evil out there no matter what the calendar says. and sadly, sometimes the horror of halloween is the real thing. that's all for this edition of "dateline." thank you for watching. good morning, i'm jo ling kent at msnbc world headquarters here in new york. it's 6:00 in the east, it's 3:00 a.m. out west. here's what's happening -- we've got an impeachment inquiry, and it's on the march. new transcripts released just moments ago with key moments on the ukraine saga. details on how it will all spill into public view in the inning week. -- coming week. explosive new details. the book by anonymous about the trump white house. what it tells us with a view from inside the oval office. and wintry blast and early chill sweeps across parts of the country, and some places are already battling the snow. and high-tech holiday.

the new way stores are trying to attract your business this christmas, and what's expected to be a record year. and developing this morning, newly released transcripts from two key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry are giving us new insights. fiona hill, the former top russia adviser on president trump's national security council and lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, top ukraine expert, pointing the finger at trump's chaff, mick mulvaney. testifying sondland had had a conversation with mr. mulvaney, and this is what was required to get the meeting. in order to get the white house meeting, they had to deliver an investigation. fiona hill also tchestified sayg mr. sund land, quote, agreed there was an agreement with the chief of staff that they would have a white house meeting or, you know, a presidential meeting if the ukrainians started up

these investigations again, unquote. these revelations come as the "washington post" reports house republicans are considering turning the blame on mulvaney, sondland, and giuliani in order to protect the president. a democratic member of the house oversight committee told msnbc last night the scenario feels familiar. >> we've seen this movie before. we saw it with michael cohen. >> yep. >> the president turned on michael cohen. michael cohen even admonished everyone in the hearing in front of my committee on overside that beware, trump will turn on you, too. i fully expect president trump to start distancing himself from giuliani and rest of them, and arguably throwing him under the bus. >> meanwhile, democrats are now gearing up to officially enter the next phase of their impeachment inquiry with public hearings scheduled for next week from three key witnesses there that you see on the screen. the timeline now coming into clear focus as house democrats

deny -- sorry, the house democrat denny heck tells cnn they're setting a target of wrapping the weeks' long investigation up by christmas. as the inquiry ramps up, so are the president's attacks of democrats. >> they're the pillars of our justice system and judicial system in their pursuit of power and money. imagine if democrats just put 10% of the energy they devote to attacking me and my administration to instead making in a better country. >> joining me from the white house is nbc's happens nichols. we've heard a lot from the president here. what is the exact strategy that may or may not be emerging here? >> reporter: well, it appears to be insulate the president. it also appears from the president's perspective to go on the offense a little bit. he suggested yesterday that he might release a call of --

transcript or call log from a different conversation he had with president zelensky, one in april. actually one preceding the july one. the president said he's open to releasing that. there's also a call with vice president mike pence to zelensky. i talked to one of pence's advisers yesterday. they said they're open to releasing the pence call pending review from the white house counsel's office. all this as the president tries to insist that he didn't have anything that -- the testimony that's been out there hasn't been damaging to him. yesterday, he made a little bit of news with this comment -- >> they shouldn't be having public hearings. this is a hoax. >> can you explain so that people understand why you are not allowing people like mick mulvaney and others to comply with subpoenas? >> i don't want to give credibility to a corrupt witch-hunt. i'd love to have mick go up, frankly. i think he'd do great. i'd love to have him go up. i'd love to have almost every person go out when they know me. what i don't like is when they

put all these people that i never met before. >> reporter: railing against public hearings is interesting because the president's watch word up to this point has been about transparency, about getting everything out. they clearly, they clearly want to get a little bit of information out there. they like it out there. but it's unclear whether or not they'll submit to all these public hearings. guys? >> hans nichols at the white house. thank you so much. joining me now is national security reporter with "the daily beast," and nbc news national political reporter jonathan allen. jonathan, i first want to ask you about the headline in your reporting there, and you say it is headline on trump impeachment, democrats just try to keep it simple. what does that mean as we await the public hearings? >> reporter: what it means is there's a basic narrative here that the democrats want to keep in front of the american public. the idea that they're trying to keep it in front of the public is that the president leveraged

american national interests in order to get something for his own personal gain. they're calling it extortion or bribery, and they want to leave it at that. they want to try to use these witnesses, these fact witnesses, to fill in the details. but they don't want to get lost in all the side arguments that tend to come up in a broad investigation. there are a lot of complexities. they understand there are going to be a lot of distractions from the president's side, a lot of side issues. their idea, their hope is to keep this a very concise argument. >> we're looking at the impeachment schedule right now. and what do you think here? are we going to be getting more of the same or somethingtels beyond just the transcript -- something else beyond just the transcripts? >> it's hard app to. i think after talking to sources on capitol hill last week and the week before that, it sounds like lawmakers are ready to head into the public hearing phase. you know, we had a couple of different officials who did not make it to capitol hill this

week. they defied, you know, coming to the hill. and lawmakers saying, listen, we got really what we needed up front at the beginning of this investigation. you know, everything after that was sort of corroborating witnesses, coming to the table saying, yes, they did happen. and now lawmakers feel, at least democrats, pretty confident headed into next week. >> okay. we asked hans nick olhols at th white house about what the president's strategy may or may not be. what did the democrats? that's the strategy out of the gate? >> what we know from talking to sources on capitol hill is democrats have for weeks been strategizining about this publi hearing phase. they're concerned about what the palestinia republicans might do in terms of interrupting witnesses, trying to get hold of the microphone. some of these meetings have been happening behind closed doors with speaker pelosi and just a couple of other lawmakers. they've been keeping them sort of secretive and very small. temperatures i've spoken to -- democrats i've spoken to say the

strategy meetings are helping, and they're ready for next week. >> we know regardless of what happens it's going to be a public spectacle. how do the democrats extract something substantial out of these hearings in the first go? >> reporter: the purpose of the private hearings, the depositions was to figure out what they're going to get from the witnesses. part of that is to understand what they don't need to ask them in public and how they can keep the questions focused on the main storyline that they're trying to get. they understand republicans are going to have an opportunity to ask questions. they're going to have an opportunity to go down some rabbit holes, and they are going to, according too the reporting of our colleagues, attack some of these witnesses who are administration officials. the strategy of the white house going into this, according to the reporting, is literally for the white house to have its republican allies on the hill attack people who currently serve in president trump's administration. it's going to be a very unusual

spectacle. >> are we going to see a swearing-in? what are the optics going to look like in terms of process? >> you are going to see swearing-in of multiple people. in some cases, career diplomats. in at least one case, alexander vindman, who serves on the national security council, is going to be in uniform because he's a military officer, lieutenant colonel. these are people who have almost all of them at least from the perspective of the folks who have given the most damaging testimony, people who have stellar reputations in the government over a long period of time. and it's going to be very difficult i think for republicans to portray them as partisans or people who walk into the door, came into the -- came into their jobs every day looking to undermine the administration that they had pledged to serve, a country that they had pledged to serve. >> erin, we've been reading through the transcripts. and there are plenty of minimum wage par moments -- major

moments, nuggets of information that came out. but this one seemed to synthesize some kind of theme here. george kent said that the president wanted to hear three words from ukraine's president. biden, clinton, and investigations. what's the impacts of that? >> as we saw with fiona hill's transcripts that came out and alexander vindman's transcripts that came out yesterday and the past transcripts, right, we have thousands and thousands of pages that we've been going through -- >> yeah. >> the main theme here really that we can pick out is that everyone's sort of pointing to the u.s. ambassador to the eu, gordon sondland, and his involvement with the president, chief mulvaney in efforts to convince the ukrainians to open the investigations in exchange, at the very least for a meeting at the white house. so i think yesterday what we saw with hill and vindman's testimony is that we saw a direct link between sondland and mick mulvaney and those requests

and conversations with the ukrainians. there's a sort of now famous meeting that happens july 10th at the white house in the award room where gordon sondland is there with hill and others talking to the ukrainians and basically lays out to them, listen, you either open up these investigations, or you don't get a meeting at the white house. and so now we have a sort of direct link between sondland and the chief of staff. and also what we saw in the transcripts yesterday is fiona hill asks on what authority gordon sondland is acting upon when he takes over the ukraine portfolio. and gordon sondland says the president's. >> so we're also seeing a change in heart from the president as it relates to sondland, his relationship. you know, he altered his testimony to acknowledge that quid pro quo. here's what the president had to say in reaction to that -- >> let me just tell you, i hardly know the gentleman. this is the man who said there

was no quid pro quo. he still says that. and he said that i said that. and he hasn't changed that testimony. >> so last week, the president had tweeted that sondland was a great american, and now he hardly knows him. erin, what do you -- how do you digest that response? >> it's not all that shocking given what sort of analysts have said might be coming down the pipeline for people like gordon sondland and mick mulvaney and giuliani, caught up in the primt probe. it's interesting -- impeachment probe. it's interesting given the fact that gordon sondland, venture capitalist, donated a little over $1 million to the trump committee. with that kind of money, you gain a lot of access to those inaugural events. he even says in his testimony that he's spoken to the president several times about ukraine. so what we see here is president trump directly contradicting what sondland told house investigators last month when he

testified. >> jonathan, going through all the transcripts that we've been talking about here, what do you need to hear out of these hearings as a reporter? what are you looking for as a journalist to really pursue the next texas in covering this? -- next step in covering this? >> i think what's interesting is if you go through the transcripts, as a reporter you've already seen it. the public hearings phase is really for the public, for the average american at home to be able to watch what's going on and form their opinions and form their decision about what went on here. for those of us who read the transcripts, the story here is clear. and the connection that i think gets forgotten in some of the reporting about the sort of intricacies of the story is that the president of the united states himself made all of the connections in that call with ukrainian president zelensky that we all saw. he talked about the bidens. he talked about the support the

united states gives to ukraine, meaning the money that the united states gives to ukraine. he talked about meeting with president zellen ski possibly. so -- zelensky possibly. so all of these things are not things the president was unaware of. in terms of what we look for next week, certainly the optics and how it plays, how to two sides are able to make their cases. in truth, the testimony is already out there from these folks. most of this story has been told through that testimony. and the one thing that you would want to see is testimony from people who actually talked to the president directly. the president's going to be able to -- going to continue to try to shield people through a certifications of executive privilege or attorney/client privilege in the case of rudy giuliani. >> jonathan allen, erin banko, stay with us. we're going to talk more a little bit later in the hour. and next, coming up, president trump's admission to misusing charitable funds. what he did and how much jail time the average citizen might have been facing for a similar offense. when you shop for your home at wayfair,

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from the day i came in here, i've had problems with phony stuff. my charity was great. i gave a lot of money away. i was sued because in new york it's a hornets nest and they sue you for anything. it's a corrupt state. it's a shame. i gave $19 million away. and what happened is instead of

saying thank you, great, they hit me with a lawsuit. >> that's president trump there defending his now-dissolved charity after a new york judge ordered the president to pay $2 million in damages to nonprofit groups after he alleged -- illegally used the clarity to benefit his 2016 campaign. the president back in 2018 after the lawsuit was filed claimed that he would never settle the case. joining us now is msnbc legal analyst danny savalos. good morning. >> good morning. >> they said all they found, quote, was incredibly philanthropic and small technical violations. >> i'm not sure about technical violations. folks will remember that this was a charity that it was found purchased paintings of trump's likeness, that were later -- that hung in his golf resorts. they were used to apparently

settle lawsuits against the trump -- the businesses. they were used for everything allegedly from beautifying the view from his hotels in central park and everything down to i've read that even a $7 payment to the boy scouts which remains curious but could have been related to donald trump jr.'s yearly dues at the time, i think 1989. to give you an idea of allegations that were flying around. these were pretty serious allegations for a charity to use funds for something other than the charitable purpose, whether in state or under federal law. >> okay. earlier in year you got the new york attorney general recommending the president pay $8 million in restitution. so the judge upheld the a.g.'s findings, but the president is only paying $2 million. what does that say to you? >> it says this must be some

kind of resolution. and of course since the trump charity dissolved it hasn't been conducting a lot of financial activity at least in the last couple of years. so that could be representative of a settlement agreement or some other -- or some other i guess meeting them halfway. but the judge's order is pretty clear that they have to pay this money back. the idea behind the order is that if this charitable purpose was not achieved for this many years, at least it will be somewhat achieved by doling the money out to organizations that really do deserve it. >> yeah. that's true. i mean, what about -- do you characterize this as a win then for the president because he's paying $6 million less here? you also take a look at the documents, and trump did admit misconduct. >> i wouldn't call it a win because if you go back to his earlier tweet that we showed our viewers, he said "i'll never settle this case, i did nothing wrong at all." in fact, the judge's order holds contrary to that position. that in fact there was probably

some wrongdoing here, and in fact when you look back at attorney general james' original complaint, the petition against the charitable organization, it lays out in a lot of detail some information that arguably could be criminal if it were other circumstances. if possibly it didn't involve the president of the united states who was most likely immune from state prosecution. >> that's interesting, too, danny. obviously this is not the first settlement from the president. back in 2016 the president agreed to pay $25 million to former trump university students. we remember that case. and the concessions here seem to be relatively small within this massive news cycle that we're in now always it seems like. so tell me if the president -- if the president wasn't the president, what would the punishment be? >> if the president wasn't the president and you'll only look back at the fbi and the doj's

history of prosecuting folks who create charities that are designed to line their own pockets or benefit themselves. i'm not saying necessarily that this is like what trump did. if you look at the history of the trump charities, they were -- things that -- not too tangentially benefited mr. trump. if you look at the federal history of prosecution and at least the state's attorney generals' prosecution of charities that are used for other than their charitable purpose, anybody who deals with the irs or defends these crimes will tell you that when the iris finds a charity that is not achieving its veritable purpose or may be doing something criminal, they can and will prosecute. and the fbi and doj make that also very, very clear. >> danny cevallos, thank you so much. with public hearings beginning next week, we'll look at where the impeachment inquiry is going and what's next for the

president. watch "impeachment: white house in crisis" tomorrow, 9:00 eastern, here on msnbc. and we've got a primary shakeup. michael bloomberg's possible 11th hour bid to join the field of democratic contenders and why he would skip the first four early voting states. early voting states. i have one kid in each branch of the military, but i'm command central. i'm a father of four. my wife's currently deployed in iraq. i talk to my wife at least once a day, even though she's on the other side of the world. (announcer) they get a special rate on unlimited plans that they can mix and match. them being able to connect with me means everything. (announcer) and they also get a year of amazon prime on us, featuring tom clancy's "jack ryan." because the network more people rely on, gives you more.

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now to your morning headlines. new this morning, millions are bracing for an arctic blast. the plunging temperatures across several states this weekend are just a taste of what is on the way. forecasters predict 170 potential daily records could cool temperatures in the central and eastern u.s. from monday to wednesday. some areas are also getting hit with snow like in northern michigan where crews are already working to clear this high school football field and bleachers in time for today's afternoon playoff game. and a promising breakthrough this morning behind at least some of the 2,000-plus severe vaping-related lung injuries nationwide. investigators at the cdc zeroing in on a synthetic form of vitamin e that they believe can cause serious damage when

inhaled. >> vitamin e acetate, when it travels into the lung and touches the -- the airways of the lung, that could trigger inflammation in the lung which is basically like a fire starting in the lung that's difficult to extinguish. >> friday's results of the first findings in which people, in people who are currently sick, but researchers say they cannot rule out other possible toxins or ingredients that may be causing the illnesses. and today marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. the american embassy unveiling this statue of ronald reagan on friday on his site overlooking the location of that idonnic speech he gave urging the soviet union to remove the berlin wall. we also have new details about the potential shakeup in the 2020 race. former new york city mayor michael bloomberg's adviser revealing if he officially joins the race, he would skip the four

early voting states and zero in on the later primaries. he said, quote, if we run we are confident we can win in states voting on super tuesday and beyond where we will start on an even footing. democratic strategist antoine searight former adviser to hillary clinton's campaign in south carolina joining us, and erin banko and jonathan allen are back with janua antw antwan, one of the early states he would skip is south carolina. what do you think, is there a realistic path forward that does not go through south carolina? >> well, i would say bless his heart, as we say in south carolina. look, i've been crystal clear -- there is mathematically no way possible to be the democratic nominee without strong, deep and wide support in the african-american community. with that being said, i've been unapologetic by saying to everyone the road to heaven and the white house runs straight through south carolina. >> already that. >> 61% of the people who cast

