the judge says trump can't actually sue new york officials in federal court and added trump could sue potentially in new york state so that case will continue if he sues again. that's it for me. "hardball" is up next. truth be told, let's play "hardball." good evening i'm chris matthews in washington. today begins an historic and consequential week for the country as the impeachment inquiry enters a dramatic new phase. for the first time the american people will hear directly from the foreign service professionals who witnessed the trump ukraine scandal as it unfolded. u.s. ambassador bill taylor and assistant deputy secretary of state george kent will testify in a public hearing on wednesday followed by former ambassador marie yovanovitch on friday.

impeachment investigators today released additional transcripts from three witnesses including testimony from laura cooper the deputy assistant secretary for defense for russia, ukraine, and eurasia. cooper said upon hearing that the aid to ukraine was frozen, quote, deputies immediately began to raise concerns about how this could be done in a legal fashion. there was not an understanding how this could legally play out. she says they got no clarification of why the aid was frozen. but she learned from ambassador kurt volker the ukrainians were aware of the freeze by mid august before it was publicly reported. she testified volker told her he was engaged in an effort, quote, to see if there was a statement that the government of ukraine would make. and she said the path that volker was pursuing to lift the halt would be to get them to make this statement. i'm joined by nicholas burns former u.s. ambassador to nato

and former under secretary of state anita kumar, white house correspondent and associate editor at politico, aaron blake senior political reporter at "the washington post." ambassador, tell us, when you think about this witness list especially these three this week, how will the american people hear this? what will they hear as the central narrative this week? >> well, chris, the public is going to hear but they'll also see for the first time three professional diplomats all nonpartisan, all of whom have worked for republican presidents as well as democratic presidents. all of whom are there to tell the truth, the three of them, the three strongest experts on ukraine in the entire u.s. government. they're going to tell this story of the extortion by the trump administration, the attempted extortion of the ukrainian government. what it -- how wrong that was, and what it did to our policy,

chris, since 1991. four presidents have tried to convince the ukrainians not to go after their political enemies, not to be authoritarian and here is donald trump and rudy guiliani telling them to act like authoritarians. that was george kent's testimony in the private hearing. i found it incredibly powerful and compelling. >> anita, do you expect that the witnesses, one upon the other, like i assume are they going to be stacked like tuna cans one on top of the other each confirm pg what the other is saying or will they be complementary? redundan redundant, same thing from all three or a little bit of different? >> a little bit of both. i think they'll complement each other. while you hear this quid pro quo or extortion people are saying now, allegations, you're also going to hear a second thing, which is how this foreign policy that rudy guiliani and, perhaps, donald trump were working on

outside of the government, how that affected the career diplomats, how they were cut out of the process and didn't know what was going on, and were suspicious of what was going on. so you'll hear that mostly from marie yovanovitch on friday. but they'll kind of give the whole picture of what this has done to the united states. what it did to the relations both in that phone call and, also, since then. >> what did laura cooper contribute today in the testimony that came out late this afternoon? >> it was actually a little more interesting than we thought it would be. one, she said that kurt volker suggested to her that there was some kind of quid pro quo between military aid and the statement announcing these investigations. kurt volker of course alluded to that in the text messages. the other thing that i -- >> this phrase they want a statement, everybody knew what that meant. >> basically what she says is that he indicated to her that he thought this was the way they were going to get that aid released and this basically -- >> to say they're investigating a 2016 involvement in the ukrainians and of course hunter

biden. >> exactly. those are the two investigations at root here. the other thing i think is interesting from the other two testimonies we've seen today, croft and anderson, is both of them talk about the idea that not just military aid was withheld, but there might have been a hold at some point on the release or sale of javelins to ukraine, the antitank missiles alluded to. >> russian tanks were coming. >> if the military hold went beyond the $400 million we saw before and on these javelins for a period that paints a picture of even bigger leveraging of the ukrainians. >> ambassador, you see how much water comes out of a container. one way we can understand the gravity of what happened here with this basically extorting the enemies of the president by holding up the military aid is

to see how the professional faces and personalities of the lifetime career people were affected by it, how they were basically displaced, the foreign policy was hijacked in front of their faces. >> chris, i think that's exactly what happened. rudy guiliani went after ambassador yovanovitch and had her fired. and then he pushed mike pompeo away, the secretary of state. but he completely sidelined the career diplomats who actually knew what they were doing. who actually knew the ukrainians needed this military assistance. and each of them objected. george kent, marie yovanovitch, bill taylor, mike mckinley who isn't testifying this week but did in private testimony, they each objected and said this was morally, politically, ethically wrong for the trump administration to try to extort the ukrainian government. i must say, chris, i was a former foreign service officer. i'm so proud of them. they're the silver lining in

this very sordid tale of what president trump tried to do to disgrace our country i think in this ukraine affair. >> one side, anita, wants a clear statement of what happened. they want clarity, and focus. they do not want this to be an interesting conversation about whatever happened in washington politics. the republicans, i think, would like to have an interesting conversation about, who is this hunter biden? why does he have this account? by the way, who was that whistle-blower? let's find out the mystery story. because the people, regular people always want the answer to mysteries. you say, whistle-blower, they want to know who it is. they hear hunter biden, how did he get the account? come on. so they are playing to their own strengths. the republicans have some aces here. they can say, we want to know certain things. tell us. distract the story. >> right. they're planning to do that. just like they did in the russian investigation on some of those testimonies we saw public before. they are -- have things they want to ask about. you're right.

they want to ask about the bidens, about the 2016 election interference. if you'll recall even though everybody has said it's russia, there's some allegations that ukraine was involved. they are unfounded. they are going to try to change the subject, basically. they're going to talk about other things and take it away from president trump and get it as far away from president trump as possible. >> you know, in an old jimmy stewart movie it was "anatomy of murder" and they said, the defense attorney, jimmy stewart, says to the jury, don't think of a blue cow. don't think of a blue cow. right now. and so you're going to think of a blue cow. so they throw these ideas out, glittering objects, weird things to think about, hunter biden. they have a play here, right? is that what they're going to do? >> i think they are but if you look at the deposition transcripts, a lot of the time that republicans spent questioning those witnesses they were kind of trying to get them to say something they could use for leverage later on. we haven't focused a whole lot on what republicans were actually asking about. i wonder if it's in a public

setting, given that what we're talking about here are basically conspiracy theories. >> sure. nunez is perfect, ranking republican. he'll throw it out. >> these were not widely shared theories within the main stream republican party. are we going to see all these members toe this line as these hearings go on? i don't think all of them are going to be comfortable. >> you think some have pride. >> i think jim jordan will go after it. i think nunes will go after it. the rest might have a qualm. this wasn't a very politicized committee before a couple years ago. >> it was never that way. the intelligence committee idea was a nonpartisan committee. "the washington post" reports that the gop's focus will be to try to minimize trump's role in the ukraine pressure campaign and justify his actions. to that point as i mentioned house republicans submitted a list of proposed witnesses that include as i said, joe -- the former vice president -- and hunter biden, house intel chairman adam schiff himself. he pushed back by the way in a strongly worded statement saying, this inquiry is not and

will not serve as a vehicle to undertake the same sham investigations into the bidens or 2016 that the president pressed ukraine to conduct for his personal political benefit. ambassador, i guess the question is, you get these straight arrow foreign service officers like yourself who from the time they took the exam in their 20s have been foreign service officers waiting for more responsibilities, working their way up, learning, learning, learning, proving themselves over and over again. they are reliable public servants. how do they stand up to what would look like a distraction campaign by the republican side in these hearings who don't want them to look good? >> you know, these are three people who spent their careers dealing with the russians. and dealing with a lot of hard bitten characters in eastern europe. each of them is a specialist on eastern europe. they have faced tough characters in the past. two of them are ambassadors. george kent, about the smartest young man in the state department. i have no doubt that they're going to acquit themselves well because they're going to be

