causing a recent strain of wildfires. andrea mitchell reports starts right now. >> right now, defiance. the president loses a court decision on his tax returns and will appeal to the supreme court as the white house defies impeachment subpoenas and targets the whistleblower. >> the whistleblower gave a very inaccurate report about my phone call. my phone call was perfecto. the whistleblower should be revealed. >> battlegrounds. joe biden breaks through against the president in key battleground states but slips farther behind in iowa and new hampshire while warren and buttigieg climb. >> on day one there's going to be no chance for on the job training. >> here's the good news. i have the biggest anti-corruption plan since

watergate. >> if i get elected and we're not able to transform this country, then i will have failed. >> i think people want to see us demonstrate that we can succeed. >> under fire. the president threatens to withhold aid for combatting wildfires in california blaming the state's new governor. >> the governor doesn't know. he's like a child. he doesn't know what he's doing. and i've been telling him this for two years. they've got to take care of it. every year it's always california. it's rarely somebody else. ♪ and good day, everyone. president trump is fighting against the impeachment battle on multiple fronts after attending a real fight this weekend at madison square garden and taking in a few violent ufc matches before firing off his own verbal haymakers targeting colonel vindman as a never

trumper without any evidence and demanding that the whistleblower be outed despite legal protections for all whistleblowers' identities. then slamming the whistleblower's offer to answer written questions even though that is precisely what the president did during the mueller probe. there is breaking news this hour from capitol hill. house democrats on the impeachment inquiry releasing transcript of key testimony, testimony from state department ambassador marie yovanovitch and state department advisor michael mckinley. joined by kristin welker at the white house and jeff bennett on capitol hill and robert costa, national political reporter at the "washington post." we are expecting adam schiff within moments to be releasing those key transcripts.

kristin welker, the president has been claiming without any evidence at all that these are going to be doctored transcripts so he's already been going after them on the transcripts. what about this white house counter attack? >> reporter: the white house continues to try to insist that the impeachment inquiry is illegitimate even though there has now been a vote, president trump arguing that a number of these witnesses are never trumpers without any evidence to back that up. as you point out, that remarkable tweet this morning responding to word that the whistleblow whistleblower has said that the whistleblower would answer written questions. the president saying written answers are not acceptable. of course, president trump submitted written answers to questions during the mueller investigation, refusing to sit for an in-person interview with robert mueller.

so it's a difficult argument to make now. he's going to depart later on today for a political event in kentucky. we'll have a chance to ask him about all of that. the transcripts just released that you just mentioned. i'll just note two things that have stuck out to me in a very brief reading. one, you have marie yovanovitch saying she was shocked by some of the language, quote, very surprised that president trump would speak about her in the way that he did. and in other instances expressing real concerns about rudy giuliani and the role he was playing in foreign policy. we're just getting these excerpts but those are two early observations. >> the quickest reader at the white house, kristin welker thank you. this was all happening just moments ago. we haven't had a chance to go through all of it. jeff bennett, have you had a chance to do any reading?

>> reporter: a little reading. the yovanovitch transcript is 316 pages and the transcript for michael mckinley who is secretary of state mike pompeo's de facto chief of staff before he resigned decrying the politicization at the state department. the transcript of his testimony is some 156 pages. there are a few highlights. marie yovanovitch said she spoke with state department officials about giuliani's activities in ukraine but they did not stop his efforts. she spoke with senior state department officials who understood that claims made against her in articles published in the hill and elsewhere, part of that smear campaign had no basis and yet no one at the state department, she says, came to her aid. she says that when she sought advice from gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador to the eu, he recommended that she tweet praise of president trump.

she also told house investigators that state department officials were hesitant to issue a statement supporting her because they were concerned that the rug would be pulled out from under them by president trump. so one of the reasons why this testimony is so important is because it speaks to a coordinated campaign at the behest of president trump, house democrats allege, as he called into service rudy giuliani, ambassador sondland, rick perry and others to lean on ukrainian officials to dig up dirt manufacturing damaging information about the bidens. the reason this testimony is significant is because president trump always talks about the call. you heard him say that on the south lawn yesterday. he said the call was perfect. house democrats say it's what happened before the call and what happened after the call that is so important to the public case they are building against president trump. marie yovanovitch was one of those people who in the beginning she said she had no

clue what rudy giuliani was up to. she just knew that he was working outside of the established diplomatic channels and if anyone was going to be speaking with ukrainian officials about u.s. interests in that country, it should have been her given her well-established role. but that didn't happen. when she raised concerns, she was ultimately smeared and sidelined. so her testimony is key to the case that democrats are building. >> and when you see how the white house is resisting cooperating, now you've got john eisenberg and three other witnesses no-shows today on capitol hill. >> that's significant, andrea. these are officials who are following the orders of president trump as well as the white house counsel who have urged them not to be participating in this process, not to go testify. it's note worthy that the witnesses who have come through already, some of them have done so in defiance of those orders.

with these transcripts coming out now, we can expect white house officials as well as the president's outside allies to really be devouring the testimony looking for inconsistencies and ways to exploit any vulnerabilities in the accounts that these witnesses have provided already. >> robert costa, let's talk about the republicans, because the white house was breathing such a sigh of relief after the vote on thursday. given that the house republicans held firm behind him, that was an indicator of what the senate might do as well. >> they have real challenges right now inside of the republican party because the house resolution limits the scope of the impeachment inquiry to the house intelligence committee. so many of the president's allies are on house foreign affairs or house oversight. there's now a growing clamor on the right wing of the gop by lindsey graham to call up witnesses who could be damaging in the republicans' view to vice president biden.

you have this push on the right to do something to counter this fast moving process where republicans don't feel they have a real grip on it at all. >> nancy pelosi has held her caucus together after resisting the impeachment inquiry, she moved as the evidence accumulated and held the caucus together so firmly, yet with only two defections from districts that had gone so firmly for president trump. that said, how does she hold this together going forward given how badly the judiciary committee, for instance, performed previously after the mueller investigation? >> i think that speaker pelosi is pretty confident she can hold her democrats together. only two defections, that's really remarkable. she would not have started down this road if she was not confident she could hold it to pass articles of impeachment.

then of course it will be up to the senate what to do next. we're clearly entering a new phase of this whole inquiry in the house. house democrats understand that they may not get any more witnesses. they're hopeful about john bolton. he's been subpoenaed. we don't know if he'll show up. but the release of these transcripts is a sign they're ready to go with what they've got, that they feel they have enough evidence to go ahead with public hearings which we think will start this month. >> kristin welker, we're going to drill down on this later in the program with some of our lawyers, but this was a big deal today where the federal appeals court ruled against the accounting firm saying the president's accounting firm has to release eight years of personal tax returns. this was a narrow ruling. it was not against the president and not involving the issue of his claims of immunity. but the white house says already this is going to the supreme

court. >> reporter: jay sekulow released a defiant statement making it very clear that they do plan to essentially take this all the way to the supreme court. not a surprise at all. sekulow casting this as a constitutional issue. the question is, though, will the president ultimately have to turn over his tax returns in this instance? now, this of course is not a political request. this is a part of an investigation that is underway in new york. here's what jay sekulow said today. he said the decision of the second circuit will be taken to the supreme court. the issue raised in this case goes to the heart of our republican. the constitutional issues are significant. now, this is a part of an investigation in new york, but the question is what will the political implications be. it is highly unlikely that the president's core supporters will care about this, will be paying attention to this. but you can bet the democrats are going to seize onto this and they're going to ask the

question. we've heard democrats ask in the past what is he hiding, why not just turn over his tax returns. so we expect this to go all the way to the supreme court as the political battle intensifies. >> thanks so much. meanwhile, president trump's twitter barrage over the weekend included a new line of attack against the state of california, blaming the state and its newly elected democratic governor for the wires, tweeting every year as the fires rage and california burns it is the same thing and then he comes to the federal government for help. no more. get your act together, governor. even threatening to withhold federal disaster aid. governor newsome responded by tweeting back you don't believe in change, you are excused from this conversation. just last year president trump visited the fire zone. it was then governor jerry

brown. m memorably claiming you could rake the forest floor. >> you look at other countries where they do it differently. i was with the president of finland. he said we're a forest nation. they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things. they don't have any problem. when it is, it's a very small problem. so i know everybody's looking at that. >> today show cohost al roker joins me now. thank you so much for staying on and joining us today, because the climate denial from the white house which is reflected in a series of environmental changes and rollbacks from the open regulations has been so profound, this fight against california and now the explicit

threat to withhold emergency aid given the wildfires, tell us from your perspective the causes of the wildfires and what the president needs to understand. >> well, look, i'm going to go on the assumption that the president's been given bad information because, first of all, these weren't forest fires. they were wildfires. the most destructive one was like in los angeles itself. it was near the west side of los angeles. 405 freeway, near the getty center, burnt 12 homes in brentwood. we had the easy fire which is near the ronald reagan presidential library. i mean, that, again, not a forest fire. most of these were really not forest fires. the hillside fire was on the edge of the san bernardino forest, but it went downhill and then burned in. so these aren't forest fires. you might make the argument, yes, there could be better forest fire management, but i

think they're doing a fairly good job. but these fires were in a sense almost urban fires that were happening because of climate change. since 1970 we've seen the average wildfire season in the west extend by over 100 days. on average, we're seeing six times the acreage burned every year since 1970. the other problem to go to the forest, the forest issue is that nature's way of cleaning out the forest is to burn. the problem is people have built into forests or on the edge of forests and that's why we've been having problems. because of a warmer environment, because of less rain happening out west, we are seeing a longer wildfire season. again, not forest fires. wildfires. >> al roker, you have completely explained this even for those of us on the east coast who don't

have to deal with these dramatic changes. thank you so much. >> you bet, andrea. coming up, we are one year away from the presidential election. steve kornacki at the big board breaking down the numbers for us. at any moment we're awaiting house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff to speak and answer questions about that released testimony. his comments live right here on msnbc. stay with us. live right here o msnbc. stay with us ♪

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welcome back. a startling new analysis from the "new york times" over the weekend shows just how much president trump is amplifying his message through social media. also by retweeting conspiracy theories on twitter even as the white house avoids press accountability by no longer holding daily briefings. this is part of a larger issue heading into 2020, the republican campaign's

extraordinary dominance of social media including paid facebook ads with 2-1 negative mentions. she's also a "new york times" columnist and an msnbc cri contributor. you've been analyzing a lot of this. let's talk first over the twitter presidency. this is brand new obviously. >> yeah. >> it is such an extraordinary natural powerful messaging for the president. also the russian bots that get swept in. >> yes. this has been -- i've written about it quite a bit for a long time, this ability of trump. i said he's the greatest troll in twitter history, but he's

using it not just for campaigning, but actually governing. it's a really interesting way to reach people directly and he's using it really effectively, not just to excite his base but to get the media involved with covering him and using all those mediums to micro target people with advertising especially on facebook. >> when we look at some of his twitter use, the "new york times" counted 11,000 tweets over the course of his presidency. i know from talking to a lot of people who say, why do you people pay attention to this. first of all, we're not paying attention to the average retweet but when he fires the secretary of state on twitter on mooa mon morning that needs to be noted or when he decides to withdraw from syria and abandon the

syrian kurds on twitter, that needs to be covered by the news media. >> 100%. what's interesting is he's figured out a way to go around not just most of the government bute own advisors. he realizes it's a really good way to get a pulse of the people who like him. one of the fascinating things was how much he echoed fox news. so he can continually be sort of testing things in realtime of what works and what doesn't. at the same time it's a place on twitter at least where the media is gathered. so he can get instant reaction from the media. a lot of it is important stuff that he's tweeting. >> the real dark side of this is the retweeting of conspiracy

