he wanted to see the transcripts released and ultimately exonerating, and so we will see a lot this week, and among the things that we will learn is to what extent this time line is going to be stuck to, and also, whether or not any of these witnesses in the white house has said shouldn't testify like john bolton or others that requires them to testify. >> and add to that if they are released, the guarantee they will not be edited at all and edited in the 100% entirety and all of those questions, hans,

and we will look forward to that. joining me is betsy swan, politics report for the daily beast, and charlie savage, political report for "the new york times" and msnbc contributor. charily, starting with you here. the white house counter narrative and anything new in the line of defense? >> well, you see them trying to juggle between the two different narratives and that is trump did nothing wrong and call is perfect and this not a quid pro quo request or, okay, it was, but it was not an impeachable defense as kellyanne conway at the end put forward. i was struck by her still trying to define this as a high crime and misdemeanor, and it seems to me that if the fact pattern for her to respond to hypothetically quote, unquote is what we are looking at, it sounds more likee bribe, and something personal to me, and bribery a separatable

impeachable offense than high crimes and misdemeanors. >> and betsy, this suggestion that ukraine has the aid, and there is therefore no quid pro quo and assess the validity of the argument. >> the argument here essentially is that the effort to get ukraine to engage in this activity that they otherwise wouldn't have engaged in was unsuccessful and because that effort didn't succeed, there is no quid pro quo and nothing to see here, and honestly, if the effort had succeeded, we would be having a different conversation, and we can agree that ultimately much later than they expected or later than they hoped the ukrainians did end up with the aid, but just because of the intentional effort to break the law was not successful does not mean it is okay. and federal prosecutors indict people everyday for trying to break the law or conspiring to commit crimes and the fact that your scheme didn't end up panning out for you the way that you wanted it to be, or you

wanted it to, it does not mean whatever so that you are on legal solid ground and that is not an argument to hold up in court. >> okay. take a look at the time line and getting a better sense of the impeachable process here, charlie, and is that moving more quickly than anticipated? >> well, it seems to be picking up now as if it is engle is right that they will be releasing all of the transcripts this week, i imagine that a number of the people slated to give depositions this week are not going to show up, and that is suggesting that pretty much all of the information that the democrats are ever going to extract on this topic, they are close to having extracted so they are probably having to weigh here now as a move to phase two which is public hearings in the intelligence committee and then toward phase three, public hearings in the judiciary committee how fast they want to move. they have momentum on the side and on the other hand, everybody is expecting the end result is that the republicans will rally around him, and in the senate

not impeached and not removed, and so after this is playing out, and acquitted in the senate, and because it takes 2/3 on the senate, he is going to be feeling unleashed and bulletpro bulletproof, and whole another year of him in office and they have a sense of going fast and counter vailing to keep him on the defense. >> yes, the pros and the cons on both. >> and we heard from the democratic jim heinz there, and the number two on the house intel committee who broke down the partisan battle of impeachment, and this what he has said. >> didn't you fail nancy pelosi's own test that it has to be bipartisan? >> well, it is very sad that this is not a more bipartisan thing. every one of my republican colleagues understand that if they do what is right and by the way i know that they say it is right in the halls of congress, that if they do it, the president will light them up on twitter and they lose a primary

twitter and so sadly unlike the nixon and the clinton investigations, this is going to be breaking down along the part san lines. >> and as i ask you, betsy, on this, looking at the president back to washington after being overnight at the ufk championship at madison square garden, and the democrats, have they given up on trying to get any bipartisan support? >> the democrats are having to make a hard decision in the coming weeks, and that is how important is the speed, and at what cost do they move rapidly? the fact that they brought forward the vote that happened just a couple of days ago to authorize the impeachment inquiry without being able to first secure any report, any support from the republicans obviously indicates that they are moving rapidly is more important than getting the additional sort of the legitimacy that would come from having a bipartisan project, and that is being undertaken and the

question that chris wallace asked this morning is when it is going to be tough for the democrats to answer going forward. and the other big challenge for democrats is that right now all of the house republicans are on the record saying that based on the facts that are currently publicly available, they don't believe it makes sense to move forward with impeaching the president, and what that means is that democrats are if they want to get new republicans on board with their effort and if they want to have any shot of removing the president which would require republican support have to present new fact, and moving the inquiry rapidly will come at the expense of doing a massively thorough investigation, but what we have already seen is that charlie cupperman, a senior national security official is probably not going to testify in this inquiry, and he sued and a federal judge said that the judge won't come down on the ruling whether or not he has to testify, and probably until much

later this year. because the democrats want to move rapidly and they don't want to have it drag on, they are having to give up some things that could be important, and this is something that in retrospect they have to grapple with as they look at the way to conduct this inquiry. >> and charlie, how is this selling to the impeachment to the public or selling itself once there are open hearings on live tv. >> well, it is certainly the case that it is support for impeachment has grown over the last several months as more of the facts have come to light through, you know, the leaks, and written opening statements and the closed depositions and so forth, and certainly the ukraine scandal has captured more momentum behind it in the public imagination than the murky mueller investigation ever did in the obstruction of justice issues and, you know, messed up by the lack of any clear link to russia, but this

is seeming that support is going up, but it is a misreading of the current political polarized dispope ya th distopia that we are in to think that anybody would break ranks, because you saw what happened with justin amash, and he is someone who broke ranks and facing a tough re-election. so there is no appetite for the current to break rank with the president if they are republican, and that the way it is, and no amount of facts will change that political calculus. >> can i get to the root of this regarding the whistle-blower and the attorney of the whistle-blower who has fired off a series of tweets to the republicans demanding that the whistle-blower rather reveal his or her identify, and here is the heart of it, the legal team offered the gop direct opportunity to ask written

questions of the whistle-blower, and, so betsy, why have the republicans not taken the attorney up on the offer or have they? do we know? >> so, i don't have reporting of whether or not the republicans have offered questions to the whistle-blower's lawyer, but i can tell you that at this point the republicans are less interested in the actual information of the whistle-blower may or may not have and more interested in the whistle-blower's credibility as someone who described the activity that unfolded. republicans have seen the report and the report is public and everyone got the read it. they want to be able to argue that because the whistle-blower, they will allege is sort of infected by political bias, and again, no evidence of that, but the republicans will argue, that and they want to argue that because he is allegedly affected by political bias he or she is not a reliable narrator and therefore the entire impeachment inquiry the fruit of the poisoned tree.

that is going to be key to the republicans' efforts to push back against the inquiry, and this is why the identity of the whistle-blower is so important to them. >> and so, charlie, real quick, and haven't we gone way past go here? >> well, yes. as a matter of fact of trying to understand what is happening, and clear for a while here that whatever the whistle-blower had to say was made irrelevant by all of the depositions of the eyewitness testimony of people like bill taylor and others, but that is not what is going on here, because it is a political defense to try to put it all on kind of like saying that the russian investigation, and the mueller investigation was all about whether or not the steele dossier was credible and not all of the other information that started and drug up and so forth and happened after trump became president and let's focus on the one thing, and discredit the larger whole by kicking up the dust in the air, and as we are moving to the public phase of impeachment, the inquiry that you can expect is going on to be

an enormous and ugly fight, and republicans do have the fight to depose witnesses and they can say no, because they outvote them, and you can be sure that the big fight is coming over whether or not to call the whistle-blower to testify. >> i am betting that you right. both of you, as always, good to see you, betsy and charlie. congresswoman tulsi gabbard is going to join me to talk about her thoughts on impeachment, and why she feels that she is under attack. we will talk to her shortly. at we will talk to her shortly. i've always been fascinated by what's next.