honest. they're going to tell the truth. they're going to explain the policy consequences. you know, we're all focused, a lot of people focus on the politics of this. the policy consequences of the united states not helping the ukrainians who have lost 13,000 soldiers against the russians since 2014. that's really a shame for the united states. that was a big part of george kent's testimony when he testified two weeks ago. >> and back to the -- that's the grand look -- the reason i've been interested in politics my whole life -- the grand reason. looking out for our country, a role in the world, a better world, better citizenry. the good things we do care about and hear as a professional. laura cooper testified today she thought it was actually illegal to withhold, for a president, the executive branch to withhold duly propo duly appropriated military aid to any country. >> the reason cooper's testimony is so interesting is because the big question we don't really

know the answer to is exactly who held up the foreign aid to ukraine. we don't know the details. >> who in the omb meeting that day. do we know? >> i don't know how to answer that question but what cooper said was basically this was not the corruption concern. the corruption concern from the white house that was the reason this aid was withheld did not appear in any of the interagency processes. >> we heard the white house memo of the president's july 25th conversation, he is the leader of the band. he is the one who said i want a favor i want from you, though. by the way, that word though was left out of "the washington post" today. i don't know why. that is somebody's fault over there. >> the house democrats say that is the piece of the puzzle l they don't have. >> they say that but they have the president's conversation which alerted -- and mick mulvaney the former congressman from south carolina the omb director the president's acting chief of staff says quid pro quo.

that's where we started this discussion with nancy pelosi the speaker recognizing in that conversation impeachable behavior. >> right. but mick mulvaney obviously took that back. he said it once but took it back. the thing they don't know is exactly who called up omb and how that happened with that information. that's the one piece that cooper has shed a little light on. >> i think impeachment, the process is much more like a rico charge, who is running the operation? this president is running the operation. i've worked in politics all my life. the boss runs everything. never blame the staff ever. it's not haldeman, not erlichman, it's dick nixon. criticizing the closed door depositions the republicans have pushed for open hearings for weeks but after the public hearings were announced last week president trump said on friday he now opposes them. let's watch him. >> what do you say to the millions -- >> they shouldn't be having public appearances. this is a hoax. this is just like the russian witch hunt. this is just a continuation.

>> what do you think about the president's charge, ambassador, which he makes whenever he's at a loss for words that anybody opposing him was also opposed to him and that somehow justifies his position that some people are never trumpers, that sort of protects him from any blame because they just don't like me. what do you think about the state department? are they essentially anti-trump? >> you know, this is a preposterous statement by the president, because all of these people, colonel vindman, the three foreign service officers, worked for george w. bush and several of them worked for ronald reagan and george h.w. bush. foreign service officers like military officers are accustomed to working for whomever the american people elect. as you know, chris, the oath that all of us take and that these three people took was to the constitution. so they're not up there to get donald trump. they're up there to tell the truth and that's what they did in the private hearings and what they'll do this week. >> it is an honor having you on,

mr. ambassador. nicholas burns, thank you for coming on tonight. it was a good mood setter for the week. i think it is going to be a very strong week for the country. thank you for your reporting and aaron blake for just remember that word "though." how they dropped that anyway. i want a favor from you, though. i think that's conditional. just guessing. coming up, who is going to take the fall for trump's ukraine shakedown? they'll try to blame somebody else. mr. i do it alone i don't have a team is now saying, what? me? could it be mick mulvaney the president's chief of staff who is at the center of the scandal? he is doing everything he can to even avoid testifying. plus nikki haley's stunning rel investigations in her book. she reveals rex tillerson and kelly as almost traders asking for her help to undermine president trump. >> it should have been go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you don't like what he's doing but to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing.

