msnbc.com/now, the msnbc app and apple tv. and you can find me on social media, twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat, linked in, all that stuff. thank you for watching. have a great weekend. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace begins right now. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. donald trump today resorting to a familiar tactic spreading lies and smears on one of his favorite cable news programs in the wake of the house democrat's public hearings this week providing irrefutable evidence that donald trump conditioned refused military aid could tukt informations. the "new york times" writes, quote, president trump unleashed a series of falsehoods on friday on an effort to invalidate the impeachment inquiry and counter sworn testimony from officials in his own administration. after a week of damaging public

hearings. and while divisions in our politics endure, it's beyond debate that the democrats' fact witnesses, the majority of them, trump appointees and career diplomats, painted a devastating picture of presidential misconduct that was damning enough that the "new york times" today describes trump's republican allies as, quote, all but certain that the house will move forward to impeach president trump. nbc news reports today that the house is expecting to vote on articles of impeachment in a matter of weeks as republicans face a devastating dismantling of their last remaining defenses against the allegations at the heart of the ukraine scandal. "the washington post" adds this. quote, the committee has begun writing a report summarizing its findings according to people familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously to discuss the democrats' next move. once that's completed proceedings move to the house judiciary committee which will draft specific articles of impeachment. the judiciary committee could begin its work when lawmakers return from thanksgiving. what we now know for certain

based on the public testimony of 12 of trump's own current and former administration officials is that there was, without question, a quid pro quo with ukraine. a pursuit trump's former senior aide fiona hill rebranded this week as, quote, political errands we have also learned that the ukrainians knew full well that their military aid was in jeopardy as early as the day of the july 25th phone call when trump asked zelensky for a favor though. investigations into the bidens and that when it came to the day-to-day machinations of the pressure campaign, the president wi -- everyone was in the loop. >> mr. giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. was there a quid pro quo? the answer is yes. >> what did ambassador sondland

tell you that he told m 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. >> your staff at least gleaned from those conversations that the ukrainian embassy was aware that there was some kind of a hold on the assistance. >> sir, the way i would phrase it is that there was some kind of an issue, yes. >> secretary perry, ambassador volker, and i worked with mr. rudy giuliani on ukraine matters at the express direction of the president of the united states. >> i was upset with him that he wasn't fully telling us about all of the meetings that he was having. and he said to me but i am briefing the president, i am briefing chief of staff mulvaney, i am briefing secretary pompeo, and i have talked to ambassador bolton.

who else do i have to deal with? he was being involved in a domestic political errand. and we were being involved in national security foreign policy, and those two things had just diverged. i did say to him ambassador sondland, i think this is all going to blow up, and here we are. >> and here we are. those witnesses again some of whom still work in the trump administration are consistent and they tell a damaging story leaving such little room for spin that president trump today had to resort to an attack on ukraine and a baseless conspiracy theory that every single one of the witnesses to date has debunked in a head-spinning rebuttal interview this morning on fox and friends. >> why should we give money to a country that's known corrupt, it's a very corrupt country. i love the people in ukraine. i know ukrainian people. they are great people. but it's known as being the third most corrupt consider eye in the world. now, with this guy who, by the

way i hardly know him, i still want to see that server. the fbi's never gotten that server. that's a big part of this whole thing. why did they give it to a ukrainian company? >> are you sure they did that? are you sure they gave it to ukraine? >> well, that's what the word is. that's what i asked actually in my phone call. i asked it very point-blank because we are looking for corruption. >> that's what the word is from whom? from rudy? again, there is no truth to what the president is saying. and there is a new report in the "new york times" reveals this claim that ukraine meddled in the 2016 election is literally a russian talking point, part of a years-long russian operation to blame ukraine to deflect from what it got caught doing, interfering in our election in 2016. that's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. former u.s. attorney joyce vance joins us, michael steele, former chairman of the rnc is here.

at the table kimberly atkins, senior correspondent for boston's public news station, "new york times" political reporter nick confessori, and contributor for the bulwark, tim miller is here. kim, i have to start with you. you could not make up, you know, a new cycle to prove that everything that fiona hill tried to tell donald trump behind closed doors fell on deaf ears, then to put donald trump on fox and friends where he repeats the conspiracy theories that she and tom bossert and john bolton tried to beat out of him for three years. >> you are absolutely right. and not just the very convincing testimony by fiona hill, but a culmination of two weeks of stories which all fit together to paint this picture of this, which she called this domestic political errand that was completely divergent from u.s. policy and that was focused

specifically on getting information about joe biden and hunter biden in exchange for either a white house meeting, which the ukrainians wanted a phone call, or most importantly aid at a time where the country was at war with russia. every official painted the same picture. even those like gordon sondland somebody who got his job after giving a million dollars to trump's inaugural committee. it was a very damning two weeks of testimony. it seems that the president has settled on, a, digging in, and, b, continuing to put forward these talking points that we have heard from him and we have heard them from rudy giuliani about ukraine, which have been disproven. >> you know, nick, you're in the business of investigative journalism and you go about if it's a dicey story you need at least two sources. and if it's really dicey you need three or four. to prove a quid pro quo the democrats had 17 witnesses. it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump conditioned military aid for u.s. ally, a democracy at risk

from russia on politically motivated investigations into 2016 and into the bidens. and he told us so. >> yeah. >> so on a factual basis, where would you rank sort of the voracity of the case the democrats made? >> if i was a reporter, and i am, i'd be super confident in taking out of the phrase alleged and just saying this is what actually happened. we now know what really happened. we know what the trade was. i would say if this was like a jig saw puzzle, instead of the one where like you try and figure out where the pieces fit together, we sort of started with like the border already built and we were kind of filling in the middle. now we have the whole thing. it's actually very clear. we have learned some important new things obviously from these hearings. but they're mostly about precise issues of timing which are always helpful in figuring out something. kind of who knew what when, the president's involvement, mulvaney's involvement, and the ukrainians' knowledge of what

was happening at any given time. those are all important ingredients. it wasn't like it was a pointless exercise. but, man, everything is pretty nailed down now. >> you know, it's a great point, joyce. and i was thinking about it with nick sitting here from an investigative journalist's perspective. but you are a prosecutor. andrew weissmann was at our table yesterday. and other prosecutors. i mean, if you ask people if they'd take this case and think they could prove it. claire mccaskill says i could take it, i could prove it pretty cut and dry. >> you know, in a criminal case, which impeachment is not the burden of proof is the highest proof in our legal system, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. but what judges tell juries, you don't have to include every scintilla of doubt. you just have to be comfortable enough with the evidence that you would use it to act on one of the most important decisions in your own personal life. and that i think is what we see

here. when i hear nick say he would take out the word alleged, that means a lot to me. the only defense that this president has ever tried to mount here is the defense that he's a corruption fighter. trump who is anti-corruption. and aside from the fact that that defense is completely laughable for all of the reasons that we know and talk about every day, what really nails it is the fact that if trump wanted to fight corruption in ukraine, he would have kept marie yovanovitch on the job. she was a known corruption fighter. there's no reason to bring in a bumbling rudy giuliani and the three amigos. so every defense that the president has to offer here i think as a criminal case this would be very strong. >> michael steele and tim miller from the party formerly known as republicans. let me read you from what peggy nuna said.

what was but more deadly was what has never been said. in the two months since speaker nancy pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry was underway in the two weeks since the intelligence committee's public hearings began, no one s even in the white house has said anything like he wouldn't do that or that would be so unlike him. his best friends, know he would do it, and it's exactly like him. the case has been so clearly made you wonder what exactly the senate will be left doing. how will they hold a lengthy trial with a case that is this clear? who exactly will be the president's witnesses? those who testify they didn't know what he appears to haven't done? >> bravo first off on that piece. but i would answer the question of the trial itself as it will be nothing more than a show trial. it will go down one of two paths. either those impeachment articles will come to the senate and be put in the drawer of the

senate president because he feels mr. mcconnell that there is nothing that merits a trial, or if he feels that, okay, we'll just go through the process, they will go through the process. but we already know the vote, don't we? >> why do we? >> the jurors -- well, because the jurors have told us at least one of them has said i'm not even going to read what comes out of this, mr. lindsey graham. imagine as a citizen going into a courtroom and you're one of the jurors, you're going to do your civic duty and the guy next to you goes i ain't even going to read this stuff. i ain't even going to bother with it. the whole system becomes corrupted. and that's the end game here. that's what it's been from jim jordan to lindsey graham. this is all about corrupting this process so vily that the american people are turned off and turned away.

>> it is such a sad commentary. and i'm only picking on my friend michael steele because i find it, it guts me that this is what the republican party's turned into, that the corruption is in the gop in washington. the corruption isn't in ukraine. i mean, i'm jealous that people like marie yovanovitch sort of walk the line and rooted out corruption. maybe they can bring her to washington and put her to work in the congress, tim. >> exactly what the president and rudy giuliani are accusing joe biden of doing is what they did in ukraine. it was rudy giuliani who went to ukraine who had business interests who wanted there to be changes in the way that they did natural gas business in ukraine because he had clients there. it was this administration that has done that, and now in ukraine and turkey and saudi arabia where they have businesses and where they are corrupt. you're right the entire senate has been corrupted by this. lindsey graham, there was a video going around of him doing an interview with my different scott conway where he gets emotional talking about joe biden.

he says there is no better man than joe biden. and here he is today putting forth just a basically for-show investigation for the senate that he knows is b.s. against joe biden. because whatever you think about what hunter did and it was, you know, probably a little bit dirty, joe biden went into ukraine to encourage -- >> what was dirty about it? i just want to be careful with our words. we had 11 witnesses publicly. no one testified anything dirty. are you saying it looked bad? >> the optics are terrible, and obviously hunter biden doesn't have the expertise in this area. i think that's a fair point that the republicans are making on the hill. but here is the problem is that they are obscuring the reality of the point, which is that joe biden, president obama, and multiple other members of the obama administration went into ukraine with an earnest effort to stop corruption. they wanted to get rid of the prosecutor because he wasn't prosecuting the company that hunter biden worked for. that was a genuine anti-corruption effort.

so, what joe biden did -- >> can i just say? here's what else they are obscuring. if a real crime happened donald trump sits atop the part of the government where he can pick up the phone and call the justice department with a tip. they've got tip lines. if a real crime happened, you don't call a fake corruption hunter like rudy giuliani. >> and by the way, that goes doubly true for ron johnson and lindsey graham and all those people who were in the senate when this happened. like, this wasn't in ancient history. the republicans controlled the house and the senate when joe biden was going over to ukraine to do anti-corruption efforts. if they thought that the deal was rotten, they could have done investigations then. they didn't. ron johnson signed a letter saying he agreed that the prosecutor should be fired. it's all a farce. >> well, you know, it doesn't have to be. maybe i have watched too many erin sorkin movies, but there is still a scenario where i thought some tectonic plates shifted this week. i thought one of them was gordon

sondland's sort of early morning release of his statement where he said everybody was in on it. i wasn't rogue, i wasn't part of an irregular policy channel. this was the channel. it was run by donald trump, vice president pence and mike pompeo. this was the channel. and then i thought the plate shifted again when fiona hill came in yesterday and said you are doing russia's work for them. do we really think there is no scenario where if john bolton were to sort of find religion and walk in and testify in a senate trial that republicans who have trusted john bolton for decades wouldn't say h-mmm? >> i think the one variable here is public opinion. we have seen that shifted since, for example, the mueller investigation, it seemed to go on and on, hard to wrap your head around. the last two weeks has painted a fairly clear picture. we are going into a break where we are going to have people and they are not supposed to talk about politics at the thanksgiving table, but i have a feeling that that will be happening.

and people have been, look, when i traveled across. i've been everywhere from california to the east coast and the midwest. everyone stops and asks about the impeachment. it's on people's minds. people are going to be talking about it. >> people are going to be digesting what has happened over the last two weeks. and they are going to be -- the lawmakers are going to be hearing from them about it. if that shifts particularly some more moderate republicans we may hear folks begin to speak out more, that might tip the needle. >> well, they might not be republican. i can see michael steele shaking his head. let me come back to joyce. i think that a large swath of the american public that may not be the ones that watch prime time on any cable news channel. but a part of the public has now watched, and they may not have been compelled by or moved by or alarmed by the mueller hearing. but they learned that robert mueller couldn't touch donald trump because a sitting president can't be indicted. they might not have watched

michael cohen testified but they knew some other guy associated with trump is sitting in jail. but donald trump even though he's an unindicted co-conspirator there, he can't go to jail because he's president. so he can't get in trouble in any federal criminal investigation. now he can't get in trouble for a crime he confesses to on the south lawn of the white house that 17 people who work for them half of them he picked himself attested to? i think donald trump maybe should be accountable to somebody. >> i think that you've identified the problem. and it goes back to what kim said about how important public opinion is here in some ways maybe more important than the evidence itself. because the problem is half of the country is appalled by the notion that a president would succeed in holding himself above the law. but there is another half of the country that says we like this guy, this is what we signed up for, he is somebody who's always

had animosity for the system. they don't seem troubled by it. so what we see happening i think especially in the wake of dr. hill's testimony and the reporting today that the senate has been briefed by the intelligence community on the fact that moscow has been running since at least 2017 an effort to push this ukrainian narrative that it was ukraine not moscow that was responsible for interference in the 2016 election. the shift that will have to come is that the american public will have to look at that piece of the puzzle and sort of back up from all of the evidence all of the trees and look at the whole forest and say the soviet union may have lost the cold war but putin has extracted a hell of a payback on us trying to tear us apart trying to manipulate us. and it's only at the point where public opinion shifts and says we won't stand for this and conveys that to their legislators, to their republican senators that there's really any chance that there is real

movement. i think in some ways that overall vision is more important than the individual pieces of evidence because they're damning but they haven't created any movement. >> michael steele. >> yeah. i think that last point is the crux to this. i just don't see that movement happening. i think the president and his team very much as we saw with the mueller case have been somewhat successful with creating a narrative in which this is not as important as the democrats. notice during this entire thing, democrats talked about my colleagues, the gentleman across the aisle. republicans emphasized the democrats are doing this, the democrats are doing this. they have politicized this thing down to the point where it is almost meaningless to some voters. and the polling right now is showing people backing off of this idea of moving forward with impeachment. so, there has been some success by what we've seen in the house

and the performances that took place over the last couple of weeks. the president spending 53 minutes on fox news this morning. do you have a job, do you work? how do you have 53 minutes on television, right? but that's the point. the most important job is to dumb down the conversation and to drive home the narrative that just as there was no collusion there is still no quid pro quo. >> do you think anybody believes that? >> yes. a lot more than we probably want to admit. and you're going to hear a lot of that this thanksgiving dinner around turkey. >> see, i think they believe it because donald trump said it. i think they don't care. i mean, i don't disagree on the politics. but i actually think this is different. i think that they bought there was no collusion because, as friends of donald trump will tell you privately, they don't think he is smart enough to collude with vladimir putin. but i think everybody thinks that he's dirty enough to have held over the head of a fragile

democracy military aid in exchange for dirt in his bat bleep crazy conspiracy theory. we have to sneak in a break. we will pick this up on the other side. when we come back, she's got grit, she's got smarts and she's seeming leak by an overnight expert. plus, what about her old boss, john bolton trolling america today with his tweets for the first time in months? could he be hinting that he's ready to talk or just trying to sell some books on pre-order. they have collected a mountain of irrefutable evidence, but is it enough to move the conversation? stay with us. ker, 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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i understand that when you were 11 years old there was a school boy who set your pig tails on fire. and you were taking a test. you turned around and with your hands snuffed out the fire and then proceeded to finish your test. is that a true story? >> it is a true story. i was a bit surprised to see that pop up today. it's one of the stories i occasionally tell because it had some very unfortunate consequences. afterwards my mother gave me a bold haircut. [ laughter ] so for the school photograph later in that week i looked like richard iii. >> well, i think it underscores the fact that you speak truth, that you are steely, and i truly respect that. >> remarkable testimony from dr. fