fascinating conversation. check it out where you get your podcasts. that is "all in" for this evening. the rachel maddow show starts right now. much appreciated. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour as well. here at msnbc we work closely with, we work physically alongside our nbc news colleagues. but that does not always mean we have any inside information on what exactly they're doing on the network side and vice versa. whatever we're working on, they might not have total transparency. as such when nbc news broadcasts it special report tomorrow morning on the impeachment proceedings against president trump, the first public impeachment hearings in the impeachment proceedings against president donald j. trump and when that nbc news special report tomorrow morning anchored by lester holt from nightly news

and nbc news correspondent today show host chuck todd from "meet the press." yes, we're all part of the big happy family, but i can't tell you exactly what that nbc news special coverage is going to look like. that said, i can pretty much guarantee you it will not have a theme song as cool or as oddly ponderous and artistic as the way nbc news played its special theme song and lead-in to the impeachment proceedings in 1973 for then president richard nixon. because that was all covered with nbc news special reports, too. but have you seen this? this was -- they like developed a whole theme song. this was like the opening credits to the watergate hearings. >> nbc news special report. ♪

>> watergate. senate hearings. here from washington is nbc news correspondent. >> good morning. this is the senate caucus room in washington, d.c., and it's jammed this morning. jammed with spectators, newsman, senators and their aides. and the scene adds to the sense of drama as the senate opens with what is likely to become the most serious investigation it has ever made. an investigation of the american political system and the presidency itself. the name of the investigation is watergate because that is the name of the building where the democratic party offices were located, offices that were broken into last year. but the investigation that begins today will go far beyond

that incident. the senators will also be asking questions about other acts of politic political sabotage in last year's presidential campaign. and they'll be asking about the money, secret cash, where it came from and how it was used. that is the senate committee, seven members headed by the senator of north carolina. >> that's nbc news correspondent off camera but doing like live color, live play by play of the nbc news special report on the first day of the watergate hearings, may 17th, 1973. having to kind of vamp there a little bit as everybody is getting seated. no more pictures, no more pictures, okay they're convening the hearing. and tomorrow morning every network will do their own version of this special report, right? as i just mentioned nbc news is going to have their whole senior crew doing their special report. again, 46 years and a half on from the way it looked on

watergate. they're going to be co-anchoring nbc's special coverage starting at 9:00 a.m. all of the networks are going to be doing something like this. but as you can see from this vintage testimony from '73, the fact we have done this so few times in american history means it's hard to see any of this as normal, right? it's hard to extrapolate what we've already been through to know exactly what it ought to be like when these hearings kick off tomorrow. there's nothing you can look at from '73 or any of the other impeachments that can tell you how it's likely to go this time. for example, i can tell you i don't think they're going to run that theme music in the opening again. i will say it's cool enough i want to take it for this show. what we need on this show is more tympany, i've always thought so. watergate. but i do think there's an almost

forgotten element of how this was handled in watergate that is maybe a bit instructive for what we're about to see tomorrow. and that is for all the drama, for all the gravitas and momentum for that moment, that sort of nationwide, show stopping suspense as to what would happen at those watergate hearings and how they would go, what we'd all learn. for all that buildup to that first day, that first public wa want to know who they called that first day, their first witness they called on the big opening day was the office manager whose name you will not recognize today. but even at the time nobody recognized his name then either. >> councilman call the first witness. >> will mr. robert odle come to

the witness table? >> this is the first witness. they didn't have the first witness sitting anywhere near the witness table or the front of the room. has to make his way through the whole crowd. obviously he's also wearing his father's suit. so there's this choice they made to bring up their very, very young man to be the first witness in the watergate hearings. nobody has ever heard of him. they were not trying to wow the country coming out of the gate with some big explosive witness or very well-known witness at the top of the hearings. the anticipation could not have been more dramatic, and they bring on this 29-year-old kid who had been the office manager for the nixon re-election campaign. and what they had him do for most of his testimony is they literally had him take out of a pointer, you see him holding the microphone there and holding a pointer, and he walks through the organizational chart of how the nixon re-election campaign was organized. who was running it, who was

running security, who was deputy to who, where did everybody sit? the morning after that first hearing the front page of "the new york times" had robert odle pointing re-election campaign. it might not have been the blockbuster beginning the country had been hoping for, but looking back at that now and especially how things unfolded during watergate, it kind of looks like that might have been a good way to start on day one. it just made sense in terms of setting the stage for what the whole country was going to learn. as those hearings would go on and on, they would lay the groundwork for the president's resignation the following year. but the brought on the office manager for the campaign at the very start of the watergate hearings. and the effect of that was to introduce someone to the country who was totally normal and who

was not involved of any of the criminal behavior at the heart of this scandal. someone who wasn't even necessarily a witness to the core and most serious wrongdoing that congress was investigating in watergate. by starting with him, by starting with this guy, bob odle, they calibrated our moral vision for what we were about to learn. they started us off with a normal law-abiding person, someone behaving in a rational law-abiding manner. in so doing, through his eyes we could see how abnormal the president's behavior was and how abnormal was the behavior of the president's henchman, how wrong and weird and inappropriate it all was when these crimes started to happen. and when the criminal conspiracy kicked in to try to cover up those crimes. i mean as much as president nixon at the time and his defenders might have wanted to characterize his actions as normal politics, everybody does it, nothing to see here. through the eyes of a normal

person trying to do his job, caught up in the middle of this, you could actually see through him, that first witness actually this wasn't normal at all, this was totally weird and wrong. >> one of the things that happened, and i very honestly don't know if it happened befor saw him as i testified at the trial. i saw him in the hall. and he asked me where the paper shredder was. >> what? >> the paper shredder. the paper shredder was a very famous big paper shredder. >> was there a big paper shredder -- was there more than one? >> yes, sir. >> and he asked where the big paper shredder is? >> right. >> did you ask him why he wanted to know? >> no, sir, i didn't. i said it's in there. >> did he have anything with him? >> thought at that time. he later came out and said how do you work it, and i said you press the button.

and then later on i saw him with a pile of papers perhaps a foot high. >> and what was he doing with it? >> he was on his way in the shredding room. >> do you shred papers of that sort and that quantity regularly? >> no, sir, i don't. >> does anyone? >> well -- >> well. is it normal to be shredding a foot tall pile of paper at the president's re-election campaign headquarters just after we learn there's been a mysterious break in into one of our opponent's offices. well, i mean, it was not normal for me, sir. normal. that was the first witness in the televised public watergate hearings which ultimately led to president richard nixon's resignation. the office manager in the nixon re-election campaign, just doing his job, not caught up in

nixon's crimes until he saw some of the residue of the crimes and that criminal behavior around him in this office he was managing. and he was able to describe on that first day of hearings the sort of creeping revelation that something was wrong. he was able to describe that through the eyes of somebody who hadn't really expected anything to be wrong and who himself was not in on any of the crimes. do you see how that's sort of like a moral calibration, right, rather than starting with a villain, rather than starting with somebody who's got an axe to grind. starting with somebody that happens to be there, whoa, what's going on here? tomorrow the impeachment hearings against president trump, only the fourth impeachment proceedings against a sitting president in the united states. tomorrow they will not start with the campaign office manager, but they are going to start with two witnesses. the current top diplomat for the u.s. government in ukraine. you may remember he was sent on short notice after the previous ambassador for that country got

recalled from her post which is now part of the scheme. they needed her out of there so she wouldn't stand in their way. we're going to hear from that recalled ambassador on friday of this week. but tomorrow we'll hear from the veteran diplomat who was called in on short notice to take her place after she was fired and his name was ambassador bill taylor. and we'll also hear from deputy assistant secretary of state george kent. and as far as we understand it these two witnesses are going to be seated at the same time, so presumably next to each other at this witness hearing. and held in a really ornate, really large room. it sometimes can be mistaken for the house chamber. it's a big room you can fit a lot of people in, and it's very fancy. proceedings will start tomorrow morning. doors will open at 9:45 and then 10:00 a.m. eastern time the hearings will be gaveled into order.

there will be opening statements from california democratic congressman adam schiff who chairs the intelligence committee and after him there'll be an opening statement from devon nunes'. and after their opening statements, both of the witnesses, bill taylor and george kent, will be sworn in. there'll be time for them to give opening remarks as well although we don't know if either of them will do so. technically every 45 minutes of questioning on each side belongs to the top democrat and top republican on the committee, again adam schiff and devin nunes. but at least schiff, if not both of them are expected to give up most of that time to see most of that opening 45 minutes for each side to lawyers which have been hired by the committee in part with an eye towards this process. so adam schiff and devin nunes can take back any of that time they want. they can do any of that questioning themselves, but we're expecting in all likelihood it'll start after those opening statements, 45 minutes by the lawyer on the democratic side and 45 minutes

by the lawyer on the republican side. for those of us who are going to be watching this at home trying to follow along, that's probably a blessing. it means there'll at least be continuity at the start. continuity of purpose in questioning that is not continuously interrupted by needing to flip to a new questioner every few minutes, right? that's how it'll start, two 45-minute chunks from democrats and republicans. and after that we'll get into that disorienting, 13 democrats and 9 republicans including the chair and ranking member on each side, all the remaining members will each get five minutes to do their questioning. thereafter it'll ping-pong back and forth between the democratic and republican members. we'll see how all that goes. i don't know how i'll sleep tonight in part because this isy

who have lived through an impeachment. just hasn't happened very many times in our history as a country. to be here for it, let alone to have the privilege to cover it as a news story is humbling and exciting thing. we also learned late tonight just before getting on the air tonight a little bit more about the overall schedule for these hearings after tomorrow. this first one tomorrow george kent and william taylor are the witnesses. we've known for several days now that the second hearing will be friday of this week with that ambassador recalled from ukraine, marie yovanovitch. but just tonight chairman schiff announced the next several days of impeachment hearings which will be next week tuesday, wednesday and thursday. but they're divided into morning and afternoon sessions. tuesday in the morning the public hearing will include testimony from jennifer williams. she's the only official from the vice president's office who's been called to testify thus far. she'll testify tuesday morning

alongside colonel alexander vindman. he's the lieutenant colonel in the army who's been vilified and attacked by republican members of congress and particularly by the conservative media. he's going to testify in public in these impeachment proceedings a week from today in that morning session with jennifer williams. and then on tuesday morning -- excuse me, tuesday afternoon next week there'll be a second session with two more witnesses. curt volker recently resigned as the u.s. government special envoy to ukraine. he's going to testify publicly today afternoon alongside tim morrison, recently fired as national security advisor. he's another recent security official who has responsibility for russia. then wednesday morning next week ambassador gourdened sordon son testify. there's been questioning he'll

appear for a public hearing given reported problems for some of his closed door testimony. another one of his witnesses contradicted things he said in his testimony. that led among other things to sondland submitting a revision to his testimony where he said he suddenly recalled things he previously hadn't recalled when he'd been asked about them under oath. and then wednesday afternoon it'll be defense department official laura cooper who will testify as well as david hale who i believe is the number three official in the state department. and thursday next week another impeachment hearing. and as far as we know this one will feature a soly witness, dr. fiona hill, whose deposition transcript honestly read like a spy thriller. she before tim morrison was the top russia official on the security council and also a veteran security official in washington who served multiple presidents. so all told in terms of what we understand of this schedule, that means we're looking at seven different public

impeachment hearings that are now scheduled just between tomorrow and the end of next week. again, some of them will be broken down into two sessions per day. but when things kick off tomorrow, i do think we're going to see a little bit of a -- at least a conceptual parallel twoen h between how the watergate hearings started back in '73 and how the hearings start tomorrow. it's not going to be -- i don't think we're going to recognize mr. odle in the characters that we see tomorrow as these witnesses, but with both george kent and bill taylor, the guys you are going to hear from tomorrow, you do have this sort of same dynamic at work that you had that the start of the watergate hearings, which is that these public impeachment sh

people who can attest to what normal is. it's going to start with people who know how things are done normally in the u.s. government and in u.s. foreign policy, who they know how normal policy disputes arise and are resolved. and they know what u.s. policy is towards ukraine and how it's carried out. they're both super high level subject matter experts in this area of the world in which they were both working for the state department. which means they know how things are supposed to go. they know how the u.s. government is supposed to work. and they understand ukraine. they know the importance of those normal ways of doing things being abandoned. they know the importance of our relationship with this country, ukraine, being perverted for some self-serving, improper and possibly illegal purpose for the president and people directed to act on his behalf. so they get not only what went wrong but what the stakes were of it. these were two officials we're going to hear from tomorrow who

understood how things were supposed to be and almost uniquely qualified to recognize what was going wrong and what the cost of that would be, how much this scheme that the president was carrying out was going to screw up something that's actually very important for our country. and we know they're able to attest to that because of their biographies but also because of their deposition transcripts, from their closed door testimony. those transcripts have already been released. i mean, here's bill taylor steaking his claim on that right at the start of his testimony, right in his opening statement what the stakes are here in terms of what the president messed with about what's supposed to be normal here and how we're supposed to be behaving towards this crucial ally and why it matters someone might have messed that up for their own purposes. taylor says, quote, at the outset i'd like to convey several key points. first, ukraine is a strategic partner of the united states, important for the security of

cur tron as well as europe. ukraine is right at this moment while we sit in this room and for the last five years under armed attack from russia. the security assistance we provide is crucial to ukraine's defense against russian aggression. and more importantly it sends a signal to ukrainians and the russians that we are ukraine's reliable strategic partner. and finally, as the committees are now aware i said on september 9th in a text message to ambassador gordon sondland that the united states withholding security assistance with ukraine in exchange for help in a domestic political campaign in the united states is crazy. he says i believe that then and i still believe that. and why it would be crazy to throw that away, to screw that up, to up ind that entirely for some domestic political gain that we're trying to illegally

extort out of that country for our own purposes. george kent, sort of same deal. i think george kent is there tomorrow to calibrate, again, what is normal and how things are supposed to happen so we can see how radical and damaging the president's behavior was when he came in and started messing around for his own purposes with this country with whom we have a very important relationship for a very important reason. quote, on august 15th catherine croft came into my office and asked me -- she said she was trying to find out some information on behalf of special representative kurt volker. have we ever asked the ukrainians to investigate anybody? and i told her, well, catherine, there are two ways of look at that question. if there was a crime committed in the united states and there's some nexus for us to take action, we have two mechanisms for that. we have a mutual legal assistance treaty and the legal atta attaches at the embassy.

but then he says the other option, maybe what you're asking is the political option. and if you're asking if we have ever gone to the ukrainians and asked them to investigate or prosecute individuals for political reasons, the answer is i hope we haven't, and we shouldn't because that goes against everything we're trying to promote in post' soviet states in the last 28 years which is the promotion of the rule of law. and kent says that was as i said august 15th. the 16th, the next day i had a conversation with bill taylor in which he amplified the same thing. he indicated special representative volker had been engaging an assistant to the ukrainian president. that president trump and his private attorney, rudy giuliani, were interested in the initiation of investigations. and i told bill taylor that is wrong, we should not be doing that as a matter of u.s. policy. the questioner then says what did he say, what did taylor say? kent answers, he said he agreed with me. quote, so after having these two

conversations i wrote a note to the file saying i had concerns there was an effort to initiate politically motivated injurious to the rule of law and both to the united states. injurious to the rule of law there and here. and now those two officials who had that conversation, who agreed that this was wrong, this is not the way this is done, there is a legal and proper way to engage with ukraine on real investigations and real law enforcement matters if there is some real concern here under u.s. law. but that's not what's happening here. doing this for political reasons to try to affect political outcomes in the united states is wrong under u.s. law. it's also wrong and hurtful to this key ally of ours who at this moment is fighting a war with russia, and we're undermining them in that war with everything we are doing here. i mean, these are the two guys who maybe more than anybody get that.

and they will start the public impeachment proceedings against president trump tomorrow. and it is not going to be, you know, bob odle standing there with a pointer pointing at an org chart for the nixon campaign. but it will start with people who know how the legal and proper channels are supposed to flow through, what those channels are. and i think that starts us off basically with a moral calibration, so we can sort of calibrate our moral vision so that the country through these impeachment hearings will be able to see how wrong it is and how injurious it was when president trump came in and started acting for himself here instead of for the interests of the united states of america. and to that end, i will tell you one other thing you should know before that testimony tomorrow. i mentioned that bill taylor is serving as the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine right now. so he's base said d at the emba

kiev. bill taylor suz published an op-ed in a weekly newspaper in ukraine, and that op-ed he wrote is running right now in that weekly paper ahead of his impeachment testimony tomorrow. and in this op-ed bill taylor says nothing about impeachment explicitly, nothing about president trump, but he sets the scale -- he zeros it again. he calibrates our vision again back to what is normal and how the u.s. government is supposed to behave towards ukraine and why. he's very emphatic about it. he says, quote, the united states stands side by side with the people and government of ukraine ready to help ukraine achieve its goals, halting russia's aggression against ukraine and is cementing ukraine's place. your success is our success. we will not allow russia to

dismantle the international order painstakingly built after world war ii. the consechts cepts will benefi nations. russia's war against ukraine shreds the international norms that kept peace and enabled prosperity for decades. the united states continues to provide weapons and training and equipment to ukraine's armed forces, and we continue to impose sanctions on russia for its legal action in ukraine. this is bill taylor writing in ukraine today, setting the sort of bench mark what used to be the noncontroversial u.s. policy towards you crane and what u.s. support for that country was and why. and then he closes with this. quote, as everyone who promotes democracy knows, strengthening and protecting democratic values is constant process requiring persistence and steady work by both officials and ordinary citizens. he says, quote, as in all

democracies including the united states, work remains in ukraine especially to strengthen rule of law and to hold accountable those who try to subvert ukraine's structures to serve their personal aims rather than the nation's interests. bill taylor, america's top diplomat in ukraine writing that op-ed in a ukrainian newspaper before flying back to this country to give testimony in the public impeachment proceedings against president trump tomorrow. work remains to strengthen the rule of law and to hold accountable those who try to subvert these structures to serve their personal aims rather than the nation's interests. work remains. this is an exciting eve. we've got michael beschloss here tonight to talk about what history tells us we should be watching for. stay with us. ld be watching for stay with us about making choices.

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so you were employed on january 21, 1969, and continued to be employed until march 14th of this year, is that correct?

>> that's correct. >> are you aware of the intlgz of any listening devices in the oval office of the president? >> i was aware of listening devices, yes, sir. >> nixon aide alexander butterfield's shocking admission july 1973 that there were listening devices inside the oval office. that came a full two months into the senate watergate hearings. they started in may. that didn't happy until july. that, of course, is the development that would ultimately lead to president richard nixon's resignation the following year. it was two months in. the watergate hearings didn't start off with that kind of f r fireworks. "the washington post" reported, quote, if you like to watch grass grow you would have loved the opening yesterday of the senate collect committee's hearings on watergate. tomorrow the house intelligence committee will kick off its first day of public impeach hearings with testimony from the

top u.s. diplomat in ukraine and top u.s. official at the state department with responsibility for that part of the world. both of them saw up close the impact of president trump trying to pressure ukraine into investigating his domestic political opponents and hanging up u.s. aid to that country to add to the pressure that they must do so. joining us now is nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. thank you for joining us tonight. >> my pleasure as always, rachel. >> let me ask you first to correct me or put me in better context if you think i've laid that out poorly in the way the way watergate hearings started. >> no, i think you're absolutely right. and what they were trying to do in the watergate hearings is courtroom procedure. you start off with the manager and he describes how the nixon campaign was organized and you sort of work your way up. john dean who was star witness didn't testify until something like about five weeks later. and the other thing is unlike tomorrow, before the watergate

senate hearings began, people may have had suspicions that richard nixon was at the center of the cover-up, but they could not know that for sure. nor could they know as you were saying a moment ago the fact that richard nixon was taping most of his private conversations, which would completely alter the outcome of the case. >> one of the things i learned tonight looking at that old news foot objectf the way the first day the hearings were covered in watergate is that at least according to the white house, richard nixon didn't watch. he didn't have a tv setup in the part of the white house he was spending his time at the time the hearings were on. the white house made clear, went out of their way to say he was working on much more important things and wasn't going to spend time engaged in this watergate circus. i wonder if looking back on that if fhistorians feel the nixon administration was out of sync not paying attention to how much

those hearings had on the country and the perses of nixon himself. >> i think that's right, although i think nixon watched more than people were claiming. even in support of that theory it was mentioned that charles degall did not have a telephone in his office in paris, so nixon was sort of emulating degall to keep his distance from the television. but that's exactly right. nixon had no idea these hearings would move public opinion as much as it did. but the senate watergate hearings which were not impeachment hearings, those were an investigation. those began 15 months before nixon finally resigned. but we're talking about now is a period that's about to be much more sped up. >> michael, to that point, one of things you've raised in the past in terms of trying to find some guidance in history here, the unusual thing about these impeachment proceedings is

they're happening before the president's re-election effort rather than happening in a second-term, which we saw with both clinton and nixon. now, part of the reason for that is situation specific. i mean, what the house believes they found here was an effort by president trump to cheat in the forthcoming election, to engage a foreign power to illegally intervene to benefit him and his campaign. and so that put some urgency on trying to hold him accountable for that before that election takes place. i wonder how you're think about that though in how that dynamic play differently given that the re-election campaign looms. >> yes, well i think it's going to be more super heated, more divided atmosphere even than it was at the beginning of watergate, which became even more so. >> nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. it's always good to see you. this is sort of rivetingly historic time.

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i don't know what it's like to be a president on the eve of the public impeachment hearings against you. i don't know how it feels. i don't know what would be a best case snare fro for a president in such circumstances, but i know it's probably closer to a worst-case scenario to have spent the eve of your public impeachment hearings watching your deputy campaign chairman testifying against you in a criminal trial. testifying for the prosecution, testifying that you the president appeared to have lied

under oath to the special counsel. it is probably also approaching a worst case snare fro for day one of your public impeachment hearings to start just as jury deliberation simultaneously start in the ongoing criminal trial against your longest standing political advisor. that is how the president is getting ready for his impeachment today, and the overlap gets even more uncomfortable than that. that story's next. stay with us. story's next. stay with us hi honey, we got in early. yeah, and we brought steve and mark. ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment.

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months before wikileaks ever posted any documents. they were told before. rick gates also testified today he witnessed a phone call between trump and roger stone about a forthcoming document. and he told mueller in writing he never talked to roger stone about that subject. so those headlines from the testimony are bad, right, particularly as the public impeachment proceedings are about to start tomorrow. but the testimony itself is just -- even beyond those headlines, it's just deadly. i just want to read you this. we just got in the transcript from today's trial. check this out. prosecutor, quote, do you recall, sir, on june 14th, 2016, the democratic national committee announced it had been racked by the russian government. rick gates, yes, i dooch am question, did you have questions regarding the announcement? answer, we did. question, what was the dnc's attitude it had been hacked by

the russian government? >> answer, we believe it information were to come out based on what we were told that information might be about, there were a number of us that felt it would give our campaign a leg up. mr. stone indicated that he wanted to reach out to jared kushner and political director jim murphy to debrief them on the developments of the dnc announcement. question, on july -- were there any brainstorming sessions done at that point? >> answer, oh, yeah. prior to that point there were brainstorming sessions on the idea of if the information was leaked what would the campaigns say and respond. and once wikileaks did release the hacked material, question, what was the campaign's action towards the release? >> answer, the fact the information had come out, the campaign was in a state of happiness. when the trump campaign heard that specifically the russian government had hacked the democratic party, they thought that was great for them. they thought they could definitely use that to their advantage. they then held brainstorming

sessions about how they'd plan to use this stuff that had been hacked and stolen by the russian government. and when the material hacked by the russian government was indeed actually released, which they say they had months of warning about, the campaign was what's the phrase, in a state of happiness. public impeachment hearings start tomorrow over the president's efforts to use a foreign government to help him win the next election. today's courtroom drama in the roger stone case a timely reminder about the first time he did exactly that. joining us now is chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney from the eastern district of virginia. former senior official at the justice department and fbi. thanks for being here. >> my pleasure. >> i am allergic to roger stone so i find it hard to talk about him as a character. but what's important of this trial is we learned a lot about the trump campaign and indeed the president and their interactions around the russian documents that were stolen and the russian efforts to interfere