their vote will be african-american. 55% women. many in the state of south carolina have similar demographics. . to mention south carolina is the home of the most powerful african-american member of the united states congress, jim clyburn, whose political net worth spans beyond south carolina, into super tuesday states. i think that is the highest act of malpractice that the mayor's campaign could ever commit by skipping south carolina. >> jonathan, what do you think? can you actually get momentum so late? all of the super tuesdays we've seen over the past few elections at least, not all of them, those early states are critical in building with or taking down a -- building or taking down a candidate. >> i would start by saying our friend mr. seawright is correct particularly with regard to the importance of the depth and breadth of support in the african-american community. we've seen that over and over in democratic primaries. i think it's fascinating and perhaps troubling for the democratic water now that they

have a bunch -- democratic party now that they have a bunch of candidates with the exception of joe biden that have no support in the african-american community and latino community, as well. and even biden doesn't have anything approaching majority support in those communities. so let's start with that. number two, i think with regard to michael bloomberg, the strategy here to me, my interpretation anyway, is this a situation where i think he's looking to pick off delegates. to basically collect enough delegates that if there is some sort of brokered convention later on next summer, that he would have some sway, influence, and perhaps be able to be someone considered for the presidency or the vice presidency. right now, looks unlikely that he'll be able to win over enough voters to collect a majority of delegates. i mean, the polling that he's done in the past or the public polling on him in the past does not suggest that. >> yeah. erin, president trump is reacting to bloomberg possibly getting into the race. listen to this.

>> i know michael. he became just a nothing. he was really a nothing. he's not going to do well, but i think he's going to hurt biden actually. but he student have the magic to -- he doesn't have the magic to do well. little michael will fail. >> okay. so trump's giving him ape nickname out of the gate. but really, is bloomberg here, erin, a bigger threat to other democrats, or to president trump? >> reporter: i think president trump's comments are sort of right out of his political playbook, right. but i think what we do know and we've reported this in "the daily beast" this week, that even associates of biden, people close to biden are saying that they're mumbling and grumble being bloomberg possibly getting in the race. i think there is a real threat here. michael bloomberg is known for his centrist views. would be an impeccable match for biden. while there's the sort of chatter behind closed doors in the biden campaign about sort of how annoying it would be for bloomberg to enter the race, i

do think there is a real fear there. >> jonathan -- please weigh in. >> can i say one thing? look, most people would agree that there are too many cars on the political highway as it relates to this democratic presidential primary. most people would agree that the lanes are pretty packed with people who have the individual lanes. i'm not sure what the mayor's lane will be on the highway at this point. we have the progressive lane, the centrist lane, i think we have the socialism lane, and the fact of the matter is we have cars exiting the highway. and that lane is pretty packed because they will not make it to iowa, new hampshire, or south carolina. so i'm not sure where the mayor would find his lane on the highway to get his car down the road. i don't think it's a threat to biden yet because he does not have the deep relationships that vice president biden has particularly in the african-american community. >> he's coming in in a chopper -- >> pardon? >> i said, that's why he's coming in in a helicopter.

>> well, i want to know, though, to antoine's point, the lanes are packed here. do you think if bloomberg got in the race, would he expedite the single-digit polling candidates in getting off the highway, as antoine says? >> the one thing he does have a ton of it is money. >> yeah. >> and that's one thing candidates in the lower end of the spectrum on polling do not have, and they are being sucked dry of now. and frankly, vice president biden looks like he may be having trouble continuing to raise money at the pace that he was earlier in the race. so there's -- there's going to come a time where these candidates aren't able to fly their planes anymore, they're not able to get to the states to campaign. i don't mean that about the former vice president, but certainly some of the folks polling in the low single digits. and for mayor bloomberg, he can get in in the super tuesday states. he can get in in the states after that. and he's going to be able to fly that jet wherever the heck he wants. the jet, the helicopter,

