tell you that he told mr. yer k yermak? >> that the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted. >> 19 seconds, from over nine hours of testimony, spaeaking under oath, tim morrison confirmed that the trump administration conditioned military aid to ukraine on launching an investigation into joe biden. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." >> never saw that coming. >> i didn't see it coming out of nowhere. >> he was a republican witness, too, which devin nunes must have been going, dude, we talked about this. >> this is problematic. >> volker was a republican witness, and he just -- he gave joe biden his closing 2020 campaign commission. >> a nice clip. >> along with joe, willie, and

me we have musnbc contributor, mike barnicle, national affairs analyst, and nbc co-host and executive producer of show time's the circus, john heilemann, columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius joins us, and. ♪ -- msnbc news benjamin wittus is with us this morning. that's exactly what is happening tonight as the democratic candidates square off in georgia. mayor pete is on the rise in the polls and that could shake things up on stage. >> i'll tell you what, it can, and a new hampshire poll coming out yesterday showing mayor pete rising there. i do want to before we dive in, look at this "new york times" headline. john heilemann, a white house cannibalizing itself. >> that's quite a headline. >> the attacks against mike

pence's people, against their national security. it's just such a steady stream that actually americans have grown numb to the president of the united states attacking his own administration. >> yes. and i think that it's the case that americans have grown numb to the president of the united states attacking everyone and anyone. we saw him yesterday attacking lieutenant colonel vindman from the official white house twitter feed yesterday in the middle of the -- in the middle of the testimony, and you know, one tries not to numb one -- allow itself to get numb to the outrages, particularly that outrage with the president attacking colonel vindman. any other white house we've ever seen or covered, the war against all in the white house would be a sign of terminal meltdown. this white down has basically been in meltdown since day one. we've been conditioned to seeing it as the new norm. >> we're going to get to the

morning session with colonel vindman in just a moment. but first the moment from the afternoon session where former u.s. envoy to ukraine kurt volker attempted to clarify dozens of glariining discrepanc unearthed. in his deposition last month volker categorically denied that investigations were discussed in a july 10th white house meeting with eu ambassador gordon sondland and ukrainian officials. >> you know what we call that in the redneck riviera? perjury. it's what we call it in the red nick rif arviera. >> that story changed yesterday. >> i participated in the july 10th meeting between national security adviser bolton and then chairman of the national

security council. the meeting was essentially over when ambassador sondland made a comment about investigations. the conversation did not continue and the meeting concluded. >> why didn't you tell us about this? >> because that's what i remembered from the meeting, what i provided in my october 3rd statement. as i said, i learned other things including seeing the statements from alex vindman and fiona hill and that reminded me, yes, at the very end of that meeting as was recounted in corne colonel vindman's statement, i did remember that. gordon did bring that up and that was it. in hindsight i understand that others saw the idea of investigators -- as equivalent to investigating former vice president biden. i saw them as very different, the former being appropriate and unremarkable. in retrospect i should have seen that connection differently and

had i done so i would have raised my own objections. >> i mean, come on. they were the text messages that taylor put out, and willie, he's like upon further reflection, yes, i think we did actually enter dnc headquarters at the watergate, but i didn't remember. >> he's trying to save himself from perjury. he's coming back to revise his testimony. he has to do that. the same way gordon sondland did that. the idea that he knew the investigation was about burisma in his own mind made no connection to that being also about joe biden, not knowing that hunter biden sat on the board of burisma defies credibility. whi why would the president of the united states and rudy giuliani be so focused on this one company burisma. nobody's buying that. >> and it's not like burisma hadn't been a concern even in the obama white house for some time. if you're working ukraine,

somebody says burisma, the bells go off, and they go, oh, that's where biden's son is connected. so when volker heard burisma, he's not going i think i'm going to have another ukrainian cigarette. and stand outside and think about day s long past. no, ding ding ding, you're immediately thinking, oh, my god this company again. it's the only thing, a guy with an adequately functioning mind would think. >> volker gets very high marks from career state department employees. his focus of attention was ukraine, so the idea that he's focused attention on ukraine and e everybody's talking about burisma, everybody's talking about rudy giuliani running hog wild. when adam schiff asked him the question, why didn't you tell us that, the honest answer would be because really i had no idea you

were going to have all these people follow me in testimony. that's why i'm here today to refresh my testimony. >> the democrat's lead counsel asked lieutenant colonel alexander vindman about a specific text message yesterday between volker and president zelensky, the text message suggested the ukrainian president may have been expecting a call from president trump. take a look. >> i want to go to the next slide, if we could, which is actually a text message that neither of you is on, but this is from ambassador kurt volker to andre yermak. this test message is less than a half hour before the call on july 25th. since neither of you were on it. i'll read it, it says from ambassador volker, good lunch, thanks. heard from white house. assuming president z convinces trump he will investigate, quote, to get to the bottom of

what happened in 2016, we are nail down date for visit to washington. good luck. see you tomorrow, kurt. >> is this the sort of thing you're referring to when you say it sounds like president zelensky was prepared for this call? >> this would be consistent, yes. >> benjamin wittus, we've had a lot of people whose memories have been refreshed. kurt volker was the latest yesterday, gordon sondland's will likely be refreshed again this morning. i guess better to get to the truth eventually than never but what was your take from the testimony yesterday? >> well, the initial question mere is a question about the conduct of the president of the united states. the issues of any questions of voracity of the witnesses really i think can wait until another day. right now what's really

important is to get down on the record in a sworn setting. everybody's story about what happened, and to the extent that people aren't fully candid to get them to clarify it and tell the whole truth, and then there will be or can be accountability for intentional deceit at some ray t later point. i think right now the focus really has to be on the president. i thought yesterday was a good day in that regard. i thought, you know, vindman's testimony was elucidating and very powerful as was, by the way, jennifer williams', and i thought it was, you know, valuable to hear from mr. morrison and his somewhat gentler understanding of what the president had done, which was still in my judgment quite

damning and i thought volker's clarifications were salutary, and i don't think anybody with an open mind is in any serious doubt today of what happened on that call and in the weeks prior to and subsequent to it. >> we have a lot to get to in his opening statement lieutenant colonel vindman thanked his father for leaving the soviet union 40 years ago and bringing their family to america. he later drew a round of applause when he explained why he wasn't afraid to testify. >> in russia my act of expressing concern to the chain of command in an official and private channel would have severe personal, professional repercussions and offering public testimony involving the president would surely cost me my life. dad, i'm sitting here today in the u.s. capitol talking to our elected professionals, talking to our elected professionals is proof that you made the right

decision 40 years ago to leave the soviet union and come here to the united states of america in search of a better life for our family. do not worry, i will be fine for telling the truth. >> you realize when you came forward out of sense of duty, that you were putting yourself in direct opposition to the most powerful person in the world. do you realize that, sir? >> i knew i was assuming a lot of risk. >> and i'm struck by the word -- that phrase do not worry you addressed to your dad. why do you have confidence that you can do that and tell your dad not to worry? >> congressman because this is america. this is the country i have served and defended that all of my brothers have served and here right matters. >> thank you, sir. >> yield back. >> david ignatius, this is america. here right matters. what an extraordinary statement from an immigrant who has served

this country proudly his entire life. >> joe, that moment here right matters spoken by a ukrainian american, came to this country at the age of 3. she and his two brothers serving in the military, serving united states, talking about his father's confidence that if you tell the truth in america, you'll be fine because -- and again, let's repeat the words -- here right matters. i think that was a moment that ought to connect with people around the country who were watching this on television. the republicans knew how damaging it was. they were attacking him much of the rest of the day, attacking his credibility, making fun of him for wearing his uniform and asking to be called lieutenant colon colonel, but i think for ordinary folks, you can't look at that and not understand that's what the country really is about. i thought in general as ben

wittis said this is a day when pieces of the narrative about president trump's misconduct came into sharper focus. we're now heading towards crucial testimony from gordon sondland in which he is going to be asked about all the key conversations in which he was a participant, but i thought point by point this idea that president trump demanded something of value from the new ukrainian president, the new ukrainian reform president that everybody believed in, trump didn't care about that. he wanted the favor. he wanted the thing which was helping his political campaign. i thought that came through again and again in yesterday's testimony and is going to be the focus as we go forward. >> john, how remarkable that an american hero mocked by republicans. fox news last night prime time

hosts mocking him. mocking that actually he should -- that a lieutenant colonel should be call lieutenant colonel, and i understand that if you are in a safe congressional district or if you're in a safe spot on fox news, you can say whatever you want to say trashing american heroes and you're not going to have any ramifications. that's one thing. that has a ripple effect. i'll say their names again to cory gardner, i'm going to say to mitch mcconnell sitting at 18% and right now a guy that's carrying around the label moscow mitch. to susan collins in maine, to thom tillis in north carolina, this will every time jim jordan pops off and shows disrespect, every time laura ingraham shows disrespect, every time any of these people show disrespect to

an american hero, an ira key war hero, a man who was awarded the purple heart, that may have have impact on those principles who they're taking in their little cottage industry, their little congressional district, but this is going to have a real impact on who is going to be running the senate in 2021. >> so these people taking their cues from the president of the united states, the president attacking through the white house twitter feed attacking lieutenant colonel vindman. over the weekend attacking jennifer williams who was up there with him. two people who still work with him in the white house. those people work in the trump white house currently. the president is attacking both of them as they demolish the republican talking point that this is all secondhand. these with two firsthand witnesses who are on the phone call, who heard the president say the things they heard the president say and found it unusual. i couldn't believe what i was hearing, inappropriate. they testified to all that yesterday. the president now is attacking this american hero, a winner of

the purple heart, and you see the republicans in the committee room following his lead, questioning this person's patriotism, questioning his heroism. asking him why he wears the full dress uniform on public occasions. >> did people ask oliver north that? >> of course they did. >> republicans did? >> no but it was generally -- there were a lot of people at that moment in time who resented democrats, who resented oliver north wearing the uniform because, it was again, politics involved. the democrats didn't like him wearing the uniform because he looked resplendent in the uniform and the uniform connects obviously. >> but again, republicans though. >> you have these republicans who under no other circumstances would ever do such a thing. they're attacking him, suggesting again, making accusations of dual loyalty. some of the most appalling things yesterday coming out of the mouths of republicans all

taking donald trump's lead just like those people on fox news. you ask what the implications of that are for 2020. we've already seen them. what just happened in louisiana, democratic governor reelected in louisiana. what just happened in kentucky? you can see these are -- it's hard sometimes to connect the dots but the way you connect the dots is what you're seeing in kentucky and louisiana, and what you're going to see in some of these purple states and red states in states in 2020 because the president is leading these republicans down a bad path they are doing things not in their political interests. they will pay the price. >> i've got to say still again, r republicans need to understand there was a record landslide in 2018. t the biggest vote total wipeout for republicans in the history of our republic. that's what they got for following donald trump. and on a smaller level, virginia, a complete republican meltdown there. they were in complete control of

the legislature when donald trump was elected. they are lost in the minority for good now because of donald trump. >> all true, and there's one added factor that people ought to think about today. yesterday we saw lieutenant colonel vindman. we've seen the clips. john spoke to it. you've spoken to it, he was wearing the cloth of our country yesterday on stage before america. wearing the cloth of our country, being attacked, his motives being attacked. did you -- are you a ukrainian spy basically? that's basically what they were asking him, the republicans going down that path. to do that, continually all day long, this morning as we speak, the united states army is providing 24-hour security for this man who did his duty to the country. >> this iraqi war hero. >> and told truth about what he witnessed.

>> and why are they? because donald trump is attacking him. >> the army is also considering like moving him to a united states army base to protect him and his family. >> good lord. >> against what? >> the president's attacks and the ramifications of the commander in chief's attacks. >> what planet are we on? >> lead republican counsel steve caster pressed lieutenant kol ner vindman about an offer he received to take a position as defense minister in ukraine. >> did mr. danyliuk offer you a position as defense minister? >> he did. every single time i dismissed it. upon returning i notify mid chain of command. i'm an american. i came here when i was a toddler, and i immediately dismissed these offers, did not entertain them. the whole notion is rather comical. >> it's rather significant. the ukrainians offered you the post of defense minister. did you ever think possibly if this information got out that it

might create at least the perception of a conflict? >> it's much more important what my -- my civilian white house national security council chain of command thinks more so than anybody else, and frankly, if they were concerned about me being able to continue my duties. >> of course. >> they would have brought that to my attention. >> they've accused you of espionage and dual loyalties. we've seen that in this room this morning, the three minutes that were spent asking you about the offer made to make you the minister of defense, that may have come cloak instead a brooks brother suit, but that was designed exclusively to give the right wing media an opening to question your loyalties. >> david ignatius, we've asked many times how far republicans will go, how low they will go to defend the president of the united states, and i think we found a new one yesterday when you had the recipient of a purple heart sitting in front of them in dress uniform having his loyalty questioned because he was born in ukraine, left there when he was 3 years old.

as he talked about last night and yesterday for a better life here in the united states with his family. he was mocked for demanding to have his title used respectfully, lieutenant colonel and for wearing that uniform in the room. that was the angle republicans went to, not the substance of his testimony. they didn't see the flares going up about what the president of the united states did from a firsthand account of someone who was on the call. they were worried about his loyalty because he was living in the country in question when he was a toddler. >> it's been striking, willie, really since the impeachment hearings moved into this public phase that the republican defense has really not dealt with any of the substantive allegations. it's been more a defense of personal attack on the witnesses trying to belittle them in the case of masha yovanovitch, as chairman schiff said in an

attempt to intimidate her in public tweets. this attempt to shame lieutenant colonel vindman as somehow being disloyal. all of it tells you that the republicans don't seem to have a substantive case. as we move forward and these hearings will only get more intense with sondland's testimony today, i think we should have in mind the question of how do the democrats focus the public's attention on core questions? during watergate we kept saying what did the president know and when did he know it? in this case i think we're going to need to have a similar focus about the president's actions, about rudy giuliani, what was he doing? trump keeps saying talk to rudy. talk to rudy. rudy's the driver. what is it that rudy wanted in ukraine? what was he after? i think that's going to unfold in these coming days. again, every time republicans go after somebody personally in this visceral way as they did with vindman, you know that

they're feeling defensive and back instead a corner. >> if you look at the grand strategy of both sides, democrats and republicans, i must say the democrats have been mast masterful. i've been critical of the way they've run their hearings for some time, but they have laid out their case masterfully. one step after another, one fact on top of another. now is a good time to stop and talk about the colossal stupidity of the republicans and their strategy, how donald trump has put them in such an extraordinarily impossible decision strategically by saying it was a perfect call. i did nothing wrong. there was no quid pro quo. every republican that we see knows there was a quid pro quo. >> and yet -- >> every republican knows that donald trump was asking for dirt on joe biden in exchange for releasing the military funds.

they should have and there have been trump apologists for weeks saying just get to the end. everybody knows he did this. just get to the end and say the president did it, so what? the president did it. it's bad but it's not an impeachable offense. the president did it, all right? but we don't overturn an election. they should have done that three weeks ago. instead they are allowing democrats to slowly pull their strong men apart piece by piece day by day, week by week, and as they do the president's numbers fall and the people who think the president of the united states is lying about this and did something wrong keeps going up so now we're at seven out of ten americans because of this -- i mean, you've just got to watch this every day and watch it and go why are the republicans so stupid to just not jump to where

we're going to go at the end? >> the ratings show people are watching, and the republican strategy has been shifting every time because each of their strategies get debunked. they first were saying hearsay, hearsay, you can't do that. this this is all about corruption. the ukrainians didn't know about this. take a look. >> on july 25th along with several of my colleagues, i listened to a call between president trump and president zelensky. the content of which has since been publicly reported. i found the july 25th phone call unusual because in contrast to other presidential calls i had observed it involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter. >> i was concerned by the call. what i heard was inappropriate, and i reported my concerns to mr. eisenberg. it is improper for the president of the united states to demand a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen and a political opponent. it was also clear that if

ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 elections, the bidens and burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play. >> colonel vindman, you indicated that you did include in your talking points the idea of ukraine rooting out corruption, but that president trump did not mention corruption. so when the president says now that he held up security assistance because he was concerned about rooting out corruption in ukraine, that concern was not expressed in the two phone conversations that he had with president zelensky earlier this year, is that right? >> correct. >> did you discuss at all at any point their concerns about the hold on security assistance? >> to the best of my recollection in the august time frame, the ukrainian embassy started to become aware of the hold on security assistance, and

they were asking if i had any comment on that or if i could substantiate that. >> and that was before it became public, is that right? >> yes. >> so mike, you're saying blown to bits. the ukrainians not knowing it was held up blown to bits, about two or three other stupid republican defenses blown to bits all because donald trump won't let them just say what everybody knows. he did it. >> that's the truth. >> that's the amazing thing in terms of republican strategy or lack of strategy, they have all read the deposition that vindman provided nearly three weeks ago, to allow him to sit there rather than saying colonel vindman, name, rank and serial number, thank you for your service. did you listen to the phone call on the 25th? yes, i did, thank you for coming and get him off instead of spending hours attacking him was incredible. >> yeah, and ben wittis talk

about those clips we just showed, how it really did just push aside all of the republicans' defense including lindsey graham's very creative interpretation of the hearsay evidence rule. and if you can, give us just a 30,000 foot look down at these hearings over the past two weeks. what have we learned? >> right. so what we've learned in the broadest sense is that the worst understanding of the president's conduct is the most accurate, which is that he conditioned military aid and a white house meeting for the new president of ukraine on the delivery of specific political favors to himself, not to the united states, and i think all of that is pretty unambiguously clear at this point. what is missing from the picture to a certain limited degree is

how much of this was done by gordon sondland and the people around the president and how much of it was done by the president himself? we know that some of it was done by the president himself because we have the text of the phone call which so upset lieutenant colonel vindman, but i do think that this puts a real premium on mr. sondland's testimony today because sondland is the person who has repeated contacts with the president himself over this period and represents himself including to state department officials who will testify later in the week as, you know, acting on the president's behalf, and so i think the thing to watch for today that i will be really curious about is to what extent

a sondland revised previous testimony again, and secondly to what extent are democrats able to get him to talk about his conversations with the president, and to what extent when he conveys this insistence on the deliverables that are these investigations, to what extent is he conveying something that trump himself demanded clearly, in other words, does he bring this to the door and the conduct specifically of trump? >> deafvin nunes gives us a tel at the beginning of the hearing on how much he and the republicans have on these witnesses. yesterday he told us right from the outset he had nothing, because his opening statement was an attack on the media, it had nothing to do with any of the evidence he knew was going

to be presented. he went into conspiracy theories. colonel vindman shot those down immediately and then he spent the rest of his time trying to get colonel vindman to say out loud the whistle-blower's name. chairman schiff intervened and wouldn't allow that line of questioning. the entire argument that you heard from the ranking member yesterday had nothing to do with the evidence that was being presented. >> i got to say, i mean, i don't know if you knew it or not, i was in congress, and newt was the speaker. i would say if a republican ranking member of the intel committee like did half -- even threw any conspiracy out in a hearing like this, newt would cut him off in a second. anybody would. >> there are lines. >> it is staggering that nobody is at home. there is no adult, there hasn't been one in a very long time but

it's just mind boggling, and david ignatius, the intel committee used to be -- along with the ethics committee, those used to be the two committees that were above partisan fray after 9/11. there were a lot of ugly things that had to be sorted through after 9/11. a lot of really rank roerrous debates about how we were going to track down suspected terrorists and what we were going to do once we caught them. and yet there they were, the intel committee, the gang of eight, the white house. they sat there, they worked on it together, nancy pelosi -- from nancy pelosi to dick cheney to you name it, like everybody sat through it, worked together, and it was beyond reproach, above politics. >> joe, the intelligence committee in the house is a snapshot of how our politics has gotten broken.

that committee was very divided once upon a time, and it got a new chairman in republican mike rogers, who we've all seen on television, and a democratic ranking member, dutch roopersburger, tough old prosecutor from maryland, and the two of them made a deal. the deal was i've got your back. we're going to put this committee back together, and that committee which used to see intense bitter feuds, could never pass appropriations or authorization legislation suddenly began to work. that's the committee that devin non nunes when he became chairman broke all over again. we see the partisanship. we see the bitterness. if it's not partisan enough they'll pull in jim jordan to make it nastier. it's really a tragedy when you think about where it's been. you know, the thing we have to hope for most is this impeachment process will be done

so carefully with such clear evidence that people can understand that it begins to pull people back together towards the idea, yeah, the president did something wrong here. we have to take it seriously. otherwise we're just going to keep going further towards the water fall. >> people talk about the time. it's a time we're in, no, it's not. it's lack of character among people on these committees. just a lack of character and a lo lack of love of country that they put their political party above their country. a perfect exhibit what happens in the united states senate. guess what, chairman burr and the ranking member from virginia they work together very well, and coordinate their messages and actually when they talk in a press conference, you're like oh, wait a second. they're doing the business of the united states of america and

not their own political party. >> wow. >> in the 13 years i've worked with you, i have never heard you accuse someone of not loving your country. in fact, you're very careful with those words. >> i think i did, they are acting like they don't love their country. they are putting their party above their country. it's plainly obvious, and if you want to see somebody that puts their country first, look what the democrats and republicans do in the senate. >> benjamin wittus thank you very much for being on it this morning. still ahead in "morning joe," in one democratic debate joe biden was taking hits from all sides. in another it was elizabeth warren feeling the heat. tonight could it be mayor pete as he makes a major move in the poll? we'll get a preview from steve kornacki next on "morning joe." mr. vindman you testified in your deposition that you did not know the whistle-blower? >> ranking member, it's lieutenant colonel vindman,

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i am so proud of you. thanks. principal. we can help you plan for that. start today at principal.com. live look at the white house, 39 past the hour, and tonight ten democratic candidates take the stage for the fifth debate of the campaign season. it airs tonight at 9:00 eastern and is hosted by msnbc and "the washington post." joining us now national political correspondent for nbc news and author of "the red and the blue" steve kornacki and in atlanta "axios" political reporter alexi mccammond. >> before we get to any of that, i want to talk about bloomberg. i saw steyer up there. bloomberg was going to announce

yesterday, the mayor, and that day slid, and do we know, are there second, third thoughts? because we had been hearing it was a go, that he was lining up and he was launching on monday and nobody was going to stop him. i find it curious -- >> and not just monday has passed by i believe also tuesday has passed and we're now here and it's wednesday and as far as i know nothing is scheduled for the day. they have been very purposeful about keeping the ability -- they are taking soundings, right? the stop and frisk thing, all these things have been designed to read the wind and weather. i still think that people around the mayor believe the systems still are a go, but every day that passes where an announcement does not come i think opens the door further to the notion that the door is now going to close again. >> the thing is steve kornacki,

things move to quickly in politics and we sauce sw last w there was a general consensus and a general freak out in the democratic party that elizabeth warren was on her way selling to the nomination and suddenly, boom, that stops, mayor pete moves up. joe biden's bleeding seems to have sort of slowed down a bill, and suddenly you look at the top of iowa and new hampshire, and you've got two moderate people that are in the space that mayor bloomberg was going to sit in. >> that's the whole thing. i think the bloomberg thing, especially given that the folks around him are talking about skipping the early states, it's premised on warren or sanders breaking out in the early states and someone having to be there to try to stop them. yeah, look at the des moines register poll, probably the best poll, definitely the best poll in iowa. buttigieg opening up a lead right there. the question with buttigieg is twofold, number one opening a lead in the middle of november. can that last until the start of

february? we're going o'it stato start tot tonight in this debate. how does hade hold up under tha scrutiny? the scrutiny of the media. how does he hold up, and the second question with buttigieg is we have seen in the past on the democratic side if you're able to win iowa, generally iowa has produced winners in the democratic side who are broadly acceptable to the democratic electorate elsewhere, and they've gone on to win the nomination, obama, kerry, even clinton in 2016, pete buttigieg has not demonstrated that he's broadly acceptable to the democratic coalition. >> i think that's fair to say considering the south carolina poll, he had zero % of tpercente black vote. maybe a slight problem. >> can i say something, the more people see him the more they like him. i feel like there are narratives being cast on him a, because of his age, which is very young, and b oh, he can't make it because of dot dot dot.