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welcome back to "hardball." president trump has centered his presidency on the idea that he's in charge and everyone else is just a supporting player. >> nobody knows the system better than me. which is why i alone can fix it. let me tell you, the one that matters is me. i'm the only one that matters because when it comes to it that's what the policy is going to be. you've seen that and seen it strongly. here's the thing. i don't have teams. everyone is talking about teams. i'm the team. i did nothing wrong. >> i'm the team. however, days ahead of the first public impeachment hearings this week, congressional republicans are now arguing that it's

everyone else's fault, not the president's. according to "the washington post," quote, republicans' latest plan to shield president trump from impeachment is to focus on at least three deputies -- u.s. ambassador to the european yunon gordon sondland, trump's lawyer rudy guiliani and possibly mick mulvaney who they say could have acted on their own to influence ukraine policy. all together by the way on their own. one of president trump's chief cheerleaders republican congressman mark meadows of north carolina unveiled the strategy last week telling reporters, quote, when i get to ask questions and when you see all the transcripts you will understand there is no direct linkage to the president of the united states. what the argument ignores are the five words that came from president donald trump's mouth to the ears of president zelensky. do us a favor, though. for more i'm joined by msnbc correspondent and managing director for national security

international policy at the center for american progress. thank you both. it is a little late in the game to deny the ring leader is the ring leader when all along it's been a one man band. >> i think you're right. it doesn't pass the laugh test. however as a legal matter and public relations matter it may be the only strategy they have. >> who is the audience for this stuff? who is going to buy it, that he didn't lead the band and he didn't have it in his heart to get some dirt on joe biden or at least get the president of a country to say we got some dirt on him? >> the audience are the regular people with jobs who aren't paying attention as closely as you and i are and you know what? this is like -- >> i don't see this in the polls. i see people in the polls paying attention to this thing. >> imagine nixon without the tapes. could they have pinned it on nixon without the tapes? we don't have yet donald trump ordering the aid withheld. >> excuse me. i'll try you now. he says to the president, you know, you want all this stuff, yeah. but i want something first. i want something, though.

we have the conversation. that's where nancy pelosi jumped on this and said impeachable. this guy is trading national interests, public trust for personal political gain. right there in that conversation. >> i mean, you know, he has supporters at rallies saying, read the transcript. i've read the transcript. the transcript is damning in its own right. i think it defies credulity for the president to claim or any of his supporters to claim that he wasn't involved in this decision and if that is the argument they're making, that actually says something equally damning about the way this white house is run. >> okay. if he wasn't involved, let's try the counter point though. you can play this part, devil's advocate. you know how to do it besides being a reporter. you say he didn't do it. the minute he heard somebody was holding up the ukrainian javelin missiles he'd say who the hell is that? what's going on here? mulvaney, you are my chief of

staff. how can you do it without telling me? he would have fixed it in a second. trump listens to every mosquito, every sound of news. he is watching everything, sitting in his bubble bath watching fox & friends in the morning but all the time he is listening for the news. >> the evidence is it was all him. he was the one obsessed with ukraine. no one else. they were trying to figure out how to please him. i'm just arguing they need the evidence. they got to prove the case. >> you're not going to get a single republican vote no matter what you do. you can jump up and down. >> that is a sad commentary. after bill clinton admitted he lied under oath democrats didn't try to defend that. they just argued it wasn't impeachable. if republicans took that tack you could respect that. >> republicans remain devoted to the president while testing out evolving and at times contradictory defenses. >> it's all hearsay. you can't get a parking ticket conviction based on hearsay. >> there is no quid pro quo. there is nothing this president has done wrong. >> if there was a quid pro quo it certainly wasn't very effective.

>> i have news for everybody. get over it. there is going to be political influence in foreign policy. >> get over it. you know? i mean, first of all, some of the defenses are ludicrous. one is they got the money eventually in september after this whole thing exploded. >> of course they got the money. >> everybody knew what was going on here. >> i mean, at this point we've been through so many different defenses that people are writing articles about the various different defenses and all of the counter arguments to each of them. i mean, you know, the truth is as ken said, there really isn't anything that's stuck and so i think what you'll start to see and what we are seeing is different people being, you know, thrown under the bus for lack of a better word. we are seeing, you know, mulvaney's name, guiliani. but let's not forget vice president pence was also involved in this situation. >> oh, yeah. >> and was communicating with the ukrainian counterpart. >> i always try to say, route

40, you're in a bar, 11:00 at night. had a few beers. people aren't drunk. the guy is trying to defend trump. you know, joe, let me tell you. it's all these guys working together against trump. you know, yeah he controls all the money. he can do it on his own. by the way all these other people, guiliani is on his own making money. if there was anybody buying this that all these guys got together in a secret room, plotted this way to squeeze and extort money out of the -- extort dirt from the ukrainian president on their own? >> the american public is more sophisticated than that and know that is not what happened. some people might be saying what is the crime here? don't all politicians do this? are we going to impeach over this? that is the fear i think the democrats have. >> that was nixon's defense because there were break-ins his whole career, buggings, bobby kennedy. they all bugged each other. johnson bugged them. he got caught. >> that's right. >> he got caught covering it up. on a tape. >> we haven't seen the john dean

of this scandal. it could be mick mulvaney. it could be john bolton. >> what is bolton up to? he wants a price doesn't he? he says i'll tell you all the truth. i got some great stuff, his lawyer says really good stuff, but i'm waiting for the courts. they're not going to wait for the courts for four or five months or a year. >> no. only bolton knows what is in bolton's mind but i suspect that he's enjoying the dangling these stories on the outside. >> oh, yeah. people like me aren't attacking him anymore. we don't mind this neo con for a couple weeks here. we can use him. >> yeah, i mean, if he is willing to tell the public any of these stories in a book deal, then he should be willing to testify. >> the democrats called it a rope-a-dope. they were concerned he is just stringing them along. >> i'm not a big fan of bolton. you know? the hair color is totally different than the mustache, too. is that important? probably not. thank you.

up next, former u.n. ambassador, we got to talk about her. i'm fascinated with her. ever since she took down that confederate flag. then she said i don't want to get confused. this is a smart political figure here to watch. maybe a president some day. haley details efforts by rex tillerson and john kelly to recruit her to undermine president trump in order to save the country. overtures which she rejected. this is great stuff. does haley have her sights set on replacing mike pence on the ticket in 2020 as vp or replacing trump in 2020 or 2024? who knows? she is up to big stuff. you're watching "hardball." do your asthma symptoms ever hold you back? about 50% of people with severe asthma have too many cells called eosinophils in their lungs. eosinophils are a key cause of severe asthma.

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welcome back to "hardball." former ambassador to the united nations nikki haley is out with a new book and making the claim that two of president trump's former top officials tried to recruit her to undermine him. haley presents baja could -- wh could be described as a modern day mark anthony speech after the fall of julius caesar. she writes, the then chief of staff john kelly and secretary of state rex tillerson, quote, confided in me that when they resisted the president they weren't being insubordinate. they were trying to save the country. it was their decisions not the president's that were in the best interests of america, they

said. the president didn't know what he was doing. well, haley said tillerson told her that without their resistance people would die. in an interview with cbs haley defended president trump and said if they didn't like what he was up to they should have resigned. here she goes. >> instead of saying that to me, they should have been saying that to the president. not asking me to join them on their side bar plan. it should have been, go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you don't like what he's doing but to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing. >> for more i'm joined by margaret carlson columnist for the daily beast and eugene robinson columnist at "the washington post." eugene, i've always thought ever since yshe pulled down the flag in your beloved south carolina, she is a smart, timely, quick politician.