in the election. >> of course. of course they're in a state of happiness. this is big deal. the russians hacked into the dnc and d triple c computers and stole stuff that would be helpful to the president -- well, then candidate trump and the campaign. of course they're happy about that. >> in term of the president's, the testimony from rick gates today suggests when the president told mueller in written answers i didn't have a conversation with roger stone about wikileaks, i done remember anyone else talking about wikileaks, let alone the advance knowledge of the timing, gates is saying i released information where that's exactly what they talked about. >> in the president's written responses his lawyer put in an important caveat. i have never been a guest on the rachel maddow show. demonstrably false. you're a witness. we could use the tape to prove i

lied. i don't recall being a guest on the rachel maddow. prove that false. that's much tougher. and in the witness responses everything is caveated. i think that's a verb. everything includes the disclaimer i don't recall, to the best of my recollection. so i don't doubt that the president had nose conversations, but you're going to have a hard time proving it because he caveated it with the i don't recall. >> in terms of the odd sort of news gods sort of joke of coincidence of the jury deliberations starting in the stone trial just as the impeachment hearings are being convened i have to ask you about the parallel a lot of of us are drawing between the russian effort to interfere in the 2016 election to benefit president trump and what we now know in part of the stone trial. the parallel we're drawing between that and what the president was trying to elicit from ukraine in 2020, do you

look at those things and see them as parallel if not equivalent? >> i look at them as parallel but not perfectly so. for instance, the russian effort started in 2016. that's when the russians tried to get four of their roperative into the united states. two of them eventually came on false visas. and that was before we knew who the candidates would be. in this case it was the president soliciting help. one is russia gifting to the trump campaign, and they appear to be willingly, happily accepting it. but this one is little bit different. in broad strokes it's parallel, but the president is going out and soliciting help for his campaign using publicly appropriated military aid for ukraine. >> chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia, former senior fbi and former justice department official. a person i will say talking to you ability these matters and the way in which you present this information is one of my

mer bench marks and one of the reasons i'm happy it's going to be trained prosecutors conducting the testimony tomorrow. chuck is the host of an awesome msnbc podcast which is called "the oath." he sits down with the former medical records to mexico who honestly is a force of nature. all right, we'll be right back. . all right, we'll be right back ahhhh! giving one. the lexus december to rembember sales event lease the 2020 nx 300 for $329 a month for 27 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. for $329 a month for 27 months. my body is truly powerful. i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my own insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it like it's supposed to. trulicity is for people with type 2 diabetes. it's not insulin. i take it once a week. it starts acting in my body from the first dose. trulicity isn't for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it,

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this is my favorite kind of breaking news. at the very tom of the show tonight i was cuvelling about

how nbc covered the first day of the watergate hearings in 1973, specifically this title sequence that was the lead in to the live nbc news special report for the first day of the watergate hearings in '73. and i cavelled about this for obvious reasons. >> nbc news special report. ♪ >> watergate, senate hearings. >> i was like we are definitely taking that special report theme song from 1973. the rachel maddow show needs more tympany. because you are all the best viewers in the world i am now informed and absolutely

convinced that is symphony that is from symphony composed in 1830. i almost can't believe nbc was this on the nose with its music choice that day. but the music nbc used as the lead in to the impeachment hearings in may 1973 was specifically from the fourth movement of that symphony which had a title. the title was "march to the scaffold." thank you rachel maddow viewers for knowing your french composers. french composers.

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tomorrow starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern the live special coverage of the impeachment hearings. if you can't get a tv but you can get to an interconnected device the hearings will also be live straemd on nbcnews.com. the president himself the subject of those impeachment hearings what will he be up to on his big day? he'll be welcoming thea th a t r the authoritarian leader of turkey, erdogan. the last time erdogan visited the united states you might remember his security team beat up a bunch of american protesters here in the united states. so basically anything could

happen tomorrow. get a good night's sleep.