political benefit. we're going to dig into that and a lot more with a new sunday night special 9:00 p.m. eastern this sunday, impeachment white house in crisis. i have some great guests which will make sense of everything and some deep reporting, some of which we didn't have time to get to this week. sunday 9:00 p.m. eastern i hope you'll join me for a brand new impeachment white house in crisis here on msnbc. don't go anywhere. "hardball" is up next. can you hear him now? let's play hardball. good evening, i'm chris matthews up in new york. on a day that president trump may have committed an impeachable act in the midst of the public inquiry into his presidential conduct. and we have breaking news tonight from the nbc staffer in ukraine who overheard the president's phone call with

ambassador gordon sondland. in that statement holmes who testified behind closed doors late today. according to a transcript obtained by cnn, holmes said that during that call, quote, i heard president trump ask so he's going to do the investigation, referring to president zelensky? ambassador sondland replied that he's going to do it adding that president zelensky will do anything you ask him to. holmes testified after the call he asked sondland about the president's views on ukraine. quote, ambassador sondland stated that the president only cares about big stuff. i noted that there was the big stuff going on with crew crane like a war with russia, and ambassador sondland replied he meant big stuff that benefits the president like the biden investigation that mr. giuliani was pushing. for more i'm joined by u.s. congressman denny heck, jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and the department of defense. barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney. and charlie sykes, editor at

large at bulwark. david holmes is testifying behind closed doors in the scif as you know saying in his opening statement that the president did show his intense interest on getting dirt on joe biden and showed he cared a lot more about that than u.s. policy towards ukraine. sir, what's it mean? >> well, that was the mini bombshell introduced by ambassador taylor wednesday. the fuse was lit then, the bomb went off today. the wasn't the only bomb that went off. first of all we had the hearing with ambassador yovanovitch and she presented herself as we knew she would and was incredibly a credible witness. and then secondly of course across town roger stone is getting convicted on all seven counts brought against him including lying to congress. and in the midst and betwixt and

between continuing some form of witness intimidation. >> one would be abuse of power, the president using his office to get dirt and using that as leverage to get dirt on an opponent. and then there's obstruction of congress part which you mentioned there. are we looking at two articles of impeachment being formed before our eyes? >> well, remains to be seen but those are good nominees for tat. look, today was another significant brick on the load. but that load has gotten so heavy that the shock absorbers went out and the tires went flat in terms of the evidence against the president for the fact that he did it. he did it. >> let me go to germe bash. let's talk about this conversation overheard now by at least one witness, probably two

that donald trump a day after he talked to zelensky, the new president of ukraine, basically trying to get from him, bilking for him dirt on an apopant, at least the declaration of one. now we find out the conversation he had with sondland, his envoy basically over there, that the president was once again saying this is what i care about. i want the dirt on biden, i don't care about ukraine. >> that's right, chris. in fact, this is direct evidence contrary to all the claims this is mere hearsay or secondhand information. this is direct evidence that a senior state department career official heard the president's own voice. he heard the president say that he wanted to present an u ultimatum to zelensky that zelensky must investigate trump's political rival. and essentially if not there would be consequences to the

u.s.-ukraine relationship. a lot of people want to say no one has heard the president, no one has met the president. this is new evidence someone has heard the president say it directly, and it echoes precisely what the president said the day before in that july 25th phone call for which we now have the transcript. >> let's talk about the law and the impeachment thereof. the chair of the intel committee said basically that's witness tampering. sounds like he's developing from that something of an abuse of congress rather than obstruction of congress charge. and then of course we have the president now verified donald trump on the phone, on a cellphone line, an open phone to a guy sitting in a restaurant in kiev, in ukraine chatting about how he's going to nail this deal and get the dirt from the new president of ukraine. all on the record now, all verified by ear witnesses, people who actually listened to the conversation. are we looking at two articles

of impeachment here? it seems to me they are abuse of power and obstruction of congress. your thoughts? >> i think you very well could charge both of those, chris. first the intimidation, president trump tries to show there's no criminal behavior by doing it openly. but he's daring somebody to stand up to him and say that is not okay, that is criminal. of course in the impeachment context, it doesn't have to be a crime, just an abuse of power. but this overlaps. it's an abuse of power and criminal. in the criminal context doing something to intimidate a witness is a crime, and it also has the tendency to chill the testimony of other witnesses who may come forward or may be thinking about coming forward with information. this late breaking news about what david holmes overheard about this call i think just tends to support the theory that has been building by all the witnesses we've heard from so far that this was part of a scheme. it isn't justizeal words in the

transcript or summary of one call. this is an ongoing scheme to trade electionfortference for military aid. >> let's talk about the republicans. i've never seen them so out of ammo in my life. they look like the losing team in a locker room. the democrats even though they had the good on their side were just enjoying the victory of a good day. all the president could do today was basically accuse the chief witness who was totally credible of destroying the world like a marvel comic movie. she's destroyed everywhere in the world she's been. are you crazy? what kind of a charge is that? wherever she goes created havoc and destruction, it was an insane inane charge against her. and then he pops out and basically tries to destroy her like a character in a batman movie to keep the theme here, comes out like the joker, jack nicholson, coming out interrupting the hearing today with a stupid, a stupid tweet how this person needs to be

intimidated. it just seems like a bad day for republicans today in trying to defend this president. your thoughts. >> it was a very bad day. in fact, what you're seeing is their defenses are crumbling one by one. all the emphasis on hearsay evidence, that was a very foolish strategy because we are going to start to hear this first-hand information. of course, the administration is blocking it. but is happening here, just take a step back. how all of this is now coming into focus and the pieces are falling into place, this miasma of corruption around trump and giuliani and his cronies and what they were doing in ukraine, i think that today was really a rather significant step forward. i know many of the trump supporters are saying she's not testifying directly to the criminal behavior by trump, but she is laying the predicate. she is basically saying, look, this was not a president concerned with fighting corruption. he was most concerned with getting the anti-corruption

ambassador out of the way so that they could pursue their own scheme, rudy giuliani and his buddies could pursue their scheme. so i think each one of these pieces is coming together to paint a picture i think we are now understanding what the president has done, why he was doing it. and frankly why he's in so much legal jeopardy. >> and a half-dozen of his cronies are heading to federal prison and they're not there already. according to a transcript obtained by cnn, quote, i then noticed ambassador sondland's demeanor change and understood he'd been connected to president trump. i could hear the president's voice through the earpiece on the phone. the president's voice was very loud and recognizable. congressman heck, talk about this. the fact that the president is now -- we've got a june 23rd nixon-style quote now. we have somebody listening to the president in realtime, there

may be another witness coming forward in that same regard we're going to hear from. what do you think this does to the case the president abused his power? >> i already thought it was inarguable because the evidence was mountain high even before we got to today. and as i said earlier it's another brick on the load. but the truth of the matter is i'm still having a hard time getting over the fact that a united states ambassador would in a restaurant out in the open in ukraine where we know there's significant russian presence have a phone call sw the president of the united states. i'm still having a hard time getting over that. but i'll tell you what this does for next week, chris. i think it'll heighten the interest very considerably in ambassador sondland's presence before the committee. >> you're down there in the scif. it's a scif used to do private testimony with people before they go public with their testimony. if you didn't have a chance to assess it it would be irresponsible.

the president on the other hand is talking with a guy sitting in a restaurant in ukraine chatting away on a cellphone, what does that say about his concern about national security, that he would be so deliriously crazy as to be talking to a guy sitting in a restaurant surrounded by russian spies? >> you mean the same president who revealed classified information almost at random inside the oval office? what does it say about him that we didn't already know, chris? >> jeremy, your thoughts as a professional in the way of the cia world. what does it say -- i didn't know the president had a private cell? there he is chatting away with the guy who paid a million dollars to get his ambassadorship, the president chatting away with this guy. >> chris, wait a minute, we don't know the president was on a cell. we know that ambassador sondland was. >> okay, well, what's the difference? the other guy's --

>> chris, here's the point. if the president is speaking so loud effectively he's on a speakerphone for anyone to hear in ukraine the national security concern is that others including the russians could be listening. we might think of this as careless or negligent by the president. but think for a moment, maybe the president wanted the russians to hear. maybe he was fine with the russians hearing him because of course this as described today in the hearing with ambassador yovanovitch was part of a russian effort, a russian originated effort to delegitimize ukraine, to smear those who were standing in the way of the corruption fight in ukraine. it was an effort to prevent the united states from providing military support to ukraine. so the president has been aligned with russia all along, so why would he care if the russians listened to his phone call? >> so well said. we got it, this whole question of verification with the president's conversation with ambassador sondland back and forth from the white house to this guy's cellphone.

barbara mcquade, the big story this morning and i thought it was a blockbuster is when the president tweeted out his attack on the witness today basically accusing her of causing mayhem around the world, trying to destroy her and shut her up, basically. is this witness tampering as the chairman of the committee is saying? >> i think it very well could be. if someone were to say those thing tuesday a witness in court there is a federal statute that makes it a crime to intimidate a witness in an effort to influence their testimony. i think that one could very well character what president trump did in that circumstance as fitting that statute. of course, when it comes to impeachment you don't even need to prove each and every element of a crime. it can be an impeachable offense without even meeting that definition. you also have to wonder is he trying to send a message to ambassador yovanovitch or as well to other witnesses who might think about testifying next week.

so the impact that can have by the most powerful person in the world can be to intimidate, and she said she felt intimidated. >> she was suggesting that further attacks from this president who wrote that everywhere she went turned bad. he said that in realtime. chairman schiff brought up that tweet during the hearing later calling it witness intimidation in realtime. here he goes. >> the president implicitly threatened you in that call record, and now the president in realtime is attacking you. what effect do you think that has on other witness' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? >> well, it's very intimidating. >> it's designed to intimidate, is it not? >> i mean, i can't speak to what the president is trying to do, but i think the effect is to be

intimidating. >> when the hearing concluded, you can hear it right now, yeah v she was met with loud applause. i like looking at secondary characteristics and i notice said the republicans didn't look too happy after this hearing. your thoughts. >> of course it was a terrible no good horrible day for them and the president. i want to go back to ambassador yovanovitch and the president's effort to intimidate her and continuing his cruel besmirching of her good character and outstanding reputation. i said something i shared with her this morning and something i want to share again is that she needs to know there's absolutely nothing the president can say or do, nothing that will diminish the contribution that this outstanding public servant has made to our nation over 33 years. nothing. and there's nothing he can say or do that will diminish our gratitude to her for all of her service to the united states of

america. >> can you tell us about your brother? what happened to him? >> my brother served in vietnam during the height of it, and within 2 1/2 years of coming home he was diagnosed with hodgkins disease as a result of his exposure or hodgkins was the number one manifestation of exposure. and he proceeded to have about an 11 or 12-year incredible battle that ravaged his body until he passed from this life to the next in december of 1991 at the age of 34. >> well, your family has paid much for our country. thank you so much congressman denny heck of washington state. thank you. i want to go to charlie sykes on this. take a look at this. it's hard to find more drama. i have watched a lot of these hearings. this is up there with joseph welch when the counsel for the defense of the army said have

you no decency to mccarthy and mccarthy looked like hell and he deserved to. i don't know if today matched but your thoughts. >> by the way, the president's intimidation is there's nothing subtle about it. the president is a bully. he was trying to discredit her and intimidate other witnesses. republicans have to sit there and realize how much he damaged himself by doing that because i think what made her testimony so compelling was she's obviously a person of integrity. her testimony was susinccinct a she's clearly a patriot and that he trusts someone like a roger stone and demeans someone like marie yovanovitch. and i'm wondering whether republicans sitting on that

committee are thinking is this the hand we're dealt? are we really supposed to try to find a way to ignore her when we're seeing all this corruption, all this evidence knowing what's coming? so this was a very bad day for the president. and i agree with you that i think this is the danger of the politics of smearing. this is part of their play book. you have to attack them. but it didn't work with ambassador taylor. it's not going to work with lieutenant colonel vindman, and it certainly didn't work with marie yovanovitch. >> and you know who agrees with you? people like chris wallace and bret bayer aer, saying he went even further saying the president committed a big, big mistake today going after her in that intimidating way. ken starr also agreed. so there are voices starting to notice on the other side of the aisle politically how bad the president is handling this matter. the presidency i should say. we'll be right back. the presidency i should say. we'll be right back. match guarantee. so with hilton there is no catch. yeah the only catch is i'm never leaving.

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we're following breaking news from capitol hill tonight. state department official david holmes late today told house intelligence committee members that he overheard the president's phone call with ambassador gordon sondland in kiev on july 26th of this year. according to a transcript obtained by cnn, holmes said that during that call, quote, i heard president trump ask so who's he going to do -- so he's going to do the investigation? referring to president zelensky. the ambassador sondland replied that he's going to do it, adding that president zelensky will do anything you ask him to. we're back with jeremy bash, barbara mcquade and charlie. this importance to you we have now an ear witness to a conversation? >> no, it's very important because, of course, the democrats have been -- i mean the republicans have been trying to claim everything is hearsay, and this is going to be direct testimony that what the president did -- what he said to sondland, obviously it puts a

lot of weight on sondland's testimony next week, but again as i said a little bit earlier, all the pieces are coming together. we know what the story is. there's really no mystery here. we know that the president was obsessed in getting rid of the ambassador. we know that the president is obsessed in pressuring the president of ukraine to launch these investigations. the conspiracy theory crazy investigation into that conspiracy involving crowd strike but also the bidens, that there was a quid pro quo. so the kwez is how far are the republicans going to go in trying to deflect this, to try to distract from this, to try to defend all of this because i think at this point they ought to realize that the evidence is going to come together, more people are coming forward and, you know, despite the president's attempts to intimidate the witnesses, it so far does not appear to be working in these impeachment proceedings which has got to be ominous to white house.

>> this summer we have to all recall the context. joe biden was riding high, he was perceived as -- at the time was there one person that could beat this president? in other words, all trump had to do in his mind-set which was the context of the polling at the time, get rid of the chance of biden, smear him up enough so you don't have any problems because you can beat the other candidates. that's all changed. your thoughts about that charlie? think about the president, why would he logically be obsessed with biden at that point? >> because i think he thought that the ukrainian investigation would be for biden what the e-mails were for hillary. it would be the cloud over his candidacy, and so here you have a president who has all of these scandals, all of the suggestions of corruption he's been engaging in and he can play the game of what aboutism, and you know how successful he's been at turning

that around. launching an investigation, and going on cnn and announcing this, it basically creates a narrative line. and by the way, the trump campaign announced it was spending millions of dollars on an ad campaign specifically on this subject. there is nothing subtle about this. it's happening in plain sight. and it there was any doubt about it, the fact they announced this multi-million dollar campaign gives you an indication of what he was hoping to do and how he was hoping to frame this into 202 2020. >> according to holmes testimony he was supposed to come with a meeting to an aide with president zelensky. holmes arrived late to the meeting and when he got to the office was told by an assistant, quote, ambassador sondland and his aid had insisted the meeting be one-on-one with no note taker. what do you make of that?