then when she said i don't get confused one time when larry kudlow said she was confused i liked that again. here she is one upping all the anti-trump people and coming in a weird way to the side of trump. >> right. clearly, she is, a, an ambitious politician. b, i think she is a pretty nimble politician. she wants to be president. you know, she served in the trump administration. she got out. she's listed as one of the few who, you know, wasn't ruined. >> she was clean. a clean departure. >> exactly. she, since then, occasionally will put out a tweet that is kind of critical of something president trump is doing but she is careful not to get on the wrong side of the president and the president's base. and now she's, you know, got a book and she is out with this revelation. i'm not sure if she says, well, what did she say then to tillerson and kelly? what did she say to the

president about this? >> it appears haley's glowing support for the commander-in-chief made it to its intended audience. president trump tweeted praise forher book not even out yet, telling people to order their copies today and wishing good luck to his former u.n. ambassador. margaret, she has chosen sides. this is pretty dramatic stuff. i say mark anthony because when brutus took down caesar mark anthony jumped up and said, caesar was ambitious and brutus of an honorable man and destroyed the guy. i think she is just that dramatic. >> mitch mcconnell could have said of her, she persisted in that she persisted in her job. shea got through it. she came out clean as you said. and then she says in the book, one thing i take issue with. kelly confided in her. the word "confide" suggests, well, he thought this was between cabinet members and we

were trying to deal with something. kelly thought he was doing his job, which was to try to get the information flow not to be whoever walked through the door, which he said were four secretaries of state -- jared, nikki -- it would be helpful to have one. but to channel the information in some way. >> we've been friends for a thousand years. i see presidential material here. i could be sarcastic about it. this may be too slick. is this too slick? is this too obviously a play for power? >> i think it comes off as a weak cup of tea, to me. that she is trying to have it both ways so obviously that in the end she undermines not, you know, john kelly but herself. >> does it work with trump? trump is flatterable. >> absolutely it works with trump. >> could she be on the ticket because of this one gambit? >> if he gets rid of pence? well, i don't think he'll get rid of him.

>> what about if he gets rid of pompeo because pompeo is going to run for the senate? secretary of state? >> well, possibility. would she want to jump back into that? i don't know. she is really walking this tight rope here. >> she wants 2024. >> she doesn't want to offend trump but she doesn't want to be so close to him anymore that if he goes down she goes down with him. >> i spot her as presidential some day. i think she's got it. she's got that it thing in politics. i'm not an expert at this but i'm trying to be. >> maybe she is going to be the one that proves it's the trump republican party. it's not the republican party. >> i also think it is easier for a conservative woman to make it in most political situations. the golda meir, thatchers. angela merkel. all seem to be conservatives. tillerson and kelly have both spoken out publicly about the president's handling of his job. let's listen. >> why didn't you deny calling the president a moron?

>> you know, that is a really old question. >> do you understand that by not answering the question some people thought you were confirming the story. >> i think i've answered the question. >> you think you answered the question. >> i've answered the question. >> whatever you do, don't hire a yes man, someone that's going to tell you, won't tell you the truth. don't do that. because if you do, i believe you'll be impeached. >> well, tillerson and kelly are now pushing back at haley's claims. tonight peter baker reported tillerson said, quote, ambassador haley was rarely a participant in my many meetings and is not in a position to know what i may or may not have said to the president. in response to the new book kelly told "the washington post" that if giving trump, quote, the best and most open legal and ethical staffing advice from across the government so comake an informed decision is working against trump then guilty as charged. not exactly a denial.

>> absolutely not. nothing close to a denial. either what tillerson said or kelly. >> i think the conversation happened. do you believe it happened? >> i do. i think this is what they both wanted to do with their jobs but were unable to do. they failed at their jobs. and haley is calling them out. but i think they win as much as she does. >> you're from the south. i'll ask you an evangelical question. can he keep the evangelical support and bump pence off and put her in there as vp if he has a woman opponent he wants to match? >> look. if all that donald trump has done so far has not cost him the evangelical vote, then of course he can. >> i think if it's elizabeth warren as the candidate and she has a very good chance of being the democratic nominee, he may want to match the woman with a woman. i'm just thinking. >> doesn't nikki haley really want to wait until 2024 and do it clean? >> i think she does. >> because she's got a distance now from trump.