mongers, racists. speak to that. >> it's interesting because some of it is actual people who believe this stuff, but what happens is these bots getting control of messaging. there's a great book that talks about this. but a dark meme will start in one of the sort of alt right areas and then it rises up to the mainstream as it gets tweeted and retweeted by these bots and retweeted by the president. it brings sort of these dank memes into the mainstream. so they get listened to. you know, he's an important part of that process. in fact, the goal of that process and of these bots is to gin up discord. once the bots get involved, real people see all these bots and then they get enraged. it's an expression i use all the time. engagement is enragement. that's the whole point of it is to enrage and get people going

because that's what works on a lot of these mediums. >> we are going to go now. adam schiff is speaking on the hill. >> someone worked closely with mick mulvaney. both of them defied congressional subpoenas and refused to appear for their scheduled depositions as has been the case with other witnesses who have done the same thing. this will be further evidence of an effort by the administration to obstruct the lawful and constitutional duties of congress. we expect the witnesses who have been subpoenaed to come in this afternoon also to be no-shows. that will only further add to the body of evidence on a potential obstruction of congress charge against the president. indeed, in the nixon impeachment, there was an article of impeachment based on the obstruction of congress that itemized each of the subpoenas

that the white house defied. today we have four additional subpoenas to add to the list of a potential charge of the president of the united states and his obstruction of our constitutional duties. these witnesses are significant and the white house understands they're significant based on the testimony the committees have already received, we know these witnesses, those that were in the law office of the national security council, those who worked for mulvaney, either in the chief of staff's office or the office of management and budget are firsthand witnesses to allegations of serious misconduct both vis-a-vis the suspension of military aid and the effort to use that aid as a lever to help the president's reelection campaign but also in efforts to potentially hide the evidence of the president's misconduct by placing that call record in a classified system

that would be beyond most individual's access and a system in which that call record did not belong. so very pertinent testimony, very relevant to the other witnesses who have come forward. we may infer by the white house obstruction here that their testimony would be further incriminating of the president. i will say this. it's quite obvious and we fully expected this. we have seen a series of shifting, ever-changing rationales for this campaign of obstruction. first there was the argument we won't comply, don't have to comply until there's a formal vote on the house floor. well, we had a formal vote on the house floor. then it was we don't have to make these witnesses available because they're senior officials and they're given absolute immunity even though no court has ever upheld the claims of absolute immunity. the only one to reach a decision on it ruled there is no such thing as absolute immunity. it's been the uniform position of democrats and republicans that we do not respect any

fallacious claims of absolute immunity. then people who were subpoenaed had little or no interaction with the president and there count couldn't be a claim of immunity. the argument shifted to we can't let them forward because you won't let agency lawyers be president. that would violate the practice used by both democrats and republicans for depositions in the past when there are concerns that agency lawyers are representing agencies that may have engaged in wrongdoing or may use facts gained in the investigation to prejudice other witnesses in the investigation. this was the practice for the current members of our investigative committees, people like jim jordan during benghazi and mike pompeo and mick mulvaney all participated in

depositions of senior agency officials without the presence of agency counsel. so if they join the president's obstruction here, they do so in fashion that is directly contradictory to their practices when they are in the majority. today we also are beginning the process of releasing transcripts of our depositions. this morning released the depositions of ambassador mckinley and ambassador yovanovitch. there are a few things that become immediately clear. the first is that contrary to the claims of the president and his acolytes on the hill, these have been proceedings in which the republicans have not been able to be present or ask questions. in fact, republicans were present for all of these depositions and in fact had equal opportunity to ask questions. they took full advantage of those opportunities to ask questions.

you will see in ambassador yovanovitch's testimony what a dedicated public servant she is. this is someone who served the country with distinction for decades. it is someone who also is one of the first witnesses do this irregular back channel that the president established with rudy giuliani and the damage that it was doing to america's national security and foreign policy interests. how it was working in opposition not in support of u.s. policy objectives. ambassador yovanovitch had a well-earned reputation as a fighter of corruption and she was working with ukraine to get ukraine to fight corruption. so what does this irregular back channel sanctioned by the president do? it seeks to remove someone fighting corruption in ukraine by employing a vicious smear campaign in which the state department at the highest levels

acknowledged had no merit whatsoever. that smear campaign orchestrated by this irregular channel was successful in removing a u.s. ambassador and tarring her reputation, of course. you see the president's comments about the ambassador in the call record. we also released the testimony today of ambassador mckinley, another career diplomat and public servant, someone who was asked by the secretary of state to come back and assist the state department at a very difficult time for the department. what is so striking about his testimony is the degree to which he sought to get the state department to issue support for its own ambassador and how those repeated efforts were rebuffed. but you also see in reading his transcript his growing alarm at the degree to which the apparatus of the state department itself was being used

to seek political information for a political purpose by the president of the united states and others, and you see these are two of the principal reasons that caused this career public servant to decide he must resign his office as he did. we will be releasing further transcripts. tomorrow we are scheduled to release the transcripts of ambassador volker and ambassador sondland. and we will continue to release the transcripts in an orderly way. we continue to allow witnesses the opportunity to review their transcripts. we continue to make redactions for private information or personally identifiable information but we will continue to release the transcripts. and we will soon be moving to open hearings as well. i'm happy to respond to a couple questions. >> one of the witnesses who was

supposed to come charles cupperman filed a lawsuit to force a ruling about whether he should testify. that's going to be delayed to december. it's possible john bolton may follow a similar course. will you delay your proceedings to ensure you get their testimony, or are you ready to move forward without hearing from these key witnesses? >> we're not going to delay our work. that would merely allow these witnesses and the white house to succeed with their goal, which is to delay, deny, obstruct. the lawsuit that dr. cupperman filed i think is on its face without merit. someone who gets a congressional subpoena to avoid the subpoena doesn't necessarily get to sue in court to avoid the subpoena. it will undoubtedly be the case that lawsuit will be dismissed for lack of standing. the whole point of it is to delay. i would say this to those who use litigation, like the white

house or others for purposes of delay to avoid their duty, which is to follow the law and follow congressional subpoena, they should follow the example of the courageous people that have come forward, people who worked for dr. cupperman, people who worked for john bolton, people who have in their careers much more at risk have shown the courage to come forward. they have not hidden behind litigation, they have not hidden behind the white house as the witnesses today have. they've shown enormous courage and patriotism. i would urge others to follow their example, not follow the corrupt example out of the white house which is seeking to -- >> some individuals say they would be willing to come if they were allowed to bring agency lawyers. why not let them do that? >> it has been the consistent house rule that we do not permit agency counsel in the room, particularly when we have concerns about those agencies. the state department, for

example, and this you'll also see in the transcripts. i'm trying to think if it's in the transcripts -- yes, it's in the mckinley transcript. state department representatives made the claim to their employees that they were being bullied by the congress. in fact, state department employees were concerned about being bullied by their own state department, and that bullying was being misrepresented to congress. these are the same agency personnel that these witnesses want to bring in and sit in on these depositions. but this isn't just a decision that the chairs are making in this investigation. it's the decision that trey gowdy made has chair, it's the same decision that jim jordan made in the benghazi investigations. this has been the uniform policy practice of the house. >> do you anticipate bringing

these individuals back for public hearings? >> at this point, i'm not going to comment on who our witnesses will be in the open hearings. but we will endeavor to make the decision about who the most important witnesses are and try to provide testimony in an orderly way in which the american people can understand the nature of the allegations and the facts involving what is at the heart of this investigation. that is the president's abuse of his office to coerce an ally that is fighting off russians in our national security interests. they are fighting off the russians in their interests as well to withhold vital military support to that nation, to withhold a vital meeting from the president of that nation as leverage to get that nation to engage in the corrupt act of these investigations the president believed would help his reelection campaign. we're also looking at

allegations that there may have been efforts to cover up these activities. so the witnesses that bear most directly on those issues are the witnesses we'll want to bring in. >> we're talking about the transcript of president trump's july 25th phone call with president of ukraine. is it your understanding that john eisenberg moved that str t transcript over to the super secret intelligence server on his own or did he do it in coordination with john bot on the bolton? >> i think as we release more transcripts, there may have been others involved in those discussions. one of the reasons we wanted mr. eisenberg to come in is to find out what his role is, what the role of others was and why a transcript that plainly did not belong in a classified system that is meant for some of the

most secret of intelligence activities, that is covert action activities. why would a call record that the president would have the country believe is perfect, why would it be hidden in this classified system? clearly the white house does not want him to testify. they do not want the american people to know why mr. eisenberg or others made that decision. i think we can infer that the reason is that it would tend to corroborate allegations against the president. that's the very reason we want to bring him in. and of course we are concerned that he as a top lawyer in the administration would engage in the lawless act of refusing to abide by legal process. >> impeachment inquiry chair, intelligence chair adam schiff outlining that they are going to proceed, that they are releasing

these transcripts today pushing back against some of the president's criticisms and talking about the context and the timetable with election day just a year away. they have to worry about going into 2020 precisely with these hearings. tomorrow is a year from election day 2020. three new polls show that four democrats are at the top of the primary field, joe biden, elizabeth warren, bernie sanders and pete buttigieg, solidifying their positions. but where do they stand against president trump? joining me now is steve kornacki at the big board and here in washington jonathan capehart. tell us about the polls. >> it's interesting. think of the primary campaign, too different sets of polling numbers. there is no national primary but this is the new nbc news "wall street journal" poll, does give

you a sense of nationally what democrats are seeing. biden out in front, warren a couple of points behind. this is encouraging for biden because a couple weeks ago warren was starting to catch him in some polls. his lead has stabilized over here. so nationally that's encouraging for biden. when you get outside of the national polling and you look at iowa and new hampshire, the most recent polls do not have him leading, in fact have him falling behind. also very notable nationally is you see bernie sanders here. about a month ago all of the questions about his health with the heart attack, oldest candidate in the democratic race. look at this. nationally close to 20%, only a couple points behind warren. again the most recent numbers out of new hampshire and iowa have been very encouraging for bernie sanders. also buttigieg only six nationally but in iowa he's very

much in the thick of things there. by the way, we also in the poll we tested biden and warren against donald trump. biden leading by 9 right now, warren leading by 8. this would be the popular vote. this is the national poll who would you like to have as president. you see biden and warren leading. as we were reminded in 2016 it's not the popular vote, it's the lelectoral college that decides the presidency. they went to six crucial battleground states, six states that president trump carried in 2016. democrats have got to pick off a bunch of these. here's biden. this is among registered voters in those key battleground states. biden leads in four of them. he's tied in michigan and he's running behind in north carolina by 2 points. how does that compare to bernie sanders? sanders wins michigan,

pennsylvania, wisconsin. he loses the other three. you've got biden leading in four of them, sanders leading in three. what about elizabeth warren? warren leads in one of them. she's tied in two and she trails in three. trails by 6 in michigan. michigan was about a 25,000 vote gap for hillary clinton in 2016. this poll has warren falling 6 points behind there. again, these are all very close numbers here. they're very kpeticompetitive r. these six states here, democrats probably got to pick off three of them. there's different combinations but consider it that way. they probably need to pick off three. you've got biden leading in four, sanders in three, warren in one right now. >> but very, very close indeed. let's look to both of you at those early iowa and new hampshire numbers, though. we see pete buttigieg doing very well according to everyone who

was at the friday night event in iowa and also climbing in the polls. what does that tell us? >> it tells us that the campaign that mayor pete has been running has been focused and determined. he was caught flat footed in march when he had that big moment at that town hall and suddenly he took off. but he didn't have the infrastructure in place to take advantage of that. since then and up until now we're seeing the fact that they used all this time to get the infrastructure in place, particularly in iowa. it appears to be being reflected there in those poll numbers. he was the first one to speak at the big iowa dinner on friday, a tough slot when you've got all those people coming up behind you. i watched it earlier today and it was a good speech. it was a characteristic speech for mayor pete. >> to stooe kor neve kornacki.