>> clearly they want to hide the fact there was a directive from the president of the united states to get these investigations going. and i think the very first question that chairman schiff will ask ambassador sondland is in presenting the ultimatum to president zelensky, were you freelancing? were you doing this on your own, or were you doing this at the direction of president trump? and today's testimony that we now have from david holmes shows clearly that this directive came directly from the president. it wasn't just sondland making this up. >> in the latest intent at throwing cold spaghetti at the wall, the latest attempt to say all these people, giuliani, mick mulvaney, sondland, the three amigos so-called, all these people were operating on their own some sort of rogue operation and got no orders from the president. and as you put it there, jeremy, the president was giving orders hour by hour. oemz also testified today ukraine was on the verge of committing to trump's demands

for an investigation in a tv interview. he said ambassador taylor again stressed the importance of staying out of u.s. politics and he said he hoped no interview was plan. zelensky's aid shrugged as if in indicating they see no choice. they wanted it done. they feared if they didn't do what they were told in having a press conference with cnn, if they didn't something dramatic the president wanted done, creating for him the argument joe biden is being investigated over there in ukraine, they were going to be shutout of getting the military assistance they needed to survive. >> yeah, i think this conduct fits either the definition of extortion or bribe wrry, demand a thing of value in exchange for an act. this idea president zelensky never felt any pressure is irrelevant. it doesn't matter. sometimes people who participate

in a briebery scheme are quite happy to get the benefit they wanted even they though might slip the mater dee some money it's completely irrelevant to whether the president abused his power. you can call it extortion, you can call it bribery, it's abuse of power. >> i wouldn't call it extortion for the simple reason zelensky wouldn't say he was dare being extorted. if he's going to pay off these people, it doesn't do any good to trash them at the same time because he's going to have bad blood with the president. isn't that what he's afraid of, zelensky, cur yg bad blood with trump? >> sondland told him president zelensky will do everything he tells him to. he needs the approval of the united states, and in the best

interests of his country he's going to do whatever it takes to curry that favor. >> that's what patriots do. thank you jeremy bash, barbara mcquade and charlie sykes. president trump's longest serving political advisor roger stone has been convicted on all felony counts, witness tampering, lying to congress. how fast is this guy getting a pardon? i would say he's going to get it if trump is re-elected. if he doesn't then when trump is leaving office. if he doesn't nobody's going to work for trump again because this guy has been a slave to trump. up next you're watching "hardball." to trump. up next you're watching "hardball. when liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. wow. thanks, zoltar. how can i ever repay you? maybe you could free zoltar?

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welcome back to "hardball." president trump got more bad news today. this time his longest serving advisor, in fact the guy who really got him into politics, roger stone was found guilty on all seven felony counts against

him related to robert mueller's russia investigation. a federal jury here in washington found stone guilty of witness tampering, obstructing justice and lying to congress about his pursuit of russian hacked e-mails to support trump in 2016. he'll be sentenced on february 6th on less serious charges against the operative, witness tampering and carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. a prosecutor argued in our institutions of self-governance, courts of law or committee hearings where people under oath have a testify, truth still matters. stone is now the sixth trump associate to plead or be found guilty joining george papadopoulos, paul manafort, rick gates, michael flynn and michael cohen as convicted felons. president trump tweeted within minutes of the verdict calling it a double standard i've never seen before in the history of our country. for more i'm joined by ken

dilanian and paul butler. i want to hear from you from the inside of the trial and the smell of the room and what it looked like, i wonder what we can say about the way he walked into the courtroom and crying he exhibited this afternoon. was he under the illusion he was going to get acquitted by a d.c. jury as a known strickster? >> i don't think so, chris. in fact he he didn't put on much of a defense. everyone who was watching the trial remarked on that. there were a lot of questions why he played this out. is he playing for a pardon? because president trump's tweet sure suggested that's under consideration. you know, is he trying to raise money for his legal defense and he figures if he pleads guilty some of that fund-raising is going to dry up? because there was a bizarre cast of far fringe right characters attending the trial every day,