whatever -- whatever cars he wants. in is somebody who has the wherewithal to campaign anywhere in the country. >> erin, maybe he has the ability and the wherewithal logistically to get himself places and to kpachblt but we also know -- to campaign. but we also know "politico" has more on the thinking behind bloomberg's potential run here and his advisers saying the data shifted after impeachment. democrats were always focused on electable. but after ukraine the impulse became strongly -- stronger. >> i think that's right. i think this -- the ukraine impeachment inquiry has sort of lawmakers and democrats, you know, sort of thinking what can we do now for 2020. how do we move forward from this, how do we ensure that we have a candidate who's electable. i think those are the conversations now happening on the campaign trail, in the dnc, and obviously with lawmakers on the hill.

i not that's a real concern. as we're moving forward now, you have still very strong support behind biden, but i think those conversationses will continue to play out in the coming weeks as the impeachment inquiry continues to go forward. >> can i -- >> jump in, yeah. >> here's the thing. jay-z says it this way, what's better than one billionaire? two. we have two billionaires who want to use their resources to buy the democratic primary in their way. i think that's fine. but when you talk about electability, you have to have connectivity. bloomberg and whoever else can fly their plane into every community they want. it's going to take a high-tech effort to win this presidential primary. you can fly many places, that does not mean the connectivity on the ground with the voters would translate into actual support at the polls or at the ballot box, and i think that's the disconnect between people in the bubble who only look at the financial part of this versus people like me who are on the ground, who talk to voters around this country,

particularly black people who have a large say-so in who will be the next president of the united states. >> i agree with you. i'm just saying in terms of the other candidates getting out. that it may -- >> i agree with that. >> it may expedite that. >> absolutely. >> he's spending all that money, and they don't have money. that may expedite some of the lower tickets. >> if you can write your own check for sure. antoi antoine, erin, thanks. excerpts from "a warning," the without unsurprisingly denouncing me to explosive allegations about the president in the bombshell book. nbc's kristen welker has more. >> reporter: the anonymous author of "a warning" claims to be a senior trump administration official and describes the near daily five-alarm fire drill where senior officials scramble to prevent the president from

explaining his latest whacky idea. nbc news does not know who the writer is or whether or not he or she was in a position to witness that they claim transpired. in separate excerpts published by the "washington post" and not seen by nbc news, the author with this description of the president -- he stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information with regulator. some senior officials considered resigning in a midnight self-massacre but ultimately decided not to out of fear it would destabilize the government. according to the "post," the author alleges that mr. trump makes racist comments been closed doors and compares him to a 12-year-old in an air traffic control tower pushing buttons indiscriminately and planes skidding across the runway. it has the unsubstantiated claim that vice president mike pence was ready to support a majority of the cabinet if they wanted to remove the president using the 25th amendment.

a claim pence vehemently denies. >> i never heard any discussion in my entire tenure as vice president about the 25th amendment. >> reporter: the author also wrote a "new york times" op-ed last year touting a trump resistance within the administration to guide him in the right direction. but now says of the president he is who he is. at the time, the president blasted the op-ed. >> so if the failing "new york times" has an national parks anonymous editorial, anonymous meaning gut legislations editorial, we're doing a great job. >> reporter: the white house is sapphiring back at the a-- is firing back at the anonymous author saying the coward who wrote the book didn't put their name on it because it is nothing but lies. jo? >> thank you. this year's home shopping season on track already to break records. how big-box stores are offering new ways of savings through your smart phone. the privacy concerns that come along with them. ns that come along with them. i'm your 70lb st. bernard puppy,

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this thing is costing me a fortune being president. >> whether that's true or not, the "washington post" says president trump's hotel in chicago has seen an 89% drop in profits from 2015 to 2018. the trump company lawyers blame it on reaction to his politics. let's do this. >> ready for vengeance. >> we will claim our destiny. >> and because video games like "fortnite" and "minecraft" may be so irresistible, china has imposed an online video game curfew for minors. no gaming allowed from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. the measure is aimed at battling video game addiction. thanksgiving is still more than 2.5 weeks away, but retailers are already pushing black friday discounts now because there are six fewer shopping days between thanksgiving and christmas compared to last year.