she is not an ever trumper. she is right there. >> she could become vice president and encourage him to eat more hamburgers. just kidding. thank you. women know how to do that if they wanted to do it. thank you, margaret, my pal, who cut our dinner for our rehearsal dinner 40 years ago. thank you. did it herself. >> you're welcome. >> eugene robinson. thank you. up next some republicans are contorting themselves trying to defend president trump while others in congress are simply opting to leave. and not seek re-election. this is no country for old men i guess. is this the beginning of an even bigger republican exodus? you're watching "hardball." sundown vitamins are all

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battle. today long-time new york republican congressman peter king announced he won't be running for re-election next year. that is a big surprise. king is now the 16th house republican to decide not to seek re-election. another four are running for other offices. that is only a snapshot of the republican retreat from congress under president trump. look at them all. since trump took office 51 house republicans have retired or resigned or announced they're leaving. that is more than double the number of democrats who left congress intentionally during the same time frame under president obama. 51-23. more than twice as many. today congressman king said he is leaving to spend more time with his family. others are just plain fed up. one retiring congressman paul mitchell of michigan told "the washington post" in september, did any member of this conference expect that their job would start out every morning trying to go through the list of what's happening in tweets of the day? one of the latest tweets from president trump was another demand for his allies in congress to fall in line. he wrote, republicans don't be

led into the fool's trap of saying it was not perfect but is not impeachable. no. it is much stronger than that. nothing was done wrong. the president's tweets largely driving the defense on impeachment, his republican allies are having a hard time keeping up. and that's up next here on "hardball." you're watching. maria ramirez?

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absolute loyalty is now a requirement for republican lawmakers in the trump era. we all know that. the press is repealing blasted republicans in the congress for not arguing. he did nothing wrong in his interactions with ukraine. but the performance of some congressional republicans over the past weekend suggests they are still trying to find their arguments. >> i consider any impeachment in the house that doesn't allow us to know who the whistle-blower is to be invalid. >> it is clear now more than ever. this is a calculated coup. >> i would make the argument that every politician in washington, other than me, virtually, is trying to manipulate ukraine to their purposes. >> if he asks for an investigation of possible corruption by someone who happens to be a political rival, that is not over the line. >> i believe that it is inappropriate for a president to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival. i do not believe it was

impeachable. >> for more, president and ceo of the center for american progress, michael steele a republican strategist. it is your home base here to explain this. >> always a pleasure. >> it does seem it is an exercise in creative writing now to come up with how this president's innocent of what he has clearly been charged with and effectively charged with. >> well, that is the reason that so many republicans are trying to get permission from the president to make the argument that what he did is inappropriate but doesn't rise to the level of impeachment and he should not be convicted or removed from office less than a year before the american people get to vote, which is a very reasonable argument to make. and he just isn't willing to let them make that argument. he wants the total events. >> who is smart here? the connivers who want to give the critics something, or the guy who says you know what? you give them an inch we're dead. >> it is entirely possible he is right about that. i think that there is a way to argue that's the case but at this point if you're an elected

republican, if there are only 30% of the american people supporting the president at the end of this process, that is 60% of your primary electorate and most republicans and most democrats are more concerned about their primary electorate. >> i'm thinking you're wincing. >> i mean, i'd say the challenge for republicans is that public opinion has moved and they have a big risk which is that public opinion won't move more after this week's testimony and the public testimony we hear over the coming days and weeks. and so i think the real problem -- >> how do we know it is going to move? i don't know. >> we don't. i don't know. my sense is we are going to hav right? all the networks are covering it all day. we'll see. we haven't had an event like that other than really things like donald trump's rallies. i think it's possible that these public servants will really pierce the vail and move public opinion a few more points. the challenge for republicans is they are facing an election a