and he's got a whole network, you know, of people out there who are supporting him. so there's a lot of things but i do not think -- >> who's the man of the cloth wearing a surplus of religious garment? what is that about? what was he doing there with him? >> it could very well be. i don't know when he was a priest, but if he was, it didn't help roger stone today. nor did it help donald trump, chris, because donald trump's credibility was on trial in that courtroom and it was found wanting. the prosecutors made a point, that quote you read from the prosecutor about truth still matters, that was a very not subtle subtext. that was about donald trump. and what these prosecutors said was not only roger stone lied, he lied to protect trump and the bad conduct on display to get

these hacked e-mails. this was federal prosecutors who go to work every day with donald trump's portrait on the wall cri critsicizing the trump campaign in the way the mueller report didn't. >> he'll face serious time i'm guessing. and facing when you're 67 years old there must be some empathy from melania trump if not from the president who really ushered him into politics. i'm wondering there any way he can't given the fact donald trump -- he wasn't robbing gas stations, he was working for trump. >> roger stone took a major hit for donald trump, and so when we look at the evidence in the case, it was overwhelming. president trump said in his written answers to robert mueller that he couldn't remember any of his conversations with roger stone.

nagt the evidence suggested there were 21 different conversations between stone and trump in the six months leading to the election. one of those conversations was about wikileaks dumps, roger stone tells trump something, trump gets off the phone and announces there's more wikileaks information coming. and so the evidence was just overwhelming. one of the go-betweens between stone and wikileaks was this guy randy credico. this is how blatant stone's lies were. stone said he didn't have any e-mail or text exchanges with ranldy credico. the evidence, they had 1,500 e-mails and text messages on the day that stone lied and said he didn't have any text or e-mail exchanges, that day he had 72. and so it's such a -- again, such a hit for the team -- for team trump. you think stone's got to be banking on a pardon.

and chris, and when we look at the instrumental way president trump uses pardons for people like share arpaio, today he pardoned some military officers, the pentagon advised trump not to pardon these guys. it would send the wrong message. trump doesn't care about anybody's interests but his own. >> what would have happened quickly if he had turned against the president? supposed roger stone to save his keister had testified all he knew about trump and wikileaks and getting the hacking and dnc and hillary clinton? >> i think he could have gotten a good deal. why didn't he go for that deal? like a whole lot of people roger stone seems more afraid of donald trump than he seems of going to prison. >> either that or he trusts him more than he should. what a day for the president. it was not a beautiful day in the neighborhood. up next, it's been a historic week in american politics, hasn't it? a lot of witness testimony that

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were now affecting u.s. engagement with ukraine. >> the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time for any reason. but what i do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation. >> welcome back to "hardball." it's the end of the week, week one of the impeachment hearings of president trump. and a lot of americans have witnessed compelling testimony. republicans, however, have done their best to discredit that testimony. the president's son donald trump, jr. tweeted today america hir hired donald trump to hire people like the first three witnesses we've seen, career bureaucrats and nothing more. when asked about it he said he didn't think he was intimidating. >> were trying to inintimidate ambassador yovanovitch?

>> i want freedom of speech, that's a political process. the republicans have been treated a little badly. i wasn't able to yesterday because we had to president of the turkey here and i wasn't able to watch much. i watched some of the this morning. i believe it's a disgrace. >> sir, do you believe your words can be be intimidating? >> i don't think so at all. >> former maryland congresswoman dona edwards and david frum, senior editor now at the atlantic. i want to give you all enough time to talk about this week because it's been an amazing week with this firecracker ending with the president's attempt to intimidate the star witness today and being called on by the chairman of the committee as possibly engaging in realtime intimidation of a witness, in other words, obstruction of congress. and of course big news tonight, confirmation of that phone call between gordon sondland and in

the white house where the president made clear he wanted the dirt on joe biden even at the cost of u.s. policy to save ukraine. peter baker, it's hard to put a lot of it into your main bar analysis pieces. what's the hugest story i should say this week of the huge stories? >> that's a great question. look, what we're seeing already just from three witnesses is that the facts set that we had begun to understand was all coming together. republicans are going to say and they're correct that these three witnesses didn't speak with the president. they don't have first-hand knowledge of the president in a direct sense. but as the building blocks the case they're making they've sort of laid out the set of events. it's more than just a sinkal phone call, a whole series of events including and most powerfully involving masha yovanovitch today. what does that add up to, we'll see. i don't know if anybody's minds has changed.

that's an important factor to take into consideration. as democrats want to build their case for an eventual vote they seem to be heading toward by the end of next month, you can see the end of the road for them. they're going to impeach him for bribery they'll call it or abuse of power or whatever they want to call it, but somebody who clearly was using the tools of government in their view to advance their own political interests. >> i think we saw, donna, his willingness -- well, during the campaign of 2016 we could enjoy this sort of street yard awful behavior the guy attacking public politician, grow ups like him. so he attacks a guy being slow thinking or short or whatever, okay that's part of the political contest. here he was caught in realtime today with that tweet of his attacking a public servant who's really defenseless and saying she's caused mayhem all around the world. it was almost like an 8-year-old saying who actually accused someone of causing the whole

world to go into turmoil, getting the causality totally wrong. you didn't create the trouble, you went to the trouble spot. what did you make of his, well, i would say violently attacking this public servant marie yovanovitch today in public? >> we had an opportunity to read the ambassador's testimony and then we heard directly from the ambassador. we heard her say that she felt intimidated, and then we could see in realtime the president of the united states doing exactly what was described and what she described in her own testimony. and she described herself as being intimidated you know what as an american citizen viewing that and seeing the president's tweet, i felt her intimidation. i felt for her what she was describing. and, you know, it was an extraordinary moment in a week of very extraordinary moments, of public servants putting their careers on the line and just

testifying to just the facts. and then the president of the united states and his cohorts on the republican side attacking these public servants who were just trying to do their jobs and the smear campaign launched against ambassador yovanovitch for no reason at all after she had had 33 years of a career in public service without a single smirch. and he goes in one tweet and tries to destroy her career. >> i think he showed his indecency. anyway, republicans on the house intelligence committee used dramatic tactics to claim the process led by democrats was unfair. >> the democrats staged six weeks of secret depositions in the basement of the capitol like some kind of strange cult -- >> i have indulged you with extra time but my indulgeance is wearing out. >> i appreciate it. our indulgeance wore out with you a long time ago, mr. chairman. >> i yield to you. >> thank you, mr. nunes.

ambassador yovanovitch, thank you for being here today -- >> the gentlewoman will suspend. >> what is the interpretation th interruption this time? >> the yanking member yielded time to another member of congress. >> that is not accurate. >> it's awful what the game the congresswoman was playing there. the chair and ranking member may conduct at the outset of each open hearing extended rounds of questioning. the chair and yanking member may not yield time to other members during these extended question periods. david, the rules were agreed to by the u.s. house of representatives. they all knew it. that was a charade there carried out by the republican members. i know they'll get away with it with their crowd. the guys on the barstools tonight on route 40 are going to eat it up. once again they've got the chip on their holder, they're getting screwed by the majority democrats, but here it's a lie. they're not getting screwed.

they're simply told to obey the rules. your thoughts. >> look, who is thisfore th for kind of behavior? you can see tens of millions maybe about 13 million americans watched the first day. almost two thirds of americans have had some exposure to these hearings. we have some majority in favor of impeachment. who is this for? there's no talking point too stupid to say on fox news and be repeated by a member of the republican congress. at that point the president's fate will be in the hands of people like cory gardener, nervous republicans defending insecure seats. they can't say this kind of junk to the voters in their swing states. it's not going to help corny gardener in colorado to repeat this kind of stuff. they're going to have to have

something more substantial. and the roger stone conviction, does the president pardon roger stone? if he does not, what kind of message does that send to other people? rudy giuliani is counting on this as the weapon of last resort, maybe gordon sobdlandlas ninging about a presidential pardon. if roger stone is sentenced to years in jail and the president doesn't help him, speaking of intimidation, that's the opposite. the president is failing to intimidate. >> they'll be felons, disbarred and they'll be wasted. anyway, my guests are going to stick with us. trump released a phone call with the ukrainian president but bears little resemblance of that phone call. that's next. you're watching "hardball." one l that's next. you're watching "hardball. fine, we'll sleep here. ♪

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welcome back to "hardball." president trump released a memo on his first call with ukrainian president zelensky, one he'd been teasing all week. the call made after zelensky won his election for president was largely congratulateory. but no mention of the word corruption which contradicts the early press release they put out in april saying that president

trump expressed his -- according to a person familiar with the matter advisers suggested that trump raise the broad issue of corruption in his first call with zelensky, but trump chose not to. peter, it seems to me that the president wasn't all that interested in corruption because even though his staff said do it, he didn't even want to talk about it with zelensky. >> yes, exactly. we had these two documents put out by the white house now, two different versions in effect of the same call. one of which this looks like perfectly ordinary pleasanttries, you did a great job and the other he raised not only corruption but territory which means defense against russia. neither one of those things mentioned in the documents released today. so one of these documents is not correct. one of these documents is fake. one of these two documents doesn't accurately describe the phone call. we don't necessarily know which one.

but the truth is we're left to guess. now was the president really interested in corruption? so far the only thing we heard the president say about corruption of ukraine involves the word democrat. we haven't heard him say anything that has to do with ukraine but only with his domestic political rivals here. if he understands corruption on a deep level and ukraine and has specific concerns about it, he's never expressed them and every conversation he's had, every new briefing he's given, every interview, every document, the only mention of corruption is in connection with joe biden or the democrats in 2016. >> in other words, dirt on a political opponent. >> let me go to dona on that. your thoughts? >> here we have yet another instance where the white house releases a document thinking that it's going to work in his favor and not realizing that we all have, you know, information that we save it and that we can compare it. and yet again this white house

shows -- displays inconsistencies that can only be explained by either their lying or their reinventing the truth or what we see in that second document is exactly right and there was no discussion of corruption because the president of the united states was not concerned about corruption. he removed the ambassador whose focus was corruption from the ukraine when he removed yovanovitch. so, you know, there's a lot of explaining to do, and i think some of that explaining is going to come next week when we hear from gordon sondland because he knows there was no focus on corruption. >> david, your thoughts? you have about 30 seconds. >> this summary just shows how little work the president does when he's not committing crimes. the president of the united states doesn't talk often with the president of ukraine. you'd think they'd have something to discuss, and instead it's just gas. >> it's been an amazing week. i have to tell you i've never

seen anything like this in realtime. watching the hearings this morning i'll never forget the president of the united states came in on out. let me go back to peter quickly again in a another 30 seconds i've just been allotted. is this like joe mccarthy being called by joseph welch, going after this yovanovitch perfect person? >> what's really interesting is he basically undercut his own republican allies. they had clearly had a strategy of not trying to personally attack masha yovanovitch, simply saying she had nothing to say and instead he comes out and chose exactly what they chose not to do which was attack her and make her a sympathetic figure. >> they didn't want to be orin hatch or specter from the anita hill hearings and yet the president did exactly that role. after today's explosive chapter in the house impeachment drive we can expect hoar drama next

week with eight more witnesses appearing before the house intel committee. and on wednesday the democrats will hold their fifth presidential debate. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on a special edition of "all in." >> the beginning of the story is an effort to get you out of the way. >> impeachment hearings day two. >> sounded like a threat. >> donald trump cannot help himself. >> and we sit here testifying the president is attacking you on twitter. >> tonight the president commits what looks like witness tampering during his impeachment hearing. >> well, it's very intimidating. >> as his former political advisor is found guilty of witness tampering. plus new reporting on what the president's lawyer was up in ukraine and congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez on all the president's mes