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to the race now nor 2020 and a brand-new "wall street journal" poll is giving us a fresh look at the presidential race. joe biden is leading with 27%, and elizabeth warren and bernie sanders winding up the top three with 19% and 23% respectively. and then down you will see tulsi gabbard is coming in at 2% and this new poll has her at 4%, and that is one more away from qualifying for democratic debate here on msnbc. and joining me now from the no labels problem solver convention in new hampshire is hawaiian representative tulsi gabbard and a 2020 presidential campaign and thank you for coming to the broadcast and joining me. >> thank you, alex. good to talk to you. >> thank you so much and let's talk about why you are there and why you went there when so many of the political rivals are not attending. >> i think that the fact that i am one of the very few who chose

to spend this day here in new hampshire with, look, over 1,000, and almost 1,500 people who have gathered to focus on getting focused on how to come together to solve problems, and that in and of itself i think speaks volumes about one of the major differences of myself and the vast majority of other candidates running for the democratic nominations. i am speeeking to lead all of t americans in this country and lead all americans and heal the hyperpartisan wounds that we are experiencing and actually focus on how we best serve the interests of the american people, and how we work together being able to overcome some of the differences that we have to actually solve problems and put the best interests of the people and our country ahead of any part san or self-ish interests. >> so, let's look at the deadline to make the next debate which is november 13th, and how confident are you that you are

going to get the one more poll needed to be on the stage in georgia? >> well, we will see, alex, to be honest, because i am not paying much attention to that, because i am very focused on what we are doing here in new hampshire today actually speaking directly with the voters, hearing what is on their minds and answering their questions and sharing and speaking to the kind of the unifying leadership that i seek to bring as president. we are doing it here in new hampshire, and we are doing it with the voters across the country and especially focused here on the early states where the voters themselves have the opportunity and the responsibility that they take very seriously as first in the nation to send that message about who they believe is going to be best serving the country as president and commander in chief. >> okay. so, look, i am not going to take away any of your hard efforts everyday, day in, day out, and talking with the constituents and campaigning, but we know that you have had recently a very public spat with hillary clinton after she said that a

democratic candidate is being groomed to being a third-party candidate and not you per se, and has the attention of this story in part been what has given you a boost in recent weeks? >> no, i don't, actually. i attribute it to the fact that as more and more voters are hearing about who i am, and the experience that i bring to this job as commander in chief of having served as a member of congress now for nearly seven years on the foreign affairs committee, and on the armed services and homeland security committees and meeting and engaging with leaders of other countries and focusing on the national security and the experience as a soldier. i have served now as 16 years and deployed twice to the middle east, and the more voters are hearing about the message and the unifying leadership thatly bring, and about ending the long held foreign policy of being the world's police, and working to work this new cold war and arms

race and focused on dedicating hard-earned taxpayers dollars to where they are needed and serving the interests of the american people, and the more people who are hearing this message and who i am, the more the campaign is continuing to grow. >> we appreciate it, but there is something that i have to ask and that is what hillary clinton did is to imply that you are a russian asset and why do you think that she said that? >> the message that she has sent with this outrageous and baseless claim is a warning. it is a warning to every one of your viewers and every single american that if you stand up against her, the bush/clinton legacy of foreign policy which is really about being the world's police, going around the world, and toppling dictators that we don't like, and propping up the ones that we do like which results in incredible refugee crises, and the worst that we have seen in a generation, and strengthening

terrorist groups like isis and al qaeda and to speak of the consequence that it has a had on my brothers and sisters in uniforms and thousands losing their lives and thousands more losing limbs and how it has undermined the interests of our country, so, what has happened here is that this is not a personal spat. this is about a sincere difference of foreign policy. her trying to smear me and to undermine my character with this baseless outrageous claim is a message to the american people that if you are dissent and if you criticize or stand up against their establishment foreign policy, then you, too, will be smeared. i think that she is speaking up, and others of her proxies and minions and those who represent this establishment foreign policy view that has been so disruptive, they are afraid, because they know they can't control me. >> and so picking up on her proxies and the minions and i am not identifying people as that,

but in all fairness, she is not entirely alone in that view. this is something that you said in the last democratic debate and here it is. >> donald trump has the blood of the kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime change in syria that started in 2011 along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing and cheerleading this regime change war. >> and thaf performer new york writer susan glasser said how odd to listen to tulsi gabbard mouthing syrian and russian talking points on the democratic debate stage. now, you have told us why that perception is there, but do you feel the need to counter that? >> i am speaking the truth, and the fact is that the smear tactics and the things they are saying about me are the things that they have used against other people who they are trying to undermine.

this is thesoldier, i can speake cost of this bush/clinton policy that has led to the disastrous results in countries that we have waged war to topple dictators. the american people understand themselves what this cost and consequence has meant to them when we have spent over $6 trillion, and just since 9/11 alone that have come out of our schools, and that have come out of our health care system, and the ability to make sure that every american has clean water to drink and gone to pay for these wasteful counter productive regime change wars. i am running to president to bring an end to that so we can focus on seeing how we can lead the world with the foreign policy focused on cooperation, and rather than conflict and actually serve the interests of the american people. >> and i wanted to couple together what you are saying here live on the broadcast with me, and in addition to what you wrote in "the wall street

journal" op-ed tuesday and this is part of what it said. i can defeat trump and the clinton doctrine and whether her name is on the ballot on not, her foreign policy is as to many of the democrats adhere to her doctrine to be the world's police and using tools to overthrow governments that we don't like, and wasting taxpayer dollars and causing destruction abroad and undermining america's security. and there are those who say, they don't want the russians to be america's police as well. and so what is your message to democratic voters who may see this, and maybe listening to you right now, and feel that it is mirroring president trump's isolationist foreign policy views. >> i think that american people are smarter than to buy into these crazy smear tactics and baseless accusations.

the american people understand that it is in our best interests and the interests of the countries in the world to stop this destructive policy of being the world's police. we have seen again over and over the cost and the devastating consequences of this both in the people of the other countries and the american people at home. this is the bottom line and this is the point, the american people can see through the tactics that they are using that really represent not only hillary clinton's foreign policy, but also george w. bush's foreign policy and this is the point in op-ed that you will see the lack of experience in foreign policy and national security amongst a vast majority of the democratic candidates running for president which means if elected, they are going to walk into the oval office on day one having to fulfill the responsibility of commander in chief, but will lack the understanding and experience to do so, and therefore, they will lean on the foreign policy

establishment in washington to influence the decisions that they are making, and this establishment crosses both party lines and it will continue the destructive policy of being the world's police for far too long. i won't. i am ready for day one to fulfill that responsibility as the commander in chief, and bringing that experience in foreign policy and national experience, and the national security. >> before we let you goer hoo, i wanted to ask you about the impeachment inquiry, and when do you want to see this come up to a vote, and what is your view on whether or not this is stretching into next year right near or alongside some of the pretty critical early 2020 contests. are you worried about any political implications from that? >> i am worried about if the impeachment process moves forward in a hyperpartisan way, that it will be further divisive to a country that is already being torn apart. this impeachment proceeding is very serious thing, and leaders

in washington need to take for it the seriousness that it s. and there are obvious concerns raise around the whistle-blower's complaint and all of the information that has come out since which is why i support this inquiry continuing in a focused nonpartisan and transparent way with the objective being for members of congress and the american people to actually get answers to some of the questions that have been raised and to see the truth and the facts and then to determine what course of action should come from that, and for this to be long and drawn out or for this to be done a very partisan way shutting out republicans from actively participating in this process would be very damaging to the interests of our country and to our democracy. >> all right. 2020 democratic presidential candidate congresswoman tulsi gabbard and thank you so much from new hampshire and safe travels on the campaign trail. >> thank you, alex. >> i wanted to remind all of you to watch the next democratic

presidential debate at 9:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc on november 20th. and we will have more coming up. . and we will have more coming up. truecar is great for finding new cars.