year from now. if 30% of the country agrees with them and 60% of the country disagrees with them, that means they will lose their general elections. >> excuse me. why are they all quitting? >> yeah. why are they quitting? i mean, this is a good thing. people like being members of congress generally. that's why they fight it out every year to be elected. but these guys are leaving. >> pete king is leaving because it is normal for a republican like him to leave. he's 75 years old. >> 51-23. your party -- your exoduses are beating out the democrats. >> there is a reason. democrats don't leave the house. they stay forever and ever and ever. that's just -- >> so it is good to stay. >> you are putting a happy spin on this. >> you know what what? i am actually -- i'm going to throw some respect to these

people who are leaving because i think the truth is they are leaving the because the idea of defending trump constantly from his attacks in this moment particularly is just self-humiliation. they don't want to leave with him. a month ago, a month ago if it's a quid pro quo it's not right. then he gets evidence it's a quid pro quo and his response is to do nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. >> if the job of u.s. senate from south carolina required he went to every circus, every carnival coming through town, he'd do it. >> he's doing it right now. that's what he's doing. he's doing it right now. >> i remember lindsey graham when he was jed bush's number one surrogate and i enjoyed his company more than. >> one republican from texas said it would be a violation of the law to withhold military aid

in exchange for investigations but stopped short of saying president trump did so. here he goes. >> specifically, sir, the question is if there was a quid pro quo, u.s. aid for ukraine was going to depend on their doing these investigations of political rivals of the president, is that an impeachable offense? >> i think if you're trying to get information on a political rival to use in a political campaign it is not something a president or any official should be doing. >> how about if you condition u.s. foreign military aid on that question? they always get a clever way of not answering the reality. >> the situation here is he recognizes it's wrong. but as michael said -- >> he didn't recognize the full dimensions. >> he's not willing to say it's impeachable. at least he's willing to say it's wrong. the problem is donald trump today tweets out this isn't an acceptable defense and all you republicans must bow down to me

and defend me 100%. >> this is where republicans have a steep hill to climb. >> i have to ask you a question. nikki hailly, future star? future president? >> i do not see the republican party of donald trump moving to nikki haley but color me cynical. >> i think so. >> i do think they will. >> i do think they're going towards nikki. maybe you some day. not nikki she says. i think it's nikki. thank you. up next, what i saw in east germany in 1989 when the ber begin wall was tumbling down. ju. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs, or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine.

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in november of 1989 when i heard the berlin wall was coming down i was writing a twice a week column for the san francisco examiner. when i got to berlin it didn't take long to see why it was happening. my taxi driver got me to the grand hotel where i learned the humiliating way the communist government was running things. here in the very capital of the country, the hotels refused to accept the official local currency. as far as this state-run hotel, the east mark, the currently admitted by the government itself was useless. second, if you wanted to travel in east germany, the people i interviewed told me there was only two countries you could

visit, hungry and poland, because they were the only countries to accept the country. if a backpacker showed up from west germany, they were called right to the front of the line and given tickets. third, i quickly learned you needed to wait 18 months to buy one of the crappy, noisy cars. fourth, what truly grabbed me was how the communist system screwed its true believers. while the taxi driver had access to good trips, the factory manager, the high school principal, the good party members had to rely on the joke currency the government paid them with. while the taxi driver could get actual dollars, the others got paid in useless currency. the communist party fell from within because it abused the very faith of its true believers. people fled through that wall because they got better

treatment from strangers in the west than they got from their own system. and that's "hardball" for now. "all in" with chris hayes starts now. >> count down to the impeachment inquiry of donald trump. >> i think the president knows the argument that can be made against him, and he's scared. >> a central allegation in the trump extortion plot. the new strategy of the president's chief of staff to fight his subpoena. >> get over it. >> and new reporting that the ukraine quid pro quo happened earlier than we knew. >> this all should have stopped when president trump said i didn't do anything wrong. >> the three amigos are perry, voelker and myself. a new ukraine scandal. >> and a look at the so-called red