in new hampshire joe biden laid out a whole plan over the weekend as to how he's going to do in natural. so far he is at risk of losing iowa and new hampshire. then you've got nevada where some of the other candidates might be very competitive and then south carolina would be his fire wall. but can you maintain any momentum if you win south carolina or if you go into south carolina having lost the first three primaries? >> the track record on that is miserable for candidates who have tried to jump start their campaign after enduring a number of losses early on. if he loses iowa, does that roll into a loss in new hampshire? and if you're lost the first two, do you start losing money, momentum, media attention? nevada, he's competitive there but he's by no means running

away with it. does that support that he has now in south carolina, does that evaporate? the other possibility here too is that warren and sanders, next door neighbors, they're both very competitive in iowa. warren leads the most recent iowa poll. if one of them put together a win in iowa, it's hard to see them not turning around eight days later and also winning new hampshire. in the democratic primaries of candidates who win both iowa and new hampshire, they are undefeated when they win both of those. >> the next democratic debate on wednesday november 20th will be cohosted by msnbc and the "washington post." it will be live from tyler perry studios in atlanta, georgia. i will be on the panel.

that's november 20th only on msnbc. coming up, the tax man cometh. another loss for the president. a federal appeals court ruling the accountants must hand over eight years of his tax returns to the manhattan district attorney's office. what is the likelihood of that happening? e. what is the likelihood of that happening? whyou should be mad that airports are complicated... he's my emotional support snake. ...but you're not, because you have e*trade,

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secretary of state mike pompeo is coming under attack for failing to defend his own diplomats especially for recalling ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch, yielding to pressure from the president and rudy giuliani. the secretary was also late to acknowledge that he was on that call, the president's controversial call with ukraine's president, a call that mr. pompeo keeps defending. >> i was on the call. i listened to it. it was consistent with what president trump has been trying to do, to take corruption out. i found that to be wholly appropriate to try and get another country to stop being corrupt. >> joining me now is john ganz,

a former speech writer for the pentagon, now at the university of pennsylvania whose new book is "white house warriors, how the national security council transformed the way of war." amy, you are in touch with a lot of former diplomats, former secretaries of state. you coauthored a book with condoleezza rice. i am hearing so much pushback from the diplomatic current, current and retired, about the way secretary pompeo has handled this. there was arrival after rex tillerson and so much disappointment or people calling him an enabler of donald trump. >> andrea, you are right. when pompeo became secretary, there was a lot of euphoria, he was talking about bringing swagger back and high expectations because he had a good relationship with the president. what we are seeing with this inquiry that not only did pompeo not only have control over

foreign policy over ukraine, that relationship did not have, have state department control. he lost a lot of confidence in his own building. >> john gans, this was also of course what we saw with john bolton. there was a lot of concerns that john bolton would be too rigid of the iran posture that he had, too much of an outlier, he was pushed out over his objections with the rudy giuliani. he also lost control of the rudy giuliani's back channel. that was a key factor which is now the impeachment inquiry. >> thoroughabsolutely. when you have this job, you have a lot of bosses, you have the president and congress, you have oversight of the american people and america interests. a lot of people trying to understand why pompeo succeeded if washington and john bolton and others fallen away. one of the reasons is mike pompeo focussed entirely on his

boss. the president of the united states in making him happy. i think that's what we are seeing here and some concerns we are seeing of his role in the ukraine affair. what we are seeing in terms of his role and taking apart or at least to defend or break up this impeachment inquiry. >> amy, the national security process which is defined by some of the professors that you analyzed. connie rice, she had a lot of push back until she got to the state department. the national security process at least was a table of people, key players, bolton of vaccina-- poe state department is weighing in on the side of the president's shadowed diplomacy. >> as you know andrea, foreign policy is a contact sport.