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some new breaking details of the timing of the impeachment inquiry. congressman engle saying that the closed door depositions will wrap up this week and then transcripts will be release and congressman heinz saying that he expects the public hearings to begin in the next two the three weeks. joining me now to discuss it all is congressman steve cohen from tennessee, and serving on the house judiciary committee, and here we go. about the public hearings, my friend, how do we expect this new phase of open hearings to change the perceptions around impeachment? >> i think that it'll get people to understand all of the abuses of power that trump has engaged in and how he has subverted the constitution by conditioning foreign aid to help an ally, you crane defend itself from the attacks and the aggression in its own country from russia that congress has appropriated that he used as way to get political

information on joe biden and that is a violation of the constitution, and betrayal of the oath and a betrayal of the constitution, and people see it close up, and hear it, and they will hear it from colonel vindman who is a decorated hero, and from fiona hill, and hear it from ambassador taylor and other people, and they might even hear from john bolton and getting republicans who are not right for impeachment to be for impeachment, because this man has committed offenses that are seriously rub up against the impeachment clause. >> and john bolton would be the big one and scheduled for thursday if he shows up. and so with the testimony that has been said already, are there enough to draw articles of impeachment now? >> well, i am on the committee and we will try to be as impartial as possible and i am supposed to say that i have to wait for the material to come before us, but the truth of the matter is, alex, there is

impeachable offenses since about the first six months that this man has come into office and the mueller report didn't do a good job to lay it out. >> you have been calling for it. >> and all of the hewey they have been putting out that people wanted him impeached from the first day not true. but when he started to do the acts of the obstruction of the congress and the oob strukay s the mueller report and the abuse of power, it is evident that this man has no controls on him whatsoever, and he is like, and he is uncontrollable kid who you have to somehow put in time-out. >> what are you thinking? one article, multiple articles of impeachment? >> we will have to see what we get, but the leadership wants, but the ball is in nancy pelosi's court, and she has done a fabulous job, but no doubt that abuse of power is an

article and it may be one and obstruction of justice is maybe one, and maybe the obstruction of justice in the mueller report, and the emollients clause would be another one, but we are not going there. >> and this is what nancy pelosi said about the scope of the inquiry. >> there were 11 obstruction of justice provisions in the mueller report, and perhaps some of them will be part of it, but again, that is part of the inquiry to see where we go. >> and so you mentioned this possibilities and maybe as many as three, and not including the emollient, but would you prefer it focus solely on ukraine or broadened to the mueller report? >> well, you know, i think that the mueller report showed obstruction of justice there. were 10, and nancy says 11, and maybe 11, instances cited, but most of the experts agree that were five were just all of the elements were there without question. some say seven. but i'd say that you go down to the basic five and you would

like to have mcgahn testify, and that in court right now, and if mcgahn would testify, he testified to the mueller and he should testify to us, and that is pretty clear from what the courts are ruling that all of the defenses that trump has put up from people who are taking the pre-lsat and not even the lsats and certainly not bar exam. >> and now, the new poll out, it is showing how split the american people are on the issue, and looking at the numbers and 49% yes, and 46% no, and what do you say to the constituents who say that the whole investigation is one big partisan endeavor. >> well, for most people who say that, they have been watching fox news too much. anybody who watches fox news watches it too much. and these people watch it and they eat it up and buy all of that stuff, and hannity and what's her name, laura ingraham or whatever and saying that

vindman was a traitor or dual alliances and dershowitz sat there and listened like a qui e quizling, and so there is so much technology that they are siloed with fox, and they only get the trump reports and people on there who have the futures tied to trump. in life, you have amazon and people don't get out and communicate as much on the main street, and see the people in the shops and get out and frat earnize and people are getting the packages delivered by mail. so society is getting too separated for people to come together and we are separated tremendously and afei feel sorr for the people who support trump and i get e-mails that say that god ordained that he is president, and that he is doing god's work and he has accepted jesus christ and i think that

these people are deluded, and 2 corinthians and he can't quote his favorite bible passage and he doesn't know the 23rd psalm or the new from the old testament, and yet they believe he is ordained by god. >> we are out of time, and i wanted you to reiterate one more time that next week we will begin seeing the public hearings, and is that when you expect them to happen? >> not necessarily. i think that jim heinz is more on point than elliott, because, you know, they have several people that they want to interview, and the two attorneys who took the phone memorandum, and locked it up where it shouldn't have been locked up so nobody could see it, and they wanted to hear from them and bolton and depends how many more votes adam can get in, and if the last week showed that we are going to be fair with the republicans and giving much more than the minority and the clinton and the nixon investigations, and the fact that all but two democrats are

there are showing what a good job nancy pelosi has done to get the votes together and how effective she is in framing the message and she has been spectacular. >> okay. congressman steve cohen, and you are always spectacular with us, how about that. thank you so much. >> you are nice, alex. a big night here, memphis won over smu, and the espn gameday here, and the nationals won, and all is good in my world. >> that means that you broke smu's undefeated record, and they are not happy about that. >> that is right. don't mess with memphis. >> well, okay. all right. i will talk to you. >> okay. you, too. thank you, alex. >> and now no, the legal perspective on impeachment after hearing from 14 current and former officials, and the democrats say that this is the coming week of the last of the private hearings, and take a listen. >> there will be public hearings very, very soon. this week, we are going to have the last of the witnesses come in, and then it will be released a and the transcripts will be released. >> so 11 people are on that schedule including the white house lawyer who is accused of

moving the controversial transcript into the secret server, and former national security adviser john bolton who his attorney says will not testify without a subpoena, and joining me is nelson cunningham, and this is very nice habit, nelson to, see you. so we will get into this. we know that rick perry, the secretary of energy has refused to appear, and what is the prediction for the others who are expected this week? >> this week is a big disappointment for those who are looking for new evidence and new witnesses. all of the witnesses that you put up on the screen, they are all political appointees within the white house. either with the white house, the nsc or the office of management and budget, and the white house has made it clear they are preventing all of the political appointees from testifying, so each of the people are going to wind up declining testimony, and the one wild card is john bolton. he is a former employee and no

longer at the national security adviser and no longer at the white house and animosity of what president trump and giuliani were doing with ukraine and he has an interest in testifying and whether he will is open question and i bet he won't. it is going to be a quiet week. >> so, nelson, there is a clear divide into what the president did being that it was illegal and impeachable, and take a listen to two congressmen earlier who say that. take a listen. >> congress approapriated money for ukraine and the president illegally withheld that money and then threatened the ukrainians by saying that -- >> illegally? >> well, i think it is illegally. it is about reversing the 2016 elections. >> there are no high crimes and misdemean misdemeanors, and the law, george, requires the president when they are sending foreign aid to any foreign country to make sure that they are rooting

out corruption. >> yes, and engle is saying no it is not. and did the president violate any laws, because according to just security, and here is the quote, the very act of holding the money in the first place could have also violated the impoundment control act. and where does that come into play here? >> the republicans are putting up a process defense here. they have created this notion of a quid pro quo, and there is no legal requirement for quid pro quo, and i would argue that the commentators are trying to misdirect this all. and the best example here is article ii of the nixon articles of impeachment, and article ii says that the president abused his power by using fbi and the irs to investigate his political opponents. period. that is exactly what president trump was trying to do here. he was trying to get, use the power of his office, phone calls from, phone calls from the west

wing, visits by presidential envoys to initiate a political investigation of his opponent. that is exactly what richard nixon would have been impeached for in article ii and that is the high crime and misdemeanor. and misusing office to provoke a political investigation of his opponents. >> but, steve scalise says that the president had a legal obligation to hold up the money to ukraine, because of the amount of the corruption in the country. >> yeah, yeah. >> is that legit? >> well, mr. scalise has not looked at the history of this, because in the spring of this year, the department of defense which is charged with making that determination, they concluded in the written finding that ukraine had made substantial steps to rout out corruption, and according to the department of defense they authorized the granting of this