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>> customers are pickwiier than ever. kwiier than ever >> the retailers hope deep discounts are going to fuel sales. the national retail federation will spend close to $730 billion this holiday season. and that would be an increase of about 4% from last year. next, why president trump says he might attend russia's mayday military parade next year and why it may not surprise anyone. y it may not surprise anyone he said he might go with putin to the may day parade. the may day parade? the parade they celebrate communism with. he said "i was invited, i'm thinking about it." he said, "but it's right in the middle of our campaign season." and we know that's the busy time of year for the russians.

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on an invitation from vladimir putin. >> you've been invited to russia for the may day parade. >> that's right, i was invited. i'm thinking about it, it's right in the middle of our campaign season. but i would certainly think about it. president putin invited me to the, that's a very big deal. celebrating the end of the war, et cetera, et cetera, a very big deal. it is right in the middle of political season. so i'll see if i can do it. but i would love to go if i could. >> joining us now, christopher dickey, world news editor with the "daily beast" and an msnbc contributor. christopher, if he accept this invitation, do you think he's official lly absolving russia a putin for invading ukraine and the 2016 election interference? >> you know, this is one of those crazy disconnects in american policy.

we have trump talking about going to see his buddy, putin in moscow for the victory day celebrations on may 9. at the same time that we had secretary of state pompeo talking about the fall of the berlin wall in germany yesterday. and let me read you what, what pompeo said. he said, we were wrong to think we didn't need alliances, didn't need a military after the fall of the wall, because today quote russia led by a former kgb officer stationed in dresden, east germany, invades its neighbors and slays political opponents. so if that's the russia we're talking about, why on earth would the president of the united states go to stand beside vladimir putin at a show of military power in moscow? >> christopher, try to answer that question. why? >> there is something going on

between vladimir putin or russia and president trump that almost nobody been able to understand. you know we don't know if they have kompromat on him or just the president of the united states is just what's sometimes called a useful idiot. or if he thinks he has some grand plan for working together with putin to make, i don't know, a more profitable world. so it's very unclear why trump does this. but we can now see clearly, very clearly, that he is out of step even with his often sycophantic secretary of state. >> is it a standard schedule for a u.s. president? >> you know it's not that unusual for the president of russia and the president of the united states to get together. it is unusual for them to do so

in private and for the president of the united states to then confiscate the notes of the translator. to make sure that nobody knows what they're talking about. which was the case in helsinki and elsewhere at their summits and meetings, this is really very, very weird. >> congress also released some testimony from one of his former top russia advisers, fiona hill and she expressed frustration at how putin is manipulating people in government and she said i firmly believe he was also targeting president trump and he was targeting all of the other campaigns as well. acting that he was part of a directorate in the kgb. does that plowing ahead, against the advice of career experts around him? >> well i think the mention of what they do with dismen, what the kgb or the fsb, the present organization would do with businessmen, is very appropriate. in trump's case. if you look back to the early

'90s when he was in a lot of trouble, his casinos were folding up in atlantic city, he was hugely in debt. he built the trump world tower. what was he doing there? he was selling luxury apartments to russians who were smuggling money out of the former soviet union and laundering it in real estate. that's not a mystery. he was hanging out with thugs and mobsters from the former soviet union more than 25 years ago and he continued to do that. trump properties in florida and new york and elsewhere are filled with former soviet subjects who got a lot of money out of russia and the satellites. so i don't think it's surprising that he seems to be in bed with a regime, a leader, who is essentially running a mafia state. >> christopher dickey, thank you so much for joining us from paris, we appreciate it. and new transcripts from two

key trump administration officials revealing more damning details about the campaign to pressure ukraine. we've got four key take-aways, coming up. plus the chances john bolton will testify and how crucial that testimony could be. [♪] want to freshen your home without using heavy, overwhelming scents? try febreze one. it eliminates odors with no heavy perfumes, so you can feel good about using it in your home. for a light, natural-smelling freshness, try febreze one.

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good morning i'm jolen kent at msnbc world headquarters,s did day 47