there are certain norms how that sport is play and this is way outside the norm. you had people who are not part of the administration like rudy giuliani running renegade shadows a foreign policy. a foreign policy that's subverting the national interests of the country for the personal interest of the president. that's the distinct of other back channel types of foreign policies of what we are hearing coming out. >> john gans, we hathe ukrainia parliament is still under this new president so concerned of the pressure of getting u.s. military aid against russia. they are continuing their inquiry into ukraine's past involvement of discredited theory of ukraine and not russia having been involved in the 2016 campaign hacking. >> absolutely. what we see in the testimonies that's released today, the

reason the policy was broken in some ways like people like ambassador yovanovitch and bill taylor and others raised flags when they see things running against america's interests. there is plenty of historical precedents for irregular oroz or covert operations. what they see of things that are counter to america's policies and america's interests. that's why you sort of saw president trump moving away from the foreign policy process. he knows and it is pretty clear there were concerns and red flags being raised by a lot of people. some of the other people we have seen sort of stepping forward and people who were not doing that. >> john and amy, thank you very much. >> turning back to the

president's attempt keeping his tax private today. the white house says mr. trump will appeal the decision to the supreme court. joining me now is former assistant u.s. attorney from the southern district of new york. nbc news national security analyst, mimi, what's the implication of this, the second circuit of new york, the supreme court has to decide whether or not to take the return, the appeal. that's right andrea. that's because the second circuit of appeals here went out of its way to side this case on a narrow bases. they did not decide, on whether or not a sitting president would

be charged by the state. here where the state is seeking to investigate people, meaning people other than the president but it may also implicate the president in criminal behavior then that subpoena can go forward. there is just not much of a sort of waiting constitutional issues yet for the supreme court to take up. >> and frank, does the president have standing here to appeal or with the appeal have to be made by the county itself? >> well, i think he certainly is going to argue that he has standing because they're his tax returns. of course, we heard this successful argument that he made an attempt to continue. here is where i think, a couple of thoughts here, there is a stronger argument and we saw it in the department of justice argument in support of the

president. it is really one of relevance. what is it of the eight years tax returns going towards the district attorney's case. i can see a narrow release of information only relevant to the issue that the manhattan d.a. is looking at. i don't think at the end of the day we'll see a full eight years release publicly. we'll see a battle takes place in court whether it is a close session or the judge sees this. this is not over this and trump will continue to fight this. >> critics of the president and democratic investigators have been disappointed every time they think they'll get those tax returns. it is like losing in football, it is an allusive goal in their part.

mimi, all the allegations against the whistleblower coming from the white house and other republicans on the house committee and whether or not there is going to be taken on the whistleblower. >> i think really beyond the idea of is this some how punishable under the whistleblower's law. what's going on is pure blatant criminal witness intimidation and retaliation. again, we have been sitting for years, that does not mean the president won't be charged with that. i think anyone that seats to aid in that process that he's encouraging now to not only expose the whistleblower's identity which as you say is in violation of the whistleblower.

also, revealing damaging information really, that to me is a criminal offense that's happening in plain sight again. >> very briefly, what's the chilling effect frank, you worked in the covert side, you know your cia colleagues, how chilling is this? >> we entered as danger zone here. this presents a physical threat to the whistleblower. the president of the united states coming out and said it would be a public service to reveal his or her identity, that's a disgrace and a violation of law. it will prevent people from doing the right thing in the future. it is the wrong thing to do. let me just say this, the whistleblower's information prompted a great investigation that corroborated and more of his initial allegations. we don't need the whistleblower anymore. >> mimi rocah and frank, thank you so much. coming up in the next hour, the

world's series champs heading into the white house. john dolittle, who objects the president. that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." here is "velshi & ruhle." today is the one day that andrea is not going to miss watching the news at 1:00 p.m. >> i will be watching. >> i watch you guys everyday. >> we know. thank you my friend. hello everyone, it is monday, november the 4th. coming up on "velshi & ruhle." president trump has just lost a major appeal in the fight to release his taxes. will he have to turn them over or is this battle headed to the supreme court? >> we have explosive new development into president trump. moments ago, the house released transcripts of key witnesses