military aid to ukraine. so dod, the experts on this had concluded sufficient steps of corruption to release the money, and the president's counter manderring of that is unmoored in the founding that the dod had found. >> all right. how about this, and tom cole, another republican congressman saying that because of the efforts to investigate biden did not succeed, there was no quid pro quo, and this is what he says. >> we know that the president says there is no quid pro quo and we know that the president zelensky did not feel pressure, and we know that the military aid got there, and those are the things that got there, and so, no, there is not a quid pro quo. and if there was one, it was not an effective one. >> okay. does a failed quid pro quo make it legal? enough proof of the corruption or the corrupt intent there? >> again, there's no legal requirement of a quid pro quo. that is entirely made up by the

president and by his defenders. in this case, the high crime and misdemeanor was committed when the president asked the ukrainians to investigate his political rival. that is when the crime was committed and whether the ukrainians did it or not, the crime is when the president demands that they investigate, and this is the crime. that goes the president's intent and what he wanted. the ukrainians may have stood up to him and refused to do it, but that is irrelevant of whether the president attempted to abuse his office and he clearly did. >> and also, we are expecting to hear from the president as we know he has been on the way back to the white house from new york where he spent overnight last nightment a ment night. and so when he gets to the south lawn, we will go there. and so, the fact that the president is changing his

residency from new york the florida and is that a way to prevent disclosinging his tax returns, and is that a good legal tactic? >> well, if it, it is ignoring the fact that the new york tax authorities have decades of donald trump's tax returns, and they will be able to provide anything going up to this current year. the president in the middle of the year changing his residence, they will still have to file 2019 tax returns, and so, it is not a very clever strategy if it is designed to keep current tax returns that are already existing from being turned over. now, if it is done to avoid taxes in the future, i suppose plenty of people do that. i suspect another reason is that the president is worried about florida, and worried about florida in 2020 and he only won by 1.2%, and by making a big deal of moving to florida and how much he loves the state and saying he is a florida rate increases his odds. >> that is a good point there as

always, nelson cunningham. as promised, everybody, take a listen to the president. >> we have an inaccurate report, and as you know, certain of the media released information about a man they said was the whistle-blower, and i don't know whether it is true or not, but they said that he is an obama person and involved with brennan and susan rice which means obama, but he was like a big anti-trump person. and hated trump. and they said terrible things. now i don't know if it is true . i don't know why the media's not on it. because the whistle-blower gave a very inaccurate report about my phone call. my phone call was perfecto. it was totally appropriate. but he gave a report, he or she. according to the newspapers, it's a he. they think -- they know who it is. you know who it is, you just don't want to report it. cnn knows who it is, but you

don't want to report it. and you know you'd be doing the public a service if you did. the whistle-blower gave a false report. and because of that false report, people thought bad things were done. and then you had schiff go out and speak before congress and before the american people and give a false story. he made up a story. after this was done they release and they said, he didn't do anything wrong. but the whistle-blower should be revealed because the whistle-blower gave false stories. some would call it fraud. i wouldn't go that far. when i read it closely, i probably would. but the whistle-blower should be revealed. i want to ask another question of you, where is the second whistle-blower and why did schiff make a lie about what he said i said on the phone call? and why didn't the lieutenant cornel say he wrote a letter to

the white house with certain little comments about the phone call? and all of those many people that listen to the phone call, why didn't they have a problem with it? because they didn't have. many people listen to calls between -- i know that. for instance, the secretary of state pompeo was on the call. nobody had, with all of those people, very few people came forward and they only came forward when you asked. and some of them are never-trumpers. why didn't all of those people listening to this absolutely totally appropriate phone call, why didn't they go forward? it's a whole scam. it's an impeachment scam. you know what it is? it's between the democrats and the fake news media. >> what evidence do you have that colonel vindman is a never-trumper? >> we'll be showing that to you real soon, okay? >> can you describe it, sir? >> in terms of the african-american community, are you concerned the possibility of

impeachment might hurt your standing in -- >> no, i think i have a great standing with the african-american community because if you look at what we've done, as you know, we have the best unemployment flnumbersn the history of our country for african-americans. we have the best poverty numbers. we have the best employment numbers. and i'm doing great. african-american community gets it. and i did criminal justice reform. nobody else. i did it. without me you don't have criminal justice reform. that was to the african-americans, more than anybody else. and so i think my standing in the afternorican community -- african-american community is -- we're going to see. we're going to see in one year. but i think i'm going to get a tremendous percent of votes from the african-american community. i did one other thing --

you're reading the wrong policy. the cnn polls are fake. the fox polls have always been lousy. i tell them they ought to get themselves a new pollster. the real polls -- you look at the polls, you look at the polls that came out this morning, people don't want anything to do with impeachment. it's a phoney scam. it's a hoax. and the whistle-blower should be revealed. because the whistle-blower gave false information.

>> do you still have confidence in mick mulvaney? >> it's working. as long as he's with me, i have confidence. >> look, i think morris is the right man for the time. he's the right man for the times. he's a great gentleman. he's a wonderful guy. he's tough, he's smart and i think he's going to do something. i just hope he does it so the u.s., which is by far the biggest economy in the world, not even close, since i took office, we picked up trillions of dollars, trillions. frankly, china has lost trillions of dollars, as you know. we're far and away the world's best economy in the world. if you do it a certain way, we're prohibited from trading with the uk. i think boris will get it right.

my relationship with russia is very good. my relationship with china is very good. people don't understand, i get along and nobody is going to mess with things. >> the john durham investigation is moving along. that's up to attorney barr, highly respected. john durham is one of the most respected prosecutors of the last 50 years in this country. i let them do their thing. it's bill barr is john durham. what they come up with will be very meaningful. we'll see what happens i do not get involved with it. by the way, i'd be allowed to get involved with it but i chose not to. it's up to bill barr. the john durham investigation is a very important -- i feel, one of the most important investigations in the history of our country.

do you have a date or venue -- >> no. something like that could happen. i know they'd like to meet. something like that could happen. >> you want house republicans to call for testimony? >> i think the house republicans and senate republicans have been incredible. i don't think they've ever bren unity like we have right now. we had 195 or so votes. we didn't have one negative vote. the only one that had negative votes on the whole impeachment scam were the democrats. i think nancy pelosi has lost her mind. i think, frankly, she should go back home to san francisco. if you look at what's happening to her district. her district is going to hell with homeless that they're not taking care of, with needles all over the street, with tents, with people, with sanitation, with horrible things being washed into the ocean and the pacific ocean. i think nancy pelosi, her

district, has probably gone down more than any district proportionately in the united states. and what she's done -- and what she's done for that district, and top of it, you have fires eating away at california every year. because management is so bad. the governor is like a child. he doesn't know what he's been doing. eye been telling them this for two years. they've got to take care of it. every year it's california. it's rarely somebody else or someplace else. but nancy pelosi ought to go back to her district and take care of it. because her district has become a mess. number one in the country for going down. all she thinks about is impeachment. you know who wants to run the party? the radical left. >> john bolton testified -- >> that's up to him and the lawyers. it's really up to the lawyers. i like john bolton. i always got along with him.

that's up to the lawyers. >> you said no quid pro quo but in the transcript -- >> read the transcript. >> but it says -- >> read the transcript. >> what about a government shutdown. there's a genuine concern, democrats are concerned you'll hold up funding for the government that you're so upset about impeachment. is that something that's a possibility? >> i don't think they believe that at all but we'll see what happens. the democrats -- i call them the do-nothing democrats. they're doing nothing. they're not getting usmta done. everybody wants it. even the democrats. they're not getting anything done. even guns, they don't talk about guns. all they can dotqw is talk abou one phone call made to the president of ukraine that was perfect. it was perfect. it was a perfect phone call. and they're hanging their hat on this one phone call. you know what?

the republican party has never been so unified. >> sir, will you mount a defense -- will you mount a defense, sir -- >> they've never been so unified. >> can you commit to no government shutdown? >> depends on what the negotiation -- i wouldn't commit to anything. it depends on the negotiation. >> sir, will you mount a defense at the impeachment inquiry? >> okay, everybody, there you see at the top of the hour, the president walking away after a free-wheeling discussion with reporters there on the white house south lawn upon his arrival home from new york city where he spent last night. i'm going to bring back in nelson cunningham right now, of course, one of our legal analysts, former federal prosecutor and also, nelson, in your role as a special adviser to president clinton in the western hemisphere for national security. so, i know that you were shaking your head at the top of that discussion and those questions that were being peppered of the president. why were you shaking your head at what he was saying about the whistle-blower and that which has come in terms of testimony

since about that phone call? >> yeah, because as a matter of proof, the whistle-blower is not part of the evidence against the president. the whistle-blower gave us a road map. he said there was a phone call. he said there were some exchanges before the phone call. there was military aid that was withheld. there were exchanges after the phone call. and everything that's been done since we learned about the whistle-blower's report and what's in it has -- has panned out. we've seen there was a phone call. we've seen the transcript. there were exchanges. there was military aid withheld. there were discussions about rudy giuliani and sondland and the ukrainians about this. think about the whistle-blower's report as like the 911 call that says, hey, somebody is breaking into a building. police get the call. they go running to the building. what do they find? people breaking into the building. does the identity of 911 caller make a difference? no.

does the bias of any 911 caller make a difference? no. what matters is the underlying evidence. here it's all panned out. who the whistle-blower is, what bias the whistle-blower may have really becomes irrelevant. look at the transcript and the testimony of the other career officials who have come forward. >> that 911 call is an excellent that natural i go. thank you for that. joining us is reince priebus and michael singleton. we heard kelly o'donnell asking the president about john bolton in that scrum. kelly will join me from the white house. what all did you pick up from the president there? >> reporter: there were some notable things about this exchange. first of all, it's unusual for the president just in his normal practice to speak to us as collected reporters on the south lawn when he's returning so it was something we had not expected he would do. so, it clearly had things he wanted to say. and that's important to just put

that in perspective. the whistle-blower, asking for that person to be exposed, the president referenced lieutenant colonel vindman saying he wrote some notes in the margin of a document. i asked the president about vindman last night. he tweeted about him being a never-trumper without naming

him. from the president's point of view is a sharp pejorative. i asked him today about what evidence do you have? i think in a very notable moment here, he says, we're going to be showing you that. the president is suggesting he would have -- remember, he's commander in chief. we're talking about someone who's a white house aid and active member of the army and an officer. he's suggesting he's going to put forward something that could discredit the point of view of lieutenant colonel vindman. now, in contrast, kellyanne conway says she would never question vindman's patriotism but does disagree with his assessment of these events. that's notable. the president trying to use those who brought this accusation against him as a part of his defense. i did ask him about john bolton, who is scheduled to appear before the committee this week. it's a big question mark whether he will appear. the president saying that's up to the lawyers.

saying he always got along well with bolton but that is not his decision to make. of course, it is the white house's decision to make if they're going to ask certain principa principals, like a former national security adviser, to honor executive privilege. there's a question mark there. i also pressed the president a few times and he did not engage on the matter of whether he will launch a defense in the impeachment inquiry, which is one of the things democrats codified with their resolution, allowing the president to call his own witnesses or republicans on his behalf and to have legal counsel present. he's just not engaged on those things. the president is basically arguing against public polling that says there has been an increase in the number of people who believe he should be impeached and removed. the president rejecting that out of hand. and so those are notable things today as we look at where the president's mindset is, how he's feeling about this as democrats are beginning to move. it will be at least another week

before we get to the public phase of the impeachment inquiry. this is a critical juncture. the president, it seems today, has attacked the whistle-blower. alex? >> okay, kelly o'donnell at the white house. thank you for that and for your peppering of the president with those questions. some of which he answered. appreciate that. i want to ask both of you to comment on what kelly just reported. the president's mindset, the defense he's going to use and also on nelson cunningham's analogy of the whistle-blower essentially playing the role of someone who makes a 911 call and says a crime is being committed, but then when the police arrive, they find the criminals. is that accurate in terms of the relevancy of the whistle-blower these days? does that mean the public and the president are emphasizing the wrong? >> i think the analogy is a good one. i would change nelson's one little bit in that it's the bank manager who slid their hand

under the desk and hit the alarm. someone who's witnessing it with their own eyes. we've seen this for two years now. this argument that no crime was committed because they got into the vault and it was empty or they had the meeting with the russians and nothing was turned over. is utterly absurd. if i just go around holding up liquor stores and they have nothing in the till, i did something wrong and i should go to jail. we're all inert to the president lying like a rug. what we just saw was remarkable and possibly the worst i've ever seen in four years in terms of how egregious and outlandish they are. in terms of kelly's question, her question was really important, asking about proof. i do have to take issue with her interpretation of his answer. because when donald trump says, we'll be releasing that, we'll be showing that, he's lying. he has nothing. there is nothing to show about

vindman. if he did, he would have done so already. he has used that telltale dodzes of times in office. >> i want to ask you these same questions. why does the president continue saying things that are demonstrably lies, they are false? look, you're a republican strategi strategist. is he appealing to republicans thinking they will believe him and not look at the proof that comes time after time after time and potentially in open hearings? does he think that what he says, that is, again, demonstrably false, will weigh more heavily with republicans as they vote? >> well, i don't think he has to think -- i think the facts are there. look at the polling. the guy still remains incredibly popular within the republican party. i think the mistake donald trump is making, however, is not paying attention to independents. let's not talk about the left. we know where they are.

it's the folks in the middle so critical to donald trump winning re-election in 2020, alex. his ability to grow, to expand is nonexistent. if you lose those people, i don't know how he could win. >> it's hard to fathom there are those independents, people in the middle. it seems everything is so divided, the chasm forces people to pick one side or the other. >> there are still folks out there that i like to call casual spectators. if you look at the recent polling data you were citing earlier in your earlier conversations, if you look at independents they have moved five or six percentage points and all indications indicate they will continue to move, and i expect, alex, once democrats begin the process of having these public hearings, you may see more moderate leaning republicans who may sort of look at this and raise some eyebrows about the president. again, i think he's playing to his hard core base. i think when you think of this in terms of electoral politics,

can you win enough electoral votes in key swing states to win, i think the president is severely hurting his odds by just continuing to lie. >> yeah, something nancy pelosi -- go ahead. >> you hit the nail on the head. who the hell are these people? it's understandable who they were in 2016. he won independents 46-43. maybe they believed what he was saying. maybe they wanted to believe it. maybe they just didn't like his competitor. but they now have going on a three-year record. and donald trump himself has said, what do you have to lose? and we have now a record of what we have to lose. and in very simple terms, we have lost our country. the notion that these folks would vote for him again is just beyond compensation. who would think, oh, he turned out to be exactly what he wanted. i was independent, i was a little worried but, boy, was i right in my vote. the thing that should scare him, which is exactly what he's saying, is not the democratic numbers that are changing on impeachment. democrats have been upwards of

90% from the beginning. it's independents, it's young people, it's the people that skewed his way and put him in office. those are the exact people who are leaning towards impeachment and towards removal. >> do you in terms it of numbers on impeachment, do you have a sense of where nancy pelosi wants the numbers in the house to be before they would take a vote? has that been clarified at all? we have the open hearings. any idea on that? >> i'm so happy right now that nancy pelosi is the speaker of this impeachment inquiry and what will certainly be an impeachment vote. i don't know a whole lot of people that could handle this and that could handle donald trump. but there is no magic number. she just got 231 out of 234 votes. and how do you know, how do you know there's no magic number? if she's waiting for even one republican, we might be waiting for the rest of our lives. it doesn't matter.

these notions about 50% are for impeachment and removal. i don't know what the magic number is. a majority of the country now thinks he did something wrong and want him gone. and if we believe he did something wrong, we don't need to wait for numbers. we don't need to wait for polls. and to give her credit, that is where she is right now. i think she will move forward when it is clear that the case has been made. think about it, the polls have been spiking against donald trump and there hasn't been a single hearing. all we see are images of vindman going in and out of a room. we don't know what he sounds like. >> how much -- this is to you, how much do you think these public hearings will affect republicans in the way they approach the prospect of impeachment? will it sway them? >> i don't think it will sway the most ardent supporters, alex. what i'm paying attention to are folks in the suburbs, people who were traditional republican voters in previous elections in the past. as we saw in 2018, those

individuals voted overwhelmingly for the democrat over a republican in their respective congressional districts. i'm waiting to see what those voters do. i think if democrats can keep it simple, turn it into poignant terms that people can digest and make them understand why it is of importance to them, i think they have a winning message. >> guys, thank you for staying through. the president was talking for a good 10, 11 minutes. i appreciate that and getting to the top of the hour. good to see you both. thank you so much. what we just learned a short time ago about the impeachment inquiry, the answers to three very important questions when we come back right here on "weekends with alex witt." psyllium works by forming a gel in your digestive system to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down. metamucil's gelling action also helps to lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels.

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there's lots of new information about the house's next move in their investigation into the president. we now have an idea of when the closed door hearings will end. congressman eliot engel saying that will wrap up this week and transcripts of those depositions will be released. and congressman jim hines saying he expects testimony to begin in a couple of weeks. welcome to you. i want to ask you what you thought about the president, all that he said in those 10, 11 minutes there on the white house

lawn on his way back to new york. john, you first in terms of what you heard from the president. what stood out most to you? >> i think felipe in your previous segment almost everything the president said was untrue. support for impeachment has been rising. the whistle-blower's account of the phone call has been vindicated. almost everything the whistle-blower has said in terms of the overall thrust of what happened has been vindicated. and i also thought it was shocking that the president continues to call for outing the identity of the whistle-blower. the whistle-blower statute has been designed to protect people from calling out wrongdoing. obviously, it would put that person in jeopardy if the person is outed. though, it's not surprising that this president of the united states would be so heedless of those norms and those

protections. it is nevertheless shocking that is he. >> tom, your thoughts. >> yeah, you know, part of what we're seeing with the democrats ready to move this to a more public space, they feel the record speaks for itself. it's not surprising to see president obama holding onto some of the same talking points that he was when we began this journey into what happened with ukraine. since we had the initial whistle-blower complaint, we have the rough transcripts, not a ver bay itbatim transcript of phone call. we have reports trickling out. we understood at the beginning. at this point, democrats don't even think the whistle-blower testimony itself is that essential because of the volume of evidence that has been accumulated since then. and in a few weeks we're likely to see that move into this public phase where these people

will be testifying in front of cameras, on the record for the american public to hear. i think what we're seeing with president trump are these recycled efforts to discredit the process. it will be more and more difficult where this testimony is presented directly to the american people themselves to hear. >> you know, house foreign affairs committee chair eliot engel is now promising these public hearings happen very, very soon. what does that tell us about the pace at which they're going? >> the democrats don't really have a timeline set in stone at this point because they were so pleasantly surprised by the amount of testimony they were getting from current administration officials that they really didn't want to cut that momentum short. what we're hearing is they are aiming to wrap this up or most if not all of it up by the end of the year. bringing these depositions out to the public is going to be a big step towards that. that's the moment when you're

trying to convince the american people that there is a basis here for impeachment, that the president did, in fact, abuse his power, the power of his office in order to further his own political interests. i want to go back quickly to one of the things that was most schott shocking about what the president said in his gaggle, which is he is continuing to attempt to smear a purple heart recipient, lieutenant colonel, alexander vindman, director of ukraine for usc, and threatening to reveal information about him that will allegedly show that he is a, quote/unquote, never-trumper. this has been part of a concerted effort by trump and his allies to undermine his credibility because, of course, vindman gave one of the most damaging testimonies revealing the white house lawyer who moved the transcript or the record of the call to the top secret system also told him to keep quiet about it. they clearly see him as someone who's a decorated war veteran, army official, someone who should be unimpeachable in terms

of his credibility and they see him giving damaging testimony here and will probably go out in public and do the same. they're pulling out all the shots here that damage him as much as possible. >> john, the fact that we're hearing these public hearings will begin very soon. we hear that from congressman jim hinds. is that because the democrats are feeling pressure that the public attention to this may be waning or that it will drag on too long? >> i think they don't want it to drag on too long. of course, there's other business to do in the congress. there's a presidential election, election for the house and senate next year. i don't think they want it to go indefinitely. there's only a little more than a year left in the president's term. if they're going to take this action, if there's going to be a trial in the senate, it has to happen relatively quickly. nancy pelosi has talked about keeping a relatively narrow focus. there's some disagreement within the caucus on that.

this one case they narrowed the focus to on so far is so crystal clear, the evidence is so strong, that there's not any particular reason to drag it out. so, i think that is why they're going to move expeditiously. the question, to me, is whether or not this public phase of hearings has the effec month as partisan temperature has been turned up on this. public hearings are different than the private behind closed door hearings and people have a chance to see them themselves. >> you know, congressman himes addressed this, he broke down the partisan battle over impeachment. let's take a listen to what he said. >> didn't you fail nancy pelosi's own test it has to be bipartisan? >> well, it is very sad that this is not a more bipartisan thing. every one of my republican colleagues understands that if they do what they know is right -- by the way, i hear them say they know what's right in

the halls of congress. if they do what they know is right, the president lights them up on twitter and they lose a primary election. very sadly, unlike the nixon or clinton investigations, this is going to continue to break down along partisan lines. >> listening to that and listening to what john just said, have democrats lost hope on getting bipartisan support? >> i think that was a really big focus for them before the information about the ukraine call and the wide-ranging conspiracy surrounding pressure on ukraine really emerged. at that point i think democrats said, look, we need to focus on how the president clearly abused his office here for his own political gain, regardless of whether or not we get any republican buy-in because this is about the constitution. this is about holding a president accountable for his actions. if the republicans don't want to come on board with that, then they're going to have to answer to their voters for that in 2020. it remains to be seen how much republican support they're going

to lose. i think at this point republicans wanted to keep their powder dry and that's why they voted for resolution last week. support for impeaching nixon was strong for republicans and then that flipped. >> mike support change from impeaching the president once these hearings are out in the open? how much hope is there for that, that these open hearings will change public sentiment? >> look, it's certainly a possibility. at the same time, just to take a step back over the last, you know, three, four years, one thing we've seen is that public opinion has been relatively stable. i mean, we're living in an extremely partisan time. people have entrenched to their corners. you have a divided media environment where it's possible to sort of surround yourself with news that reinforces your existing beliefs if you're an american citizen. so, you know, when we talk about fighting for the middle, it's an increasingly dwindling middle. certainly we saw the support for impeachment go from the 30s to

near 50% with this ukraine episode coming to light. i mean, that was a huge shift in public opinion that we really hadn't seen to this point in the context of the mueller investigation. at the same time, i think we should be real it'sic about how much the partisan trenches have been dug and folks are sticking in them. i don't know that it was ever realistic for democrats to get a deluge of republicans to flip over to the other side just given the nature of politics, the way we see them in america today. we should be clear-eyed about the environment we're operating in at this moment. >> yes, john, real quick. >> could i close with one thing? certainly bipartisanship is a gold standard in american politics for signaling a national consensus. on the other hand, if one party as a matter of doctrine makes withholding its support for things that are obviously right in front of their face, then the concept loses its meaning.

so, i think what democrats are going to do and what they have done in this ukraine case is use as a standard what will a reasonable person react to a plain set of facts and we're seeing that. that's why the numbers have moved. it may not move along republicans if they withhold their support across the board. but that doesn't discredit the idea because republicans as a matter of strategy are attempting to make it not bipartisan. >> thank you to all three of you again. always good to speak with all of you guys. obama's warning the mixed reaction to defense compromise and how it could impact the 2020 race. i'll be talking with reverend al sharpton coming up. oming up(dad) i think it's here. (mom vo) especially at this age. (big sis) where are we going? (mom vo) it's a big, beautiful world out there. (little sis) whoa... (big sis) wow. see that? (mom vo) sometimes you just need a little help seeing it.

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we have new reaction to president obama calling out politically engaged people who give in to ideological puretive and armchair activism on social media. one of obama's former senior advisers, valerie jarrett, is taking those comments one step further into the context of the 2020 election. >> sometimes we have to compromise. doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for things and hold people accountable, it also means you can't use social media to

retaliate. let's not strip each other down because ultimately the party will have to pull together. >> joining me now, the reverend al sharpton, host of "politicians nation" on msnbc. that should all sound familiar because she said that on your show. what was the takeaway from that? what do you think the message is via valerie jarrett from the obama camp? >> it was clear. the message they're saying is let us not have such a purist measure to the candidates that when we come up with whatever the candidate is in the democratic party, that we have blocks of the democratic party that won't go out and support them because they didn't pass some kind of litmus test on things that really are not principle differences. it may be tactics. it may be how want to deal with things a certain way. and i think she brought it right in to where former president

obama put it. this idea of being woke cannot be that you beat down everybody that does not do it the way you do it as long as we're all in the same ballpark. they don't have to play the same base you play. >> you mentioned the president. let's listen to what he said at his foundation summit. >> this idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke and all that stuff. you should get over that quickly. the world is messy. there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible as other people and that's not enough. that's not activism. that's not bringing about change. >> look, wasn't he himself something of an idealist, hope and change? that was the moniker associated with his campaign. i will give you, that was 12 years ago. things change that much. >> want only was it 12 years

ago. 12 years ago when i was involved with that and worked alongside doing things with his campaign with civil rights and then when he was in administration, he was always saying to extreme people on both sides, we have to find common ground. i've been in many rooms, both when he was in the white house and otherwise, where he has always said what he said there. that we have to find common ground to get health care to save voting rights. i think what he is concerned about, and i think valerie jarrett said it yesterday, we get in these modes where we become so self-righteous and so arrogant about it that we end up letting those that are opposed to what we believe in as progressives win. >> how then do you successfully address, say, younger voters who see compromise as being the

equivalent of surrender? >> but all yong people are not monolithic. we found young people that want to do it in terms of being inside a government, inside law enforcement, young people that want to do it inside protests like i do or maybe young people that do it on social media. we keep acting like all young people are monolith, like all old people are monolithic. young people do different things. young people do different things. that's part of what the former president is now addressing. we can't keep putting people in blocks. i know in my group, i have young people who are more moderate than me and i have some that are much more radical. that's what makes movements work. >> people online are defending social activism. is this their way of standing up to the powerful? has this become a mainstream of political discourse? >> absolutely it's a mainstream of political discourse but also needs those on the inside, it needs those in the streets.

i don't think any one way does it. i think if you just do social media, you're not going to achieve things. if you just do the streets, you're not going to do things. if you just do the inside, you need the combination of both, which is what we've always had in any movement that succeeded. >> i want to make a point with you why all this matters as we look at our new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll that has just come out. it shows 49% of americans support impeaching president trump and removing him from office. does this help or hurt the odds for democrats in 2020? how will this play? >> i think if the evidence is there, as it seemingly is building up, it will help the democra democrats, particularly because the republicans have been so lockstep behind the president. in the segment you just did, where you don't have any republicans that will step outside of that, the more the evidence builds, they go down with the ship. you have a president that -- i

mean, it was almost embarrassing if i didn't know him so well, just pacing back and forth during his press conference. that's delusional. he actually said with a straight face that the polls are saying they don't want to hear anything about impeachment. look at the poll you just read. he actually said african-americans are going to come out in big numbers. the man needs to sit down and relax and not talk to the press for a while because he's really embarrassing himself. i always knew he was a hype man, but he's gone from hype to delusion. >> reverend al sharpsharpton, i a feeling you'll pick up on this. >> you bet i will. >> and watch the rev on "politics nation" a5:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. the new talking points about impeachment on the sunday talk shows today. will republicans get on board with this? into their business. virtualize their operations. (woman) and build ai customer experiences. we also keep them ready

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transcripts for people to see and read for themselves. we will get to the bottom of this. then we'll be able to make a determination at that time whether or not it was t treasonous. >> was the white house holding up military aid -- >> they have aids. >> can you say no quid pro quo? >> no quid pro quo in terms -- >> i'm asking you. >> president trump never said to the ukrainian president, do this and you'll get your aid. it's simply not here. >> the aid is there and the investigations didn't happen. so, if there was a quid pro quo, it wasn't a very effective one. >> the law requires president trump or any president when sending foreign aid, taxpayer money to another country, to fix ensure that that country's rooting out corruption. he and zelensky were talking about that on the phone call. >> have you heard enough in your mind that the president essentially should be indicted for this? >> i can tell you that i -- the evidence is mounting.

>> joining me now, msnbc contributor, adrienne elrod, done callaway, and msnbc political analyst. >> with a welcome to all of you, your thoughts on kellyanne conway and what she said in that interview? >> i have to give the trump administration some sort of credit for having the few people they put on the sunday shows on the same message. the message is not a good message. they're basically saying, hey, listen, ukraine got the aid they needed but it doesn't matter, the tactics that we use to get there. it doesn't matter the pressuring tactics. of course, alex, you have to keep in mind the transcript, the quote/unquote, transcript they released was a summary of the conversation. it wasn't the actual transcript. this is exactly why the american people have no confidence in this administration. this is exactly why impeachment, support for impeachment is at an all-time high and majority of

americans, according to the new nbc/wall street poll support impeaching the president and removing him from office. >> let's hear more from kel kellyanne conway. >> maybe you can circle it for me, about 2020, biden, quid pro quo. they got their aid and that's important. >> how is that going to play, this argument, don? >> it plays really poorly. let's be clear. this is about investigating joe biden because he was a perceived front-runner at the time. he was not being asked to investigate amy klobuchar so it holds no water. i find this remarkable pivoting from republicans as their standard talking points to be fascinating. it's a pattern we've seen throughout the life of this presidency, even the candidacy. first it was he's not a racist, then he doesn't say things like we would like him to say. then no collusion. collusion is not a crime.

now no quid pro quo. even if there was, ukraine got their money. it's outstanding. >> look, the argument is they have the money, they're doing it, so there was no quid pro quo, obviously. . that's the line right now, the defense. what do you think of that? >> the white house strategy is to say that everything that has happened is normal. however, we know it's not. it is not normal for any president of the united states to invite a foreign leader to investigate an american citizen who happens to be a political rival. that is not normal. yes, the funds were eventually dispersed, in large part because this scandal started brewing and they said, we better get these funds out the door as soon as possible. that's a line of defense that's not going to work. alex, what's really important, you've been exploring it throughout your show, can this become a bipartisan cause in some way? for now, it's perceived to be a partisan exercise.

i think the process speaker pelosi has laid out will help with that by not giving each member of the committee five minutes to shine in the spotlight because then becomes about them. by controlling this process, i do think that democrats have a shot at breaking the bipartisan impasse that we've seen on about every issue in this country for the last decade or so. that is going to be the key question here. >> so, the mash we heard there, representative steve scalise said the law requires the president to stop funding if there's corruption in that country, meaning ukraine. is anyone going to buy that? >> no. i mean, i guess the republican base will buy that. but, look, this is what's happening out here. you see members like steve scalise, part of the republican leadership, going out there, leaning into this because the majority of their base supports donald trump. nine out of ten republicans support donald trump.

but when you go to the senate and you look at people like thom tillis, who are in very tough re-election chances, the independent voters are more and more turning towards supporting impeachment. i think that's where you have to look. right now you have a bunch of safe republicans leaning into donald trump in the house, but the big question is, how did the senators react when this actually goes to a trial in the senate especially. some republicans are in very, very tough re-elections. >> how important is this next phase, don, the open trial hearings that will be publicized live on tv? not only for those senators to whom adrian is referring, but for the general public? >> it's extremely important. let's be very clear about this. richard nixon resigned because in leading up to impeachment, those who favored impeachment laid out a very systematic case every day in the -- before walter concrete, before the nightly news. this is the democrats' opportunity to do that. in the 24-hour news cycle, every hearing, every deposition, all

of the testimony will be front page news more so than it was behind the closed door hearings and skiff from adam schiff, which were great and necessary for the process. when this goes public, the democrats will have the opportunity to lay out their case, both chapter and verse, why this president should be impeached. if anybody is paying attention, even the objective viewer, the independent voters, are really going to have a heart time not saying this president should be brought to trial in the senate? >> i want to pivot to a political article. trump lures gop senators on impeachment with cold cash. it's a pretty stunning headline there. it talks about how the president can direct some fund-raising efforts to those people, those republicans that are up for re-election. can president trump separate himself from then the appearance that this could influence votes in an impeachment trial? >> well, alex, it's not extraordinary for a president to raise funds for members of his

or her party in congress. that happens all the time. >> sure. the question is, given the circumstances, can these members afford to accept that support? will they be able to convince their voters that they can be objective despite the fact that the president is raising thousands and thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars for their re-election campaigns? so, it really puts the members in a tough position. is it illegal? it's not illegal. it happens all the time. but certainly these republican senators who are running in tough races throughout the country, they're going to have a hard time explaining to their constituents, to local media in their states, how they can accept these funds and at the same time be objective when it comes time for the senate to sit as a jury. >> i do want to make a quick point here and turn to 2020 with you. you remember hillary clinton's comments essentially implying tulsi gabbard is a russian asset. here's a clip from what gabbard

told me about that in the last hour. >> her trying to smear me and to undermine my character with this baseless, outrageous claim is a message to the american people that if you dissent, if you criticize, if you stand up against their establishment foreign policy, then you, too, will be smeared. >> what is your reaction to that? >> look, i think tulsi is minutesing the point here. the point secretary clinton was making, even if you don't realize this as a candidate, the russians in this particular case with tulsi are propering her up. they're trying to get somebody to divide this race, to run as a third-party challenger, because they know their candidate, donald trump, will not get re-elected unless there's a third-party challenge. that outperforms jill stein's vote in 2016. they are looking to thatter.

to be tulsi gabbard. whether she realizes it, that's what the russians are doing. that's the point secretary clinton is making. she's saying, hey, guys, we need to take a warning here, we need to heed this warning. it might be too late down the road and the russians, the propaganda machine, we have proof they've been propping up tulsi. that was the point she was trying to make and that she was actually making. >> you know, there are rumors, don, i think they'll never stop, but do you think hillary clinton should reconsider -- do you think she should get in the race? >> that's tough. you can't ask me that. come on. i love hillary clinton. i think hillary clinton is a shero. >> i love that. >> whether or not she ever becomes the president. >> well, that was very diplomatically said. you could run for congress. good to see all three of you. thanks for weighing in. it's a list of who's slated to speak this week in the upcoming impeachment inquiry. we have answers coming your way in the next hour.

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speaker pelosi made that comment the day before the justice department handed over a trove of secret memos about the mueller report to buzzfeed. i know you've been pouring over all of this and you're convinced it shows evidence of russian manipulation. explain why you think that. >> i think that clearly the russians were looking for a way in to interfere in our election and a way to target trump and, again, i want to make this clear, we just heard from tulsi gabbard, to be targeted by a foreign intelligence service doesn't make you guilty of a crime. it does mean you are that target. what we saw with the russians is really how well this message of hillary clinton and dnc server in the ukraine really stuck, that we had memos of investigation, investigators speaking to people with trump saying we want more leaks. and it goes back very early on,

the campaign understood that manafort was a compromised individual. yet, they all wanted these emails and it's -- look as we look at impeachment, this is part of the core of the impeachment investigation. this -- frankly this conspiracy theory that somehow these emails against in ukraine. >> that's been out there since 2016, right? >> right. >> do you see patterns between the way the president has handled the russia allegations and the way he's handled the ukraine allegations? >> yeah, i think that -- well, besides the allegations, i think this idea that he very much wanted to seek these emails, we saw it in 2016, we see it again for 2020, that he's pushing, this is the allegations for impeachment, he's pushing the ukrainians to investigate bidens, also pushing this theory about these emails existing in the ukraine. i think that there is a pattern. because he sees the mueller investigation as not being able

to cross the ts and dot the is to the fact he's done something illegal, he sees that behavior as something that's permissible. the idea that you can ask a foreign government for help in your political endeavors is to most americans would seem out of bounds, but to him it seems something that is a business transaction. >> what do you think of the president zeroing in on trying to reveal the identity of the whistle-blower? >> i think that what -- look, one of the mistakes that i feel as someone in media did covering mueller is that sometimes we get stuck in the minutia. perhaps if you reveal the name of the whistle-blower, you start focusing on the colonel, it turns out he was an immigrant, that perhaps by revealing his identity, the republicans and trump hopes there's some marker there that distracts from the overall context. the context is the piece that has to be reminded to i think the american people that this is

investigation of an impeachment, it's an investigation of an abuse of office. one of the things that lawmakers tell me is, you know, the reason that this is not necessarily defined as a crime is because no one envisioned that this would be something that we would have to try someone or remind might that it might be something you shouldn't do. >> do you think folks are frustrated by how the mueller report was handled? >> yeah, i think there's a lot of frustration. i think that, you know, again, the problem with counter intelligence is that at the end of a criminal investigation, you have a walk, a guilty plea. whereas a counter intelligence investigation, you're looking to stop. and i think people have their fill in that and they don't really know where to go from here. >> do you think we're going to get the full story of what happened and have it be disclosed out in the public for

consumption? >> i hope so. it's going to be up to the public to put those pieces together because the administration isn't going to help do that. >> okay. good to talk with you. thank you. >> likewise. >> what the president said about the whistle-blower and the impeachment inquiry, fact-checking coming your way at the top of the hour. so i can buy from enterprise car sales and you'll take any trade-in? that's right! great! here you go... well, it does need to be a vehicle. but - i need this out of my house. (vo) with fair, transparent value for every trade-in... enterprise makes it easy.

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coverage. >> you realize we're on the home stretch. >> it is a leap year. we have an extra day to throw in. >> 366. way to kill the buzz. thank you. enjoy your sunday. good day, everybody, i'm kendis gibson. a critical week ahead, 11 more people scheduled to sit down with lawmakers on capitol hill this week including the president's former national security advisor and outgoing secretary. the inquiry moving full steam ahead despite a congressional break and new calls for president trump to unmask the whistle-blower along with a clearer picture of the republican plan for fighting impeachment. how trump and his allies are working to pump the brakes on the inquiry and strengthen their counter nar