>> what's that -- we've heard that before. we were told that about the first african-american president of the united states. >> a lot of people are saying, and i'm talking about civil rights leaders are saying it's a hard slog for mayor pete to get support from older black voters who are the backbone of the democratic party. that's just the reality. >> i think there's a couple issues he has. first of all, the one thing you see in that south carolina poll, about 60% in the polls say they don't know much about butte jud buttigieg. 40% do know a lot about pete buttigieg. he's also getting 0% with them. biden has been running away with the black vote in basically every poll that's been taken everywhere in this democratic race, but warren has been able to move up in double-digits with black voters. they've shown an ability to at least get a pulpulse with black

voters. you get outside iowa, get outside new hampshire, one of four votes cross the country are going to be cast by black voters. i don't know what buttigieg's issue is there. i've got to say he really skews -- his appeal really skews upscale, college educated, higher income, post-graduate degree that sort of thing. >> i will tell you there's no part of the democratic electorate that's more sophisticated than african-american voters. they are very thoughtful about who they want to represent them, and there is some element as there are with all older elements, there's some homophobia involved, there's some with african-american voters, some with hispanic voters, some with white voters. you also know the one who is know, the 40% who know about mayor pete, what they've heard is there were race problems on the south bend police department and that the mayor has not done anything to solve those problems. there was controversy earlier

this year when we went back to south bend, he ended up in contentious discussions. the things they have heard are not things that endear them to him. it's not saying its insoluble, there's not a big huge red carpet being rolled out for him in a big part of sk and other place where is there's non-white constituen constituents. >> i think i saw some polls before the south bend problems, support in states including indiana, and he was sitting at 0 or 1% in all those states. it is something that he's going to have to figure out. who knows, maybe victories in the first two states propel him to do better. we have something else going on, too, that, again, might undercut mayor bloomberg's reason for running, and that is -- because that's all premised on joe biden being too weak and getting hammered fourth place in iowa, new hampshire. there is talk that a deal may

have been done, just some sources high up in the democratic party that deval patrick got into the race specifically to cut into elizabeth warren's vote total in new hampshire thereby weakening her in a state that she needs badly and in return joe biden looks at deval patrick for his administration. >> interesting theory, it hasn't shown yet, it's early obviously that he could cut into votes. >> it makes sense, especially when you see no path, and he's doing interviews on tv and he's sort of like smoking a cigarette. i say that so to speak. he does not seem like he has a path or a deep and fervent attempt to be in the race. something is up here. >> let's just explain for people who don't know the politics of it. two-term governor of massachusetts. >> a great candidate.

>> eight years, and new hampshire's media market is boston, so they know this guy in new hampshire. he'll pick up some votes. >> what i will say is that deval patrick, governor patrick has been critical as joe biden as a tfr analyst. when he was on our show, i confronted him with quotes he had said about joe biden. and he said, oh, willie, that was so long ago. it was like two weeks ago but you know, he's backed off his -- to your point, he's backed off his criticism of vice president biden. alexia mcka mo alexia you're there at the site tonight. we can talk to steve about how that survey worked out because it was largely, i think, 72% college educated and largely white, so that plays right into his base. something to consider when you see his big bump in new hampshire, in that poll anyway. but clearly mayor pete has

surged and clearly he will be a target tonight of the panel up on that stage? >> so that is certainly the biggest difference for mayor pete heading into this debate tonight. he has firmly established himself among the front runner of this primary field which is not the case for him in the past. that will put a target on his back as you mentioned, but in the conversations that i've had with various campaign aides and folks on the campaigns from all the other folks who will be on the stage tonight, it really does sound to me that elizabeth warren is still the target. this is the first debate since she released her own medicare for all plan, which opens her to a lot of vulnerabilities because she's been relying on saying i support bernie sanders legislation on medicare for all. now she has her own she's going to have to defend, and that allows candidates like mayor pete to draw a clear contrast between himself and elizabeth warren on something like health care to prove to roto voters he the more moderate alternative to somebody like elizabeth warren.

that's really what's reflected in some of these polls. yes, it might mean as mika said, as people get to know mayor pete more they like him more and more. i think it also shows a willingness of democratic voters across the board to be more open to a moderate alternative who they think is a viable candidate relative to someone like bernie sanders or elizabeth warren who are clearly in a totally different, more progressive ideological lane than mayor pete. >> exactly. steve, u i'i've been a little surprised by the pushback on elizabeth warren since her medicare for all plan. i was expecting democrats to all get on the bus and just go to the far left end of the plane ideologically and take it right over the side. this is, you know, john was talking about black voters being very pragmatic, very intelligent, like it's like with barack obama, when he first -- yeah, okay, that's great, you're

black you know what? come to us when you can actually win. as a voting block they knew how important it was to pick a inwii winner. i'm really surprised elizabeth warren was going straight up. she talked about about the funding for medicare for all, and boom, it just stopped. >> it really is interesting. this question we're asking about buttigieg now that he's going to get this kind of scrutiny, how does he hold up. that was the question about warren a month ago. in the months since then her numbers have stopped climbing. they've plateaued or started to fall back. it does seem to me there was this reaction broadly in the democratic party to berbernie s in 2016, the fact that he got 43% nationally in the democratic primaries against hillary clinton, and there was this rush to his side of the party. he's technically an independent, especially on health care. you saw a lot of democratic candidates who were trying to

sound like bernie sanders early this in campaign. you see this with buttigieg who's embraced this moderate idea in the last couple of months. there's been a belated recognition that there's more to the party than that, more to the party than what sanders was able to get in 2016. there were more reasons for what sanders was able to get in 2016 than just ideology and there's a belated recognition that twitter isn't the democratic party. that was driving a lot of the maneuvering and posturing of these candidates. >> great point. >> that is really important. you mean mean girls isn't real high school? and clueless is not real high school? >> alexia's assessments and observations i think are actually really right on that elizabeth is going to be the target tonight. the medicare for all stuff that she popped out, the costs, the 22 trillion. that rattled a lot of people, and then coming back after that, well, we'd phase it in the third year of my administration.

that rattled people even more. there's a quote in the times today that is part of elizabeth's -- i don't want to call it a problem, b. >> challenge. >> in an iowa speech on saturday, she mentioned the word fight 21 times in 12 minutes. she is a terrific candidate, an electric candidate on stage. >> she really is. >> to your point, steve, you can sense the primary voters coming back to the middle and some of the candidates coming back to the middle with them. the vast majority of people you speak to, they want two things. they want trump defeated and you want the country calmed down. you don't calm it down by talking about fighting every 16 seconds. >> it's very interesting that we have had candidates go on the attack. we had, you know, kamala go on the attack against joe. we then had secretary castro go

on the attack against joe. that really hasn't worked out well for these democratic candidates, has it? >> that's a really important point to make because, you know, while the debates are certainly important, they don't necessarily change the fundamentals that we're seeing in the polling. yes, we're seeing a rise for mayor pete and we've seen a slow and steady rise for elizabeth warren, but those aren't necessarily tied to their debate performances. when kamala harris got that bump after she went after joe biden it was a very temporary bump and she went right back down to where shefs was. for secretary castro, it sort of allowed him to stay where he was, which was between 0 and 3%. so the candidates know there is an inherent risk to going after another candidate on stage. what they all will try to do is draw clear contrasts between their policy vision and the person standing next to them or someone else on the stage. i think that, again, going back to this warren medicare for all

thing that is what might be more potentially interesting tonight. that sets her up for a clear contrast with someone like bernie sanders. there will be a whole conversation and potential feud between those two for the first time because he is willing to admit his plan will raise taxes for middle class americans and now her plan that she has put out claims that she won't. there is still a lot of skepticism among voters about whether or not that's actually true. >> and you know, mexico will pay for it. >> they always do. something else to consider when we talk about warren and bernie and their plans. something else significant in the democratic party happened last week, that is that president obama the most popular figure in the country and the democratic party came out and said pump the brakes, guys. he said the american people don't want a revolution. they want an improvement. we worked hard to get the affordable care act. let's improve that. he basically was talking to elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. >> we've said it time ask time again, steve kornacki. barack obama is extraordinarily popular in the democratic party.

obamacare extraordinarily popular in the democratic party. it's been one of the great mystery to me why every democrat on the stage doesn't say we're going to universal health care. we're going to continue the fight barack obama began. we're going to amend it, not end it. that gives them everything, contrast with trump, contrast with republican attorney generals trying to get rid of pre-existing conditions. contrasts with republicans who are trying to shred protections from middle class and working class americaens. it protects them with union members who like the private plans they've negotiated. it seems to me unless you're bernie who really, really believed it, and i respect him greatly for that, but for everybody else up there, it seems like political malpractice. >> you just think, barack obama, i think there's a lot of democrats, a lot of activists who look at obama, trump ends up replacing him.

obama won two national elections with outright majorities of the popular vote. >> the only democratic to do that since fdr. >> yep. a good place to start. >> go ahead. >> i think it is one of these things happening, you're listening to people like barack obama and you're listening to governors like iowa and these other places. it's starting to emerge that medicare for all is a real problem and these democrats are hearing from people on the ground these states are going to be hard to win if they're carrying that albatross around their necks. >> thank you both for being on this morning. >> thank you all so much. what to expect when eu ambassador gordon sondland testifies in just over two hours from now. he may be one of the few witnesses able to confirm that president trump wanted ukraine to investigate the bidens in exchange for military aid, bribery. >> we're going to be talking to david ignatius about that. >> to defend the president against impeachment, the white

house takes aim at its own aides or as peter baker's headline on the front page of the "new york times" puts it, a white house now cannibalizing itself. >> now line up in a circle, ready, aim, yeah. that's the white house. >> peter joins us with his new reporting. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪ - [spokeswoman] meet the ninja foodi pressure cooker, the best of pressure cooking and air frying now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. the ninja foodi pressure cooker, the pressure cooker that crisps.

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prescription eyeglasses. >> they're reading glasses. >> did you ever try to wrest control of the irregular channel? >> mr. could you tell the court what kind of eyes the defendants have? >> brown, hazel green. >> the time of the gentleman is expired. >> no more questions. >> that is a great way to start the hour. >> well, i mean, it makes you want to watch my cousin vinnie again, doesn't it?

>> vindman, no more questions. >> welcome back to "morning joe.." >> i hear steve is a nice guy. >> you don't know? >> i don't know if you're being too tough on steve castor. >> it's wednesday, november 20th, still with joe, willie and me we have mike barnicle. >> look at willie's pontius pilate over there. >> willie, you were great yesterday. >> not a fan, i just think the focus of the questioning hasn't quite been on the subject and perhaps on whether or not lieutenant colonel vindman should be wearing his uniform or whether he was loyal to the united states. >> yeah, that's kind of insulting. >> also with us national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc john heilemann, david ignatius is with us and joining the conversation former u.s. senator, now an nbc news and

msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill, and chief white house correspondent for "new york times" peter baker joins us, and political reporter for "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst robert costa. he's the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. >> of course he is. you don't have to say that. >> the kids love him. >> the kids do. they adore the guy. that's how they spend their friday nights now. who would have thought that. i made the mistake of asking claire what should happen to the houston astros. she said you need to move them to the campus of southern methodist. >> what? >> seriously. >> i don't think i said that. >> i don't think i said that. i said i think there should be some serious consequences for cheating whether you're in the white house or whether you're in the houston astros dugout. >> yeah. she's got a law background, joe. >> let's got to the news. >> what's going to happen with castro? >> i would think someone higher

up in the general manager, head of baseball operations will get suspended for a significant period of time next season. >> so peter baker, you wrote this extraordinary -- with some extraordinary facts in it about the white house cannibalizing itself. >> who saw this coming? >> as john heilemann said, we should be numb to it by now but every day new norms are breached. >> yeah, look, you know, we've seen this white house, seen the president go after all manner of people, former aides, cabinet secretaries, diplomats, what we saw yesterday was another level of extraordinary, which was to say going after the people who literally work in the same building complex he does, colonel vindman, jennifer williams there, current aides to the president they still work there, and it's- you know, it's a tough position for a president

to be in. obviously the people working around him now are testifying against him. he looks, you know, around the room, and he wonders who he can trust. he has done that since the beginning of his presidency. he has always been suspicious of the deep state, if you will, every white house relies on career officials. this president, though has made such a point of being at war with them that we're now seeing it play out on national television hour after hour yesterday and on twitter as the president tries to fight back and says these people basically who work for him are no good. that's quite a spectacle. >> i love how the president calls people that he hires members of the deep state, members of mike pence's staff, members of the deep state. >> never trumpers. >> never trumpers. >> intel officers that he appoints to lead agencies calls them members of the deep state. he's the one that selected them, and yet, again, just firing randomly because he's encircled. david ignatius, of course we've

been talking first hour about how republicans, some republicans on these committees had to actually resorted to attacking a lieutenant colonel who earned purple heart in iraq war, a hero, and it just continued because they seem to have no defense of what the president of the united states did. can you tell me how -- we heard about the intel community how they reacted after the president was in helsinki and said he tru trusted an ex-kgb agent more than his intel committee. >> i think the military has been concerned by many aspects of president trump's behavior. to be honest, i've rarely seen the pentagon brass as shaken as they've been over the last week by trump's decision to pardon or

commute the sentences of three special forces officers who were found guilty of what we would essentially call violations of w war. trump has been meddling with them for months and finally issued this pardon, commutation. >> can you explain why that's so dangerous? >> our special forces warriors, the best fighters i've ever encountered in the world are in the most extreme situations, and you trust their judgment. you trust that if they take prisoners those prisoners will be protected, that they'll use good judgment about when to shoot and when not to shoot. we invest enormous power in people who basically, you know, go in and do knock and seize and sometimes shoot missions. in these cases the evidence was -- the evidence reported by junior officers and soldiers was

that the people who had been charged had not exercised good judgment, and president trump pushed by lawyers who were part of this circle around rudy giuliani specifically have been urging trump to get involved in the cases. why are we prosecutoriing these warriors? they were just shooting people in afghanistan. why should we care about that? this has gotten the military, the four stars in the pentagon, both the department of the navy, one of them was a navy s.e.a.l., two of them were army officers, the army brass, as upset as i've seen in a long while because they feel that the discipline, the pwillingness to report wrongdoing by superiors, it is the glue of our military that has been challenged by president trump. we're focused on impeachment rightly, but these events the last few days have really, really concerned people at the

pentagon. we need to do more reporting about them to be honest. >> bob costa, looking at these hearings you had from the official white house twitter account yesterday an attack on lieutenant colonel vindman while he was testifying. today gordon sondland could be a witness even more of a problem for the white house if he sort of goes back and revises a bunch of his testimony and tells the story of how he ran this alleged shadow foreign policy. what is the level of concern you're picking up from republicans and from the white house about ambassador sondland and his testimony today? >> allies of president trump inside and outside the white house are havery concerned abou ambassador sondland. they're prespinning his testimony, worried that he could bring himself in a way in his testimony closer to president trump because he did have direct conversations with the president based on all this other testimony about the situation in ukraine. yet, when i talked to senate republicans and many house republicans, they're reluctant at this moment to break with the

president on impeachment. they say their voters are still with the president. at this moment, they're more willing to break with the president on foreign policy, on issues like syria, and don't forget yesterday. there was a bipartisan senate resolution against the chinese and how they're handling hong kong, that's some distance with how the president's handling hong kong, you see on foreign policy some cracks but not yet on impeachment. >> it's easy to be critical of chairs of committees who don't seem to handle their hearings well. don't seem to handle strategic -- the theory of the case the way you did as a prosecutor. but the last few weeks, i think have been fairly extraordinary, what we've seen, the way we've seen it laid out. it's been methodical. it's been fascinating. talk about your take as a former prosecutor that built cases all the time on what you've seen coming out of adam schiff and

the intel committee. >> well, it's very clear that the republicans never had facts that they could rally around that could in any way exonerate the conduct of the president, so they have been a little schizophrenic in terms of how they've run around with various defenses. frankly they are handcuffed by every time the president getting angry every time someone says it wasn't a perfect call. these guys have tiptoed out and said yeah, it wasn't good, and then all hell breaks loose in terms of the president getting upset that they're not saying it's a perfect call. there's nothing wrong with them getting me to investigate my opponent. >> it's that loyalty. >> if i can just go back to david ignatius's point about the military. i think one of the things we've got to mention today is something that i didn't think

i'd ever see. that is the navy has decided to go after the pardon member of s.e.a.l.s trident. the trident is what you get when you become a s.e.a.l. it is deeply symbolic to navy s.e.a.l.s. what has happened is when the president pardons this guy, the navy had paused in taking his trident, they announced yesterday they're going after this guy's trident, so what they're basically saying, the highest levels of the united states navy, we are going to do not what the commander in chief has signaled he wants, but we're going to do what we think is best for the ethos of the navy s.e.a.l.s. >> we're going to protect the united states navy. >> and keep in mind that the person who reported this man was a navy s.e.a.l. so this is really extraordinary. you don't see this kind of thing within the special ops forces, especially the elite navy s.e.a.l.s. this is really. it will be very interesting to

see what the president does. does he overrule the highest leadership of the navy, and this is a crisis in our military. i mean, vindman is a by-product of that, that the republicans felt comfortable going after this man who's carrying shrapnel in his body. you know, they felt comfortable doing that. his uniforms his loyalty, they were okay with doing that. what will a remarkable turn for the republican party. >> incredible. >> in this story claire just outlined it's against chief gallagher, edward gallagher who was acquitted of murder in a trial but found guilty of -- >> misconduct. >> terrible misconduct. >> bad judgment. he did a trophy photo with the head of a teenager. >> they're going to take the i trident away from him. it's a definition of who you are. >> big deal. >> when they do that with the permission of the head of naval operations, chief of naval operations, does the president of the united states then fire

the head of naval operations? >> correct. >> that is going to be an incredible story. it gets to everything we've been talking about for days here. we are living under a system of broken government. so many norms have been broken, disturbed, disrupted that this country is now living under a system of broken government. >> well, and the corruption is so widespread. you have rudy giuliani actually doing vladimir putin's bidding by trying to hold up funding to a democratic ally that's been invaded by vladimir putin. at the same time he and his lawyers are running around trying to protect soldiers and sailors who have committed war crimes, and again, importantly, people who have been reported by their fellow s.e.a.l.s, and it's just -- the corruption goes throughout the government, and

it is causing a real crisis in the armed forces. >> let's get more now on ambassador sondland. people close to the trump administration tell the "new york times" maggie haberman is the one they're most concerned about. he was one of the if pirs witnesses to testify behind closed doors but later amended his testimony saying he now remembers that military aid in a white house meeting for ukraine's new president were tied to the investigations sought by president trump. >> maybe we did break into the watergate after all. hold on. >> it's unfortunate. sondland's name came up several times during yesterday's marathon hearings identified as one of the main officials who carried president trump's message to the ukrainians. >> ambassador bolton cut the meeting short when ambassador sondland started to speak about the requirement that ukraine deliver specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with president trump. following this meeting, there

was a short debriefing during which ambassador sondland emphasized the importance of ukraine delivering the investigations into the 2016 elections, the bidens and burisma. >> what did ambassador sondland say to tell you that he told mr. yermak? >> that the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted. >> after this larger meeting with vice president pence and president zelensky, you testified at your deposition that you saw ambassador sondland immediately go over and pull andre yermak aside and have a conversation, is that right? >> president zelensky left the rom, vice president pence left the room and in sort of an anti-room ambassador sondland and presidential adviser yermak had this discussion, yes. >> and what did ambassador sondland say to tell you that he

told mr. yermak? >> that the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted. >> wow. >> by the way, willie, the best part of this, that's the republican witness. that's who the republicans were bragging about having. he brings out the bloody knife and just throws it on the table. that's their witness sfr a. >> and in fact, ranking member nunes says well, your witness. no, here's the letter. gordon sondland's testimony getting more interesting because of a breaking story in the "new york times" which reports that gordon sondland kept secretary of state mike pompeo apprised of this operation all the way through and that in fact, michael schmidt reports that secretary pompeo approved of a meeting between president zelensky and president trump that was supposed to take place in warsaw at which president

zelensky would say yes, we will open the investigations if you give us the money. that meeting never happened because the president canceled his trip. but sondland will have to answer questions about secretary pompeo's involvement as well. >> since sondland revised and extended his original testimony, we've had a series of news breaks involving the phone call that he somehow forgot in the restaurant in kiev on the cell phone. we have seen yesterday two pieces of testimony that made his situation more difficult from both morrison and from vindman. yesterday washington, d.c. was consumed with the question of whether or not sondland would come forward and take the fifth. he is now essentially being cast as the fall guy here, and is being set up as republicans argument being basically sondland is really the guilty party here.

donald trump was not responsible for this. sondland was doing this kind of on his own as a freelancer. >> what a lesson once again for everybody who thinks, oh, if i just suck up to donald trump long enough, everything will be okay. everything trump touches dies. and he's the one who kills their reputation, and he does it proactively. he does it aggressively, and now it's going to happen to sondland, and it's happening to pompeo. >> and i think the reason why, you know, the speculation yesterday about the possibility he would take the fifth today, which we still don't know he may well do. given what his legal situation is now and his political situation, the conversations between him and his lawyers yesterday musculoskeletal vet h clear. he has a choice, he can either say i'm done with donald trump. i'm now going to implicate him in all of this. i'm going to tell the truth. i'm going to get myself out of the perjury trap i'm in, i'm going to get myself out of bribery charges that i'm

implemented in. i'm just going to lay it all on the line and cut donald trump loose. or i'm going to take the fifth because there aren't any other options here for sondland. i think that's why the possibility that he might take the fifth is one that people are taking seriously. he's finally ready to see the forest through the trees. i'm done with donald trump because donald trump is clearly done with me. >> look at the precedent, mika. you've got roger stone. you've got paul manafort. you've got michael cohen, you've got gates. >> all in jail for real. >> yeah, in jail. >> all gave their loyalty to donald trump and what do they receive in return, jail time. >> more details on the "new york times" reporting that willie just mentioned, michael schmidt reports gordon sondland kept secretary of state mike pompeo apprised of key developments in the campaign to pressure ukraine's leader into public commitments that would satisfy

president trump. according to two people briefed on the matter, the paper reports that sondland, quote, informed mr. pompeo in mid-august about a statement that mr. sondland and another american diplomat had worked on with the ukrainians that they hoped would persuade mr. trump to grant ukraine's new president the oval office meeting he was seeking, the people said. >> remember pompeo lying on tv to martha raddatz? lied to martha raddatz on abc. lied to everybody. >> flat out. >> i'm sure the people of kansas, the good people of kansas are going to feel really good about this guy running for senate. >> this is incredible. later that same month, sondland discussed with mr. pompeo the possibility of pushing the ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky to pledge during a planned meeting with mr. trump in warsaw that he would take the steps being sought by mr. trump as a way to break the log jam in

relations between the two countries the people said. pompeo expressed his approval of the plan, they said, but trump later canceled his trip to pola poland. the paper notes that the disclosures link pompeo more directly to the trump administration's pressure campaign on ukraine. yet it isn't clear how specific sondland was in his communications with pompeo about what was being asked of the ukrainians. sondland is going to be testifying less than two hours from now. >> i would say you could read the rest of that story by michael schmidt of the "new york times." we just read it for you. go out and take a jog, right? we took out one word. peter baker, sondland obviously, again, this is widespread, and you have volker going in the first, you know, first deposition thinkings that this was going to be closely held. i mean, everything is being revealed now, and now we find

out that the secretary of state who lied repeatedly about not knowing anything about this was actually kept apprised of it from the start. >> yeah, i think gordon sondland is not going down alone. i don't think he's going to simply put up with what john described as that republican effort to kind of isolate him and make him the fall guy, make it all out to be gordon sondland acting on his own. i think the point he'll probably make today is as mike's story makes clear, it wasn't just him. it was pompeo. you know, he was acting at the direction of the president. he was doing what the president wanted him to do. you know, what the challenge for the democrats is going to be is pinning down how much did the president actually tell him versus how much did he assume or, you know, presume what the president wanted, and that's something that is very key. this is not a witness that the republicans can dismiss as a secondhand actor, somebody who was simply relaying hearsay. he's the one who in theory anyway was talking with the president along with rudy giuliani and has some understanding of what the president actually wanted.

will he put words in the president's mouth that suggested the president himself wanted to link the security aid, for instance, to a promise of these investigations. that's not clear. what he has said in the amended testimony he gave, the declaration he sent to the committee after he got caught out with other witnesses' testimony was that he presumed that this security aid must be linked to these investigations because they had been suspended for so long. there seemed to be no other explanation. he didn't express in that declaration the president told him that. that's going to be key. everybody's watching gordon sondland on the witness list of the public hearings, he is probably the most important witness for both sides. >> david ignatius, gordon sondland is scheduled to take the stand to testify in about two hours from now. and now with this times story, the revelation that secretary pompeo who has run from the truth for several months is now implicated on the front page of the "new york times," you've been around a while, david,

you've covered the state department. you've covered diplomacy, you've covered wars. this system of government under this president with everyone involved around the president, most of them getting the taint, the trump taint and being forever tarnished, what does this do right now at this moment to the story that is about to continue at about 9:15 this morning? >> mike, our system is strained in a way that i could never remember seeing as a journalist. mike pompeo the secretary of state is a perfect example of the squeeze. pompeo wanted to be a good secretary of state. he loves the office. he loves the beautiful building and all the portraits of the secretaries who came before him, so he tried for a time to protect his ambassador masha yovanovitch when rudy giuliani would try to get her fired, he would send one of his aides to

say okay, rudy what's your evidence? there wasn't any so she stayed in office. but when his boss donald trump put on the screws and said i want her out, pompeo folded. we are going to learn today that gordon sondland of course was keeping his boss, the secretary of state, apprised of what he was doing as one of the three amigos working on this sort of irregular policy, yeah, he was keeping the secretary informed, and what we'll learn, i think, that pompeo kept his silence because he wanted to protect his access to the president. pompeo's been straddling this for months. that straddle is going to end, when sondland testifies today and is asked about the conversation he had with donald trump the day after the infamous july 25 phone call, which was overheard by two aides in the embassy in kyiv, sondland's going to be asked so did the

president say now he's going to do the nfginvestigation right, he's going to be asked is that what the president said to you and what did you respond? he either takes the fifth or he says yes, that's what happened. and i think at that point it goes into a different phase, and then we'll have the issue of whether pompeo can be compelled himself to testify. just to add one more thing we should all have in mind at some point the testimony of john bolton, the national security adviser who watched all this and was appalled on the inside, who called it a drug deal, at some point that testimony is going to become crucial. will he testify? can he be compelled? this is all gaining momentum now, and you just see it and feel it. >> bob, you know, compare and contrast bolton with pompeo and what you see is bolton symptom everything, this is wrong, go to the lawyers. i quit and then you see pompeo

hide, equivocate. the difference probably is political ambition in terms of pompeo's future. what are you hearing on the hill right now about the status of his desire to exit stage right and get back to kansas and run for the senate? you know, there have been people in kansas saying no way he's doing it. but it feels like now he may want to get out of town while he can. what are you hearing about mitch mcconnell's efforts to get him in the senate race? >> i'll tell you not only what i'm hearing but what i saw. i was the pool reporter on september 1st in poland as gordon sondland the ambassador was in the room with ambassadbo president zelensky and vice president pence. when looking at my notebook, vice president was trying to tow the line, read the administration's line on investigating corruption, but i just remember to this day

ambassador bolton sitting there icy in his demeanor staring at sondland and others not saying a word and sondland was the ingrash yay tor in that room, talking to the ukrainian delegation clearly someone who felt he was in command to some extend, and now here we are a few months later with ambassador sondland coming to capitol hill. you could see it up close as a reporter back then how so many different figures were operating seemingly on their own in the crafting of american foreign policy. >> mika, a couple of big stories quickly i want to go through. israel jubilant at u.s. shift on west bank. any prospects of a peace plan now dead. and down here, fascinating, rise of -- and frightening, rise of coal fired power in china swamps global emission efforts. china is putting more coal plants up. the new coal plants will actually put out more emissions

than all of the eu, and so we get out of paris. we have just put forth a horrid example, and i'm not going to say this is a result, china is going to do what china is going to do, but we have a real crisis that can't just be fixed in the west. we have to get buy-in from china or this crisis continues. it says any gains that western powers have made on limiting emissions have been completely wiped out, and will continue to be wiped out by china. also guards nabbed in the epstein case. >> left him alone for eight hours. >> i still find it hard to believe they napped for eight hours. it just does not make -- does that make sense? >> none of it makes sense. >> it feels like it is an episode for some kind of made for tv crime drama. i think we all think there could

be a criminal enterprise behind this because it doesn't seem right. left alone for eight hours. >> maybe that's the kind of gross incompetent they have at the bureau of prisons. >> there's no way. >> you had a guy here, willie who was going to testify about presidents and harvard law professo professors, princes. if me wasn't inmate number one, he was in the top five in america, and to leave this guy alone after he tried to kill himself before. that's just -- come on. >> the bureau of prisons offered an explanation as to why he wasn't under suicide watch. what they can't explain is why you had two guards allegedly sleeping for eight hours on their shift and then falsifying their records why nobody even took a look at him. if he's not on suicide watch that's one thing, but not even checking on him for a long time.

>> this seems like a very easy way for powerful men to put way criminal behavior. if you read up on this, the investigations and the reporting must continue, even prince andrew who's pictured with one of epstein's first victims recently told the bbc about a picture that he took with one of these young girls. he doesn't remember that night, and that night couldn't have happened because on his calendar he was with his kids. like if it was on his calendar, it would have happened? i mean, it's ridiculous some of the arguments, the men who were involved with epstein and the children he was abusing are making now and how simple it is because jeffrey epstein is dead. >> it cleans it up pretty quickly. i remember at the beginning of the 2015 campaign, you talked about abooff camera that jeffre epstein and how jeffrey epstein

could play a huge role in the 2016 campaign because of his trips with people to quote, orgy island, and it never came out. none of it every came out. we wouldn't be talking about it today and jeffrey epstein wouldn't be dead without julia brown at the miami herald. >> there was a period of time in the summer, fall of 2015 because of jeff psy epstein's connections to both donald trump on one side and bill clinton on the other side that you had democrats and republicans alike assuming that some of these cases that julia brown eventually would bring to the fore, evidence related to the group settlements and so on that happened down in miami, people thought that would come out in that time frame and would have political implications in both parties that would be negative for the people who by the fall of 2015 were the front runners, hillary clinton and donald trump. none of that stuff happened in the course of the campaign. it took a little longer for it to come out.

again, to get to your point, one does not ever want to engage in conspiracy theorizing. jeffrey epstein's death, we do not know the full story of what happened. >> and the final story that really takes a look, it's a looking glass into willie and my misspent youth on page five. from the australia dispatch, looking for love in a muddy field in rural australia. >> story of our lives. >> it was. it was. >> sad. you guys were sad. >> it was a sad decade. zblp we were lo . >> we were lost for a while. >> i'm lost. >> from australia. to turkey. >> where did we go after? >> we were on work release. >> that's when we went to mozambique. >> that's right.

>> robert kos tarcosta, peter b thank you both. up next we'll talk to a member of the committee leading the public testimony in the impeachment probe. congressman ra ja krishna mor thee joins us. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watc" we'll be right back. to investigate joe biden's son, what do you know about those conversations? >> so you just gave me a report about a whistle-blower complaint, none of which i've seen. tle-blower complaint, none of which i've seen when you shop small you help support your community - from after school programs to the arts! so become a regular, more regularly.

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. >> we all passed on a bipartisan basis to pressure ukraine to do those investigations, their objection is he got caught. their objection is that someone blew the whistle, and they would like this whistle-blower identified, and the president wants this whistle-blower punished. that's their objection, not that the president engaged in this conduct but that he got caught. their defense is, well, he ended up releasing the aid, yes, after he got caught. that doesn't make this any less odious. >> adam schiff with an impassioned closing statement last night after nine hours of testimony. we've got a live shot of the room today. we're going to be hearing more testimony just after 9:00 a.m. this morning. joining us now member of the house intelligence and oversight committee, democratic congressman raja krishnamoorthi

of illinois. as we look ahead to testimony today, what are you hoping to hear from gordon sondland? >> thanks for having me on, mika. today is a big day. gordon sondland was a pivotal figure. he was part of a number of conversations and meetings and communications where it appears that, you know, military assistance as well as a white house meeting were conditioned on the launch of investigations by the ukrainians of trump's political rivals. up until now, there was kind of a narrative that he was one of the three amigos, but as we hear more and more from different witnesses, they appear to be pointing the finger at him and basically kind of coming up with a one amigo defense that he was some kind of rogue actor, and so at this point we have a lot of questions for him. >> all right, so former national security council senior director tim morrison yesterday, by the way republicans wanted him to testify, described hearing about withholding of military aid in meetings that he reported to them national security adviser john bolton.

take a listen to this. >> what did ambassador sondland tell you that he told mr. yermak? >> that the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted. >> did you tell ambassador bolton about this conversation as well? >> i reached out to him as well and requested his availability for a secure phone call. >> and what was his response when you explained to him what ambassador sondland had said? >> tell the lawyers. >> what did ambassador sondland tell you that president trump said to him? >> if i recall this conversation correctly, this was where ambassador sondland related that there was no quid pro quo, but president zelensky had to make the statement and that he had to want to do it. >> and by that point did you understand that the statement

related to the biden in the 2016 elections? >> i think i did, yes. >> and that was essentially a condition for the security assistance to be released? >> i understood that that's what ambassador sondland believed. >> after speaking with president trump? >> that's what he represented. >> did you tell ambassador bolton about this conversation as well? >> i did, yes. >> and what did he say to you. he said to tell the lawyers. >> holy mackerel. tell the lawyers. >> right. >> congressman, will we be hearing from bolton anytime soon, do you think? >> i don't know. as you know, fiona hill as well as mr. morrison, as well as lieutenant colonel vindman who all worked under john bolton have testified, and that i have given us vivid testimony about what exactly john bolton said. obviously it would be great to hear from john bolton himself, but he's hiding behind a lawsuit or some kind of procedural

maneuver where he's trying to get a court to determine that he needs to come forward. separately some people believe that he's trying to hold the information for a potential book deal. in any case, we're going to move forward. we're going to ask a lot of witnesses a lot of questions regardless. >> congressman, it's willie geist. you've got an important witness before you in just over an hour from now in ambassador sondland. what's at the core of what you want to know from him? he obviously has been painted by other witnesses as the man who sort of ran the shadow campaign, the ambassador to the eu having no jurisdiction over what was happening in ukraine but was sort of deputized to run that operation with rouudy giuliani. what do you want to know specifically from him this morning? >> i think the central question is is he the one amigo rogue actor or is he actually acting in concert with others, including the president? i don't see him as somebody who's necessarily going to take a bullet for the team.

the evidence is pretty compelling and multiple witnesses have presented it that sondland is on the phone with president trump repeatedly. he can pick up the phone and call him from virtually anywhere in the world including kyiv, ukraine. it sounds like he was taking his direction from the president as he was making communications to various high ranking officials in the ukrainian government. >> you know, congressman, it seems to me, claire mccaskill here that sondland was part of this because the president was looking for somebody that he sensed trust and loyalty in and that sondland was his guy. he was a big donor. he was, you know, clearly wanting to be close to the president so they pulled sondland into this, which was out of his lane as his job description in terms of an ambassador to the eu. so i guess my question to you is do you think your republican colleagues on the committee will go after sondland?

the president has kind of signaled go after him. will this ambassador, this big donor who bought his ambassadorship, is he going to pay a price now for him getting pulled into the circle of loyalty? do you think they're going to go after him? i mean, after they went affluent colonel vindman, obviously they have no shame. will they actually attack this ambassador today? >> it's quite possible. as you know, ambassador sondland donated almost a million dollars to basically have this ambassadorship. i think maybe six weeks ago donald trump said he was a very good man, a family guy, and then i think maybe a week ago he said i barely know the guy. so it appears that he's trying to distance himself from ambassador sondland as we saw yesterday, even as lieutenant colonel vindman was testifying, the white house's official twitter account was used to attack lieutenant colonel vindman. i hope that the president doesn't do that today again, but

it will be a sure sign that ambassador sondland is getting under their skin if we see these disparaging tweets during the day as well as other attacks by republicans on the committee. >> all right, member of the house intelligence committee congressman raja krishnamoorthi, thank you very much. we'll be watching today. coming up, while the president and his allies seek to out the anonymous member of the intelligence community who first raised alarms over trump's dealings with ukraine. our next guest explains why america needs whistle-blowers. that and more ahead on "morning joe." ♪ what the world needs now is love sweet love ♪ ♪ it's the only thing ♪ it's the only thing

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we don't want to use these proceedings -- >> it's our time, mr. chair. >> we need to protect the whistleblower. please stop. i want to make sure that there's no effort to out the whistleblower through the use of these proceedings. >> just the stupidity continues. >> intel committee chairman adam schiff thwarting yesterday's attempt by a ranking member, devin nunes, to name the whistleblower. joining us is technology and human values senior fellow atarveered university. author allison stanger. thank you for coming on. >> i know this will shock people who read your book, but republicans who are actually champions of whistleblowers, as kurt tells us regularly because he was on the committee, when they were investigating fast and furious and benghazi. they encouraged the protection

of whistleblowers. why is that always a good idea? >> it's a good idea because whistle blowing is really an american tradition. the united states passed the world's first whistleblower protection law in 1778, that's before the ratification of the constitution, which is the reason why you see -- you saw both democrats and republicans in the senate unanimously vote to turn the whistleblower complaint over to congress. it's not a partisan issue. it's an american issue. and i think it's really interesting when you brought up benghazi. there was a cia whistleblower who launched that investigation. and we don't even think of whistleblowers as being associated with that, that's because members of congress at the time did not attempt to out the whistleblower or incite supporters to go after the whistleblower. when others have testified to corroborate the content of the

complaint. >> david ignatius is in washington and has a question. david. >> i wanted to ask you what you think the net effect of recent weeks will be on whistleblowers. on the one hand, the enormous impact that the generally unnamed whistleblower who launched this investigation has had. on the other, the attacks on people testifying, the president's relentless attempts to expose this person. what's the net? is this going to encourage more people to speak out or intimidate them? >> it obviously has a huge chilling effect on future whistleblowers. and again, i would just stress that someone like senator grassley has been deeply supportive of whistleblowers over the years. and he's been silent this past week. i think because it's such a central part of the strategy to distract american attention away from the content of the complaint, which is what we should all be focused on and instead inpune the character of

the people who are challenging the president. >> it's so bad faith because there's no reason to expose the whistleblower because actually what we have learned is far worse than anything the whistleblower reported. >> well, and not only that, but they carry on, the republicans, especially in this hearing, have carried on about the whistleblower tip-toeing up to trying to get the identity of the whistleblower as if it's a game. but what law protects the whistleblower? and if there is such a law, i assume there is such a law, is there? >> lots. there are lots of laws, and it's a real patchwork quilt. >> what's the punishment for actually outing a whistleblower? >> well, that really is going to depend upon how the american people respond to this, because as i have told you, it's a long-standing tradition not to do this. dissent is important in democracy. >> what does the law say, though? >> the law says that whistleblower complaints come up through the intelligence community inspector general. both the acting director of national intelligence and the

intelligence community inspector general, michael atkinson, who is a trump appointee, says this has followed the rules, the letter of the law, on repeated occasions. i think it's really just a distraction technique to keep focusing on the whistleblower and asking him to testify. why would he testify when we have seen the content of the complaint validated time and time again. >> claire, you know about this. the whistleblower has a statutory right to anonymity or just a tradition to keep the whistleblower anonymous. >> a statutory right to anonymity in most instances. the protection, as i'm sure you'll back up, is this relatively recent? in fact, most of the united states senators sitting in washington right now voted to protect specifically the intelligence community whistleblowers. you know, within the last decade. and this all came about partly because of benghazi, partly because of all the activities around after 9/11 and the

torture memo and all of the things that were going on in that sector. so i think grassley point is a huge point. journalists ought to be camping out at his office because no one has been more unequivocal about protecting whistleblowers in the united states congress than chuck grassley. no one. >> the book is whistleblowers, honesty in america, from washington to trump. allison stanger, thank you very much for coming on the show. great timing with the book. and still ahead, more on the two big stories of the day. georgia's stacey abrams joins us ahead of tonight's democratic debate in atlanta. we're about one hour away from what is expected to be the most consequential testimony of the impeachment hearings yet. ambassador gordon sondland goes under oath. the man who had a direct line to president trump while the plot at the center of the scandal was playing out. we are back in two minutes.

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what did ambassador sondland tell you that he told mr. yermack? >> that the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted. >> 19 seconds from over 9 hours of testimony. speaking under oath, tim morrison confirmed that the trump administration conditioned military aid to ukraine on launching an investigation into joe biden. good morning. and welcome to "morning joe." >> whoever saw that coming? >> i didn't see it coming. just out of nowhere. >> he was a republican witness, too, which devin nunes must have been going, dude, we talked about this. >> republican witnesses, volker

was a republican witness, and he gave joe biden his closing 2020 campaign commercial. >> nice clip. >> along with joe, willie, and me, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, national affairs analyst for msnbc, and nbc, and co-host of the circus, john heilemann, columnist and writer for "the washington post," david ignatius, and msnbc law analyst and editor in chief of law fair, benjamin wits is with us this morning. we take some pretty big news to compete with the impeachment inquiry into the president of the united states, but that's exactly what is happening tonight, as the democratic candidates square off in georgia. mayor pete is on the rise in the polls. and that could shake things up on stage. >> i tell you what. it can, and a new hampshire poll showing mayor pete rising there. before we dive in, look at this

"new york times" headline. john heilemann, a white house cannibalizing itself. >> that's quite a headline. >> the attacks against mike pence's people, against their national security -- it's just such a steady stream that actually americans have grown numb to the president of the united states attacking his own administration. >> yes. >> constantly. >> and i think it's the case that americans have grown numb to the president of the united states attacking anyone and everyone. we saw him yesterday attacking lieutenant colonel vindman from the official white house twitter feed in the middle of the testimony. and you know, one tries not to numb -- allow one'sse self to g numb to the outrages, but yes, in any other white house we have seen over covered, the war of all against all inside the white house would be a sign of

terminal meltdown, but this white house has been in meltdown since day one, so we have become conditioned to see it as the new norm. >> we're going to get to the morning session with colonel vindman in just a moment. fist, the moment from the afternoon session where former u.s. envoy to ukraine, kurt volker, attempted to clarify dozens of glaring discrepancies unearthed since his previous closed door testimony. he categorically denied investigations were discussed in a july 10th white house meeting with eu ambassador gordon sondland and ukrainian officials. >> you know what we call that in the redneck riviera? >> what? >> perjury. it's what we do, what we call it in the redneck riviera. i don't know what y'all yankees call it. >> wait right there, because that story changed yesterday. >> i participated in the july 10th meeting between national security adviser bolton and then

ukrainian chairman of the national security and defense council. as i remember, the meeting was essentially over when ambassador sondland made a general comment about investigations. i think all of us thought it was inappropriate. the conversation did not continue. and the meeting concluded. >> why didn't you tell us about this? >> because that's what i remembered from the meeting, what i provided in my october 3rd statement. as i said, i learned other things, including seeing the statements from alex vindman and from fiona hill, and that reminded me that, yes, at the very end of that meeting, as was recounted in colonel vindman's statement, i did remember that, that yes, that's right. gordon did bring that up, and that was it. in hindsight, i now understand that others saw the idea of investigating possible corruption involving burisma is investigating joe biden. i saw it as different.

the former being unremarkable, the latter being unacceptable. i should have seen that connection differently, and had i done so, i would have raised my own objections. >> come on, there were the text messages that taylor put out. and willie, he's like, upon further reflection, yes, i think we did actually enter dnc headquarters at the gate, but i didn't remember. >> he's trying to save himself from perjury. he's coming back to revise his testimony. he has to do that the same way gordon sondland did that, the same way gordon sondland will do that today. the idea he knew the investigation was about burisma, in his own mind made no connection to that being also about joe biden, not knowing that hunter biden sat on the board of burisma, defies credibility. right? why would the president of the united states, why would rudy giuliani, be so focused on this one company, burisma? nobody is buying that. >> and mike, it's not like

burisma hadn't been a concern even in the obama white house for some time. if you're working ukraine, somebody says burisma, the bells go off. they go, oh, that's where biden's son is connected. so when volker heard burisma, he's not going, i think i'm going to have another ukrainian cigarette. and stand outside and think about days long passed. no, you're immediately thinking, oh, my god. this company again. trump is going after biden. it's the only thing a guy with an adequately functioning mind would think. >> volker gets very high marks from career state department employees. he's a career state department guy. and his focus of attention was ukraine. so the idea that he's focused his attention on ukraine, and everybody is talking about burisma, everybody is talking about rudy giuliani running hog wild, so when adam schiff asks

him the question, why didn't you tell us that, the honest answer wouldn't be i had no idea you were going to have all these people follow me in testimony, so that's why i'm here today, to refresh my testimony. >> the democrats' lead council asked alexander vindman about a specific text message yesterday between kurt volker and senior adviser to ukrainian president zelensky, andre yermak. it suggested the ukrainian president may have been expe expecting a call from president trump. take a look. >> i want to go to the next slide, if we could. which is actually a text message that neither of you is on, but this is from ambassador kurt volker to andriy yermak. since neither of you are on it, i'll read it. it says from ambassador volker, good lunch, thanks. heard from white house. assuming president z convinces

trump he will investigation, quote, get to the bottom of what happened, unquote, in 2016, we will nail down date for a visit to washington. good luck. see you tomorrow. kurt. now, is this the sort of thing that you're referring to when you say it sounded like president zelensky was prepared for this call? >> this would be consistent, yes. >> benjamin, we had a lot of people whose memories have been refreshed. kurt volker was just the latest yesterday. gordon sondland's will likely be refreshed again this morning. i guess better to get to the truth eventually than never, but what was your take from the testimony yesterday? >> well, as to the issue of memories refreshed, look, the initial question here is a question about the conduct of the president of the united states. the issues of any questions of veracity of the witnesses really

i think can wait until another day. right now, what's really important is to get down on the record in a sworn setting everybody's story about what happened. and to the extent that people aren't fully candid to get them to clarify it and tell the whole truth, and then, you know, there will be or can be accountability for intentional deceit at some later point. but i think right now, the focus really has to be on the president. and i thought yesterday was a good day in that regard. i thought, you know, vindman's testimony was elucidating and very powerful, as was, by the way, jennifer williams'. and i thought it was valuable to hear from mr. morrison. and you know, his somewhat gentler understanding of what

the president had done, which was still in my judgment quite damning. and i thought volker's clarifications were sallia tear and i don't think anybody with an open mind is in any serious doubt today of what happened on that call and in the weeks prior to and subsequent to it. >> we have a lot to get to. in his opening statement, lieutenant colonel vindman thanked his father for leaving the soviet union 40 years ago and bringing their family to america. he later drew a round of applause when he explained why he wasn't afraid to testify. >> in russia, my act of expressing concern to the chain of command in an official and private channel would have severe personal and professional repercussions and offering public testimony involving the president would surely cost me my life. dad, i'm sitting here today in the u.s. capitol talking to our

elected professionals, talking to our elected professionals is proof you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the soviet union and come here to the united states of america in search of a better life for our family. do not worry. i will be fine for telling the truth. >> you realize when you came forward out of sense of duty that you were putting yourself in direct opposition to the most powerful person in the world. do you realize that, sir? >> i knew i was assuming a lot of risk. >> i'm struck by the word, that phrase do not worry you addressed to your dad. why do you have confidence you can do that and tell your dad not to worry? >> congressman, because this is america. this is the country i have served and defended, that all of my brothers have served, and here, right matters. >> thank you, sir. i yield back. >> david ignatius, this is

america. here, right matters. what an extraordinary statement from an immigrant who has served this country proudly his entire life. >> joe, that moment, here, right matters, spoken by ukrainian american, came to this country at the age of 3. he and his two brothers serving in the military, serving the united states. talking about his father's confidence that if you tell the truth in america, you'll be fine because, and again, let's repeat the words, here, right matters. i think that was a moment that ought to connect with people around the country who are watching this on television. republicans knew how damaging it was. they were attacking him, much of the rest of the day, attacking his credibility. making fun of him for wearing his uniform and being -- asking to be called lieutenant colonel. for ordinary folks, you can't look at that and not understand,

that's what the country really is about. so i thought in general, as ben said, this is a day where pieces of the narrative, about president trump's misconduct, came into sharper focus. we're now heading toward crucial testimony from gordon sondland in which he is going to be asked about all of the key conversations in which he was a participant. but i thought point by point, this idea that president trump demanded something of value from the new ukrainian president, the new ukrainian reform president that everyone believed in, trump didn't care about that. he wanted the favor, the thing of value, which was help in his political campaign. i thought that came through again and again in yesterday's testimony. and is going to be the focus as we go forward. >> coming up, democrat stacey abrams joins us from atlanta

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steve caster pressed li ee eed colonel alex vindman about a job offer in ukraine. it was raising doubts about vindman's allegiance to the united states. >> did he offer you position of defense minister with the ukrainian government? >> he did. every single time i dismissed it. upon returning, i notified my chain of command. i'm an american. i came here when i was a toddler and i immediately dismissed these offers. did not entertain them.

the whole notion is rather comical. >> rather significant, you know, the ukrainians offered you post of defense minister. did you ever think possibly if this information was, got out, it might create at least the perception of a conflict? >> it's much more important what my civilian white house national security counsel chain of command thinks more so than anybody else, and frankly, if they were concerned about me being able to continue my duties, they would have brought that to my attention. >> they have accused you of espionage and dual loyalties. we have seen that in this room this morning. the three minutes spent asking you about the offer made to make you the minister of defense, that may have come cloaked in a brooks brother suit and in parliamentary language, but that was designed exclusively to give the right-wing media an opening to question your loyalties. >> david ignatius, we asked many times how far republicans would go, how low they would go to defend the president of the

united states. i think we found one yesterday, when you had a rescipient of a purple heart sitting in front of them having his loyalty questioned because he was born in ukraine, left there when he was 3 years old, left for a better life with his family. was mocked for demanding to have his title used respectfully, lieutenant colonel, and wearing the uniform in the room. that was the angle republicans went to. not the substance of his testimony, they didn't see the flares going up about what the president of the united states did from a first-hand account of someone who was on the call. they were worried about his loyalty because he was living in the country in question when he was a toddler. >> it's been striking, willie, really since the impeachment hearings moved into this public phase, that the republican defense has really not dealt with any of the substantive allegations. it's been more a defense of personal attack on the witnesses.

trying to belittle them, in the case of masha yovanovitch, as chairman schiff said, an attempt to intimidate her through public tweets. this attempt to shame lieutenant colonel vindman, as somehow being disloyal. all of it tells you the republicans don't seem to have a substantive case. as we move forward, and these hearings will only get more intense with sondland's testimony today, i think we should have in mind the question of how do the democrats focus the public's attention on core questions. during watergate, we kept saying what did the president know and when did he know it? in this case, i think we're going to need to have a similar focus about the president's actions, about rudy giuliani. what was he doing? trump keeps saying talk to rudy, talk to rudy. rudy is the driver. what is it rudy wanted in ukraine? what was he after? i think that's going to unfold

in these coming days. but again, every time the republicans go after somebody personally in this visceral way, as they did with vindman, you know that they're feeling defensive and backed in a corner. >> coming up, we're just minutes away from the start of this morning's testimony on capitol hill. we'll get a preview of today's public hearings in the impeachment inquiry. next on "morning joe." when you shop with wayfair,

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go to dav.org the republican strategy has been shifting every time because each of their strategies get debunked. they first were saying heresy, heresy. you can't do that. this is all about corruption. ukrainians didn't know about this. well, take a look. >> on july 25th, along with several of my colleagues, i listened to a call between president trump and president zelensky. the content of which has since been publicly reported. i found the july 25th phone call unusual because in contrast to other presidential calls i had observed, it involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter. >> i was concerned by the call. what i heard was inappropriate.

and i reported my concerns to mr. eisenberg. it is improper for the president of the united states to demand a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen and political opponent. it was clear if they pursued the investigation into the 2016 elections, the bidens and burisma, it would be the te interpreted as a partisan play. >> you did include the idea of ukraine rooting out corruption, but that president trump did not mention corruption. so when the president says now that he held up security assistance because he was concerned about rooting out corruption in ukraine, that concern was not expressed in the two phone conversations that he had with president zelensky earlier this year. is that right? >> correct. >> did you discuss at all at any point their concerns about the hold on security assistance?

>> to the best of my recollection, in the august timeframe, the ukrainian embassy started to become aware of the hold on security assistance, and they were asking if i had any comment on that or if i could substangsiate that. >> that was before it went -- became public, is that right? >> yes. >> so mike, heresy blown to bits. the ukrainians not knowing it was held up, blown to bits. about two or three other stupid republican defenses blown to bits. all because donald trump won't let them just say what everybody knows. he did it. >> that's the amazing thing. in terms of republican strategy or lack of strategy, they have all read the deposition vindman provided nearly three weeks ago. to allow him to sit there rather than saying colonel vindman, name, rank, and serial number, thank you for your service.

did you listen to the phone call? yes, i did. thank you for coming. and get him off instead of spending hours attacking him was incredible. >> yeah. and ben, talk about those clips we just showed, how it really did just push aside all of the republicans' defense, including lindsey graham's very creative interpretation of the heresy evidence rule. and if you can, give us just a 30,000-foot look down at the hearings over the past two weeks. what have we learned? >> right, so what we have learned in the broadest sense is that the worst understanding of the president's conduct is the most accurate, which is that he conditioned military aid and a white house meeting for the new president of ukraine on the delivery of specific political

favors to himself, not to the united states. and i think all of that is pretty unambiguously clear at this point. what is missing from the picture, to a certain limited degree, is how much of this was done by gordon sondland and the people around the president, and how much of it was done by the president himself. we know that some of it was done by the president himself because we have the text of the phone call which so upset lieutenant colonel vindman. but i do think that this puts a real premium on mr. sondland's testimony today because sondland is the person who has repeated contacts with the president himself over this period and represents himself, including to state department officials who will testify later in the week, as acting on the president's

behalf. and so i think the thing to watch for today that i will be really curious about is to what extent, a, does sondland revise previous testimony again. but secondly, to what extent is he -- are democrats able to get him to talk about his conversations with the president, and to what extent, when he conveys this insistence on the deliverables that are these investigations, to what extent is he conveying something that trump himself demanded clearly. in other words, does he bring this to the door and the conduct specifically of trump himself. >> coming up, when it comes to the democrats' 2020 game plan, stacey abrams says the vinevent ticket will have georgia on its

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we're just moments away from really important testimony in the impeachment hearings. there's the hearing room where it's all going to go down in just under half an hour, before the house intel committee. we'll be hearing from former eu ambassador gordon sondland, who may reverse some of his previous testimony and some questions as to whether or not he will plead the fifth. it is a big day on capitol hill. also in a moment, stacey abrams will be our guest. but first, we want to thank everyone, especially joe and willie, for coming to the comcast nbcuniversal know your

value event in philadelphia yesterday. a great time. will, you brought christina. >> she was the real star, as usual. >> she was, as usual. >> and joe, you brought it. it was wonderful for our -- >> what? >> the heat. >> the heat. >> he brought it. there's tracie potts from nbc in washington, d.c. she was one of the four winners who got a chance to be a corporate athlete. we had a great time. great guests. and we want to just thank everybody for their support. >> you know -- >> more on that at knowyourvalue.com. >> exciting to see the people that were there, and what it meant to them. >> i didn't realize there were 700, 800 applicants to get in the room yesterday. put on the pressure. this was the best of the best of comcast in one place. impressive what your group puts on, know your value. incredible job. >> our friends at telemundo put out an incredible research report. let's move on with the news. joining us now from former

georgia gubernatorial candidate and founder of the voter protection advocacy group, fair fight, stacey abrams. ahead of tonight's democratic presidential debate in atlanta, airing here on msnbc, she wrote an op-ed in "the washington post" entitled republicans extreme positions open the doors for democrats in georgia. so stacey, thanks very much for coming back on the show. great to see you. >> likewise, thank you. >> georgia matters. tell us why. >> because georgia has 16 electoral votes that can swing this election. we have two senate seats that are going to be hypercompetitive. we have the opportunity to flip the georgia state house and win, hold on to the sixth congressional district and pick up the seventh. georgia is a battleground and we look forward to having people compete here, not only during the primary but in the general. >> willie geist. >> so the 2016 spread in the state, stacey, as you know, was less than five points in the

presidential election, as we look as gordon sondland arriving for his testimony just over 20 minutes from now in front of the house intel committee, what do you think will make the difference? you proved that you could upend a republican, losing just by a whisker in that state. i know you'll talk about some of the reasons why you believe you lost that race. what makes you believe this state is ripe in 2020? >> because we have been moving in this direction for more than a decade. in 2008, the point spread was eight points. my election was 1.4 percentage points. what that means is that the changing demography of georgia and also our aggressive efforts to register voters, to engage them and turn them out has worked. with investment, what i was able to do with a fraction of the resources can turn georgia into a blue state. >> john heilemann. >> stacey, i'm curious about, obviously, georgia, i spent am

time down there covering your race, and you obviously, as you rightly say, have a broken voting system in your state, but we also have broken voting systems in a lot of states. so i'm curious about just as a matter of the pure practical challenges that you face in terms of fixing those states one by one, how do you go about that? and is there a way to really go about it in an effective way so that those -- many of those states can be fixed as possible or at least progress can be made in time for 2020? because even though it's a year away, that 12 months is not a lot of time. >> so facing secretary of state who is managing his own election, we were still able to hold his ability to manipulate the system to 1.4 points. what we know that means is you don't have to fix the entire system. you have to mitigate the harm. we're doing that in georgia. through fair fight 2020, we set up teams in 20 states.

we started in the battleground states early, but we're already -- we were in kentucky this year. we helped to restore purge voters in kentucky. we were able to be on the ground in louisiana. we're on the ground already in ohio, in michigan, in nevada. we're across this country working on those places where we can't fix the entire system overnight, but where we can mitigate the harm. and we have to remember, 77,000 votes changed the outcome of the election in 2016, and we're at work in all three of those statsdz. we're also in the sunbelt where we have an opportunity not only to mitigate harm but to advance the cause of progress. that's why i'm so excited about georgia. about arizona, about texas and florida. we have the chance to not only stop what's broken but to actually start to heal our democracy, and that's what's so exciting. >> stacey, good morning. it's claire. i have heard you speak eloquently before about certain rights we have as americans that don't go away just because you don't use them. the second amendment is a good example. you and i aren't going to go out

shooting this weekend, but no one is going to quarrel that we still have our second amendment right. but voting, it appears republicans think if you don't vote for a while, they have every right to wipe you off the rolls. and that when you show up to vote, you no longer have an opportunity to have a say in this democracy. talk about these voter roll purgings that are going on, mainly driven by republican secretaries of state across the country. >> they're referred to use it or lose it laws. the underlying premise, including the one here in georgia was simply if you didn't vote in a certain number of elections, that was supposed to be a flag for you to look at those voters and determine if they had indeed lost their right to vote because they were dead and shouldn't be voting or they left the jurisdiction. what has happened is those have been used as a pretext to remove people from the rolls, particularly folks who voted in '08 or '12 who republicans are afraid will engage in and change the outcome of elections.

as you said, you don't lose your second amendment right because you don't go shooting. i don't lose my right to religion because i only going to church on easter. the point is this is the only right you lose simply because you don't use it because republicans are manipulating what was designed to be a cleanup pool and using it as a purging tool. >> looking ahead to tonight's debate, you're watching closely. what are you hoping to hear from the candidates? what are you looking for? also, what do you make of mayor pete's move in the polls? >> i would say that across the board, what we want to hear is a conversation about voter suppression. because that is the most fundamental threat to any of the issues that the candidates are speaking to. if we want action on climate change, if we want reproductive health to be a choice for americans, if we want there to be real progress made on our economy, on health care, we have to have the right to elect leaders who will live out those values. and i live in a state where what the people ask for is not what

we're getting from the person who became governor. what we know is if we can talk about voter suppression and raise the issue of voting protection, then we can start to change how people see and engage in our elections. and writ large, i'm excited about having these candidates here in georgia because they need to know georgia is a battleground state, so i want to hear them talk about how much they love georgia before they get on the stage and i want to see them prove it when they come back. >> after they talk about how much they love joenchgeorgia to what are the issues in georgia you would have a democratic candidate focus on? ? health care is a critical issue. georgia is one of 14 states who refuses to expand medicaid. the governor has rejected the $213 million plan to cover 490,000 people. it's that disconnect between making certain that you serve your people and making certain that you're being a smart steward of their dollars that's causing harm not only in georgia

but across 14 states that have refused to expand medicaid. but the larger conversation of health care has to come back to are the people who need to be served actually participating in our process? and that's why voter suppression and voter protection has to be the core issue that we discuss every single day for the rest of this campaign. >> so a lot of these democratic debates have centered around health care. how to best get to universal health care. that's something all the democratic candidates have agreed on. there has been a bit of a debate over the past several weeks on whether elizabeth warren is losing support because her medicare for all plan would take away private health insurance plans for about 160 million, 165 million americans. i'm curious, as you were campaigning across the state of georg georgia, did you find that democrats wanted to move more to that sort of plan or wanted to take what barack obama started and actually make it even

better, move even closer to universal health care? >> in georgia, we want to just get what president obama delivered. we have yet to achieve even the basics. we're part of the federal exchange, but we don't have medicaid expansion. as i pointed out, nearly half a million georgians are being denied access to health care. if you expand this to the national conversation, everyone is excited to hear about plans to make health care better. and yes, we're going to argue about the reality of what can be done. but for so many americans, we're still grappling with the basics. do you have access to health care? are your rural hospitals being shut down because of republican intransigence that refused to invest in the people who need health care the most? regardless of what the plan is, what's critical is we're the only party talking about how we improve health care, and that debate and more importantly that intention is what americans want to see. they want to know we're doing our best to make lives better for others. >> what she just talked about, rural health care.

i think it's been a missed opportunity so far for democrats. because donald trump has been just ravaging rural health care. it's part of his plan to do that. moving forward. republicans have done it as well. it's a real opening for democrats to explain to rural voters how they're going to be better off moving beyond donald trump's attempt to abolish obamacare. >> stacey abrams, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. >> thank you so much, stacey. >> and as -- >> thank you for having me. >> as the impeachment probe ramps up, republicans keep changing their defense of the president. we heard a new one yesterday. take a listen. >> you said in the military culture, which you and i are both familiar with, when a superior officer asked for a favor of a subordinate, they will interpret that as a demand. is that a fair synopsis of what you previously stated? >> when a superior makes a

request, that's an order. >> in short then, you think your interpretation of a favor as a demand is based on your military experience, and the military culture. >> i think that is correct. >> i think that is correct. is president trump a member of the military? >> he's not. >> has he ever served in the military? >> not that i'm aware of. >> is president zelensky a member of the military. >> he's not. would it be fair, then, to take a person who has never served in the military and to take your reevaluation of their words based on your military experience and your military culture and to attach that culture and that meaning of those words to someone who has never served? >> representative, i made that judgment. i stick by that judgment. >> remarkable. that you actually have a sitting member of congress, willie, suggesting that the commander in chief is too stupid. the commander in chief is too

stupid to understand that you can't extort a foreign democratic power for political dirt because he never served in the military. >> you're either dumb or dishonest. the congressman there is not dumb so he's dishonest. he knows the president is the commander in chief of the united states military. that level of contortion to defend the president is frankly embarrassing. it's pathetic, but embarrassing that a sitting united states congressman would pretend he doesn't understand exactly what happened and that the president is the commander in chief. >> let's bring in u.s. national editor of the financial times, edward luce. summarize the past couple weeks of hearings and what it has led us to. >> what i think it's become very clear that there's no republican defense of the president going on. that they're not attempting to justify his actions.

they're trying to shoot the messengers. whether that messenger is lieutenant colonel vindman, whether it's ambassador bill taylor, whether it's any number of credible witnesses who are currently serving or recently serving in the white house, it's to impugn their character, to find the lowest possible potential motive and assume that is the real one. so there is no defense. the best description is the cartoon that ran the other day, nixon saying i'm not a crook. trump saying i am a crook, so what. that's essentially the republican line. so what? >> we just got, by the way, ju opening statement of ambassador sondland. i go to page five of it. he says the suggestion we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false. i now have identified certain state department emails and

messages that provide contemporaneous support for my view. these emails show that the leadership of state, nsc and the white house were all informed about the ukraine efforts from may 23rd, 2019, until the security aid was released on september 11th, 2019. i will quote from some of those messages with you shortly in the hope that the white house that ambassador sondland would go quietly into that dark night are going to be unfulfilled today in his testimony. go ahead, ed. >> his memory has been refreshed, famously refreshed. i think he has also concentrated his mind in the fact that roger stone was jailed on seven counts, one of which was misleading congress, lying to congress. so his memory has been refreshed. he has been told he heard the president say i hardly know this

gentleman. he has been cut loose by trump. >> and, ed, let me give you his response to that. first, ambassador volker and i worked with mr. giuliani on ukraine matters, and here is the line, at expressed direction of the president of the united states. >> if you read further, joe, he goes on to say in the next page, quote, mr. giuliani was expressing the desire to the president of the united states. we knew that these investigations were important to the president. >> and above that, willie, mr. giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. those words, quid pro quo. mr. giuliani demanded, et cetera, et cetera. i was acting in good faith as presidential appointee, i followed the directions of the president. we worked with mr. giuliani, because the president directed us to do so. we're watching mr. sondland try

to shift from saying i'm not going to be the fall guy here. the fall guys are yooudy giuliani and donald trump. >> he says we did not want to work with mr. giuliani. in clear black and white. >> ed luce, ed, i'm not good at predicting headlines but i can predict tomorrow's headline and this is mr. sondland's words. we followed the president's orders. ed? >> yeah. he has been given no choice. trump is now going to be under pressure to allow mike pompeo to testify. i think john bolton's testimony is going to come front and center. i do think that this impeachment inquiry, today is the most important day yet that we know already from sondland's opening statement. the walls are closing in. this is not a predictable game. and sondland's been cut loose.

and he's behaving as any rational person would do in the circumstance. he's not going to continue to commit perjury. that's what he's saying today. he will fess up to the orchestrated role that he was part of at the behest of president trump to get a quid pro quo. >> wow! >> that's essentially what we're getting to rights today. >> option one was -- >> we learned that the white house also suspended security aid to ukraine. i was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid as the ukrainians needed those funds to fight against russian aggression. >> hopping ahead a bit, new information about the phone call at the restaurant in kyiv. >> oh, okay. >> and he says the following about that. i spoke by phone with mr. trump. the call lasted five minutes. i remember is with at a restaurant in kyiv. i have no reason to doubt that

this conversation included the subject of investigations. he goes on to say other witnesses have recently shared their recollection of overhearing this call. for the most part, i have no reason to doubt their accounts, talking about david holmes, who said he overheard the president talking loudly through the phone with ambassador sondland about investigations into joe biden and burisma. >> wow! >> yeah. ed luce even the overheard phone calls, it seems that sondland is going to confirm just about everything that we've heard so far over the past two weeks. >> and let's just remember, it was only a month ago, in mid october, that he testified that he had heard nothing about any linkage between the suspension of aid to ukraine and the campaign that trump was demanding. he had heard nothing about that. one month later, he is now confirming everything. that's the speed with which this is changing. and it is quite remarkable.

>> page 14, i know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question. was there a quid pro quo. as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and white house meeting, the answer is yes. >> and further on down on page 14, within my state department emails, there is a july 19th email i sent to secretary pompeo, secretary perry, brian mccormack, acting chief of staff and omb director mick mulvaney and senior adviser robert blair. a lot of senior officials. here is my exact quote from that email. i talked to zelensky just now. he is receiprepared to receive potuses call. he will run a transparent investigation and will turn over every stone. everyone was in the loop. >> mike pompeo was in the loop

on page 18, state department is fully supportive of our engagement in state affairs, was aware that a commitment to investigations was among the issues that we were pursuing on tuesday, september 3rd, i sent secretary pomp deo an email to express my appreciation for his joining a series of meetings in brussels following the warsaw trip. i wrote, mike, thanks for schlepping to europe i think it was really important and the chemistry seems promising. really appreciate it. pompeo replied, all good. you're doing great work. keep banging away. state department leadership expressed total support for our efforts to engage a new ukrainian administration, which of course he now says included with this quid pro quo, arms for political dirt. >> back up to page 16 nonetheless, before the september 1st warsaw meeting, ukrainians had become aware that security funds had yet to be dispersed in the absence of any

credible explanation for the hold. i came to the conclusion that the aid, like the white house visit, was jeopardized. in preparation for the meeting i asked secretary pompeo whether face-to-face conversations between trump with zelensky could help break the log jams. i emailed secretary pompeo directly, copying secretary mckenna. should we have potus meet with zelensky? i would look him in the eye and say once the folks were in place in september, he should be able to move forward publicly with confidence on those issues of importance to potus and the u.s. hopefully, that will break the log jam. and pompeo replied yes. >> and quite early on, mr. sondland really declares war on the white house and the state department when he indicates i've had hundreds of meetings

and calls with individuals but i am not a note taker never have been. backup materials about his conversations yet these materials were not provided to me. they have also refused to share these materials with this committee. these documents are not classified and, in fairness, should have been made available. >> let's go back to ed luce. we just heard a ridiculous defense of the president, that he was too stupid to understand what he was requesting of the lieutenant colonel. you could make a montage, 20-minute montage of all the idiotic defenses the republicans have trotted out over the past several weeks and several months actually. and this testimony today, in this opening statement, you have ambassador sondland, a man who contributed $1 million to donald trump and is a trumpist from day

one. you have ambassador sondland ripping every one of the republican strongmen to shreds. >> one can only imagine devin nunes, jim jordans and others are speed leading this opening statement of sondland, what they're preparing. they've retreated from one position to another the last few weeks. all they're left with really is to assassinate his character. in this case with gordon sondland it's going to be easier to do than with lieutenant colonel vindman, bill taylor, marie yovanovitch because of his prominence, basically that he paid to play, to get this job with that million dollar donation. tomorrow we've got a highly credible witness, fiona hill, russia expert. she's going to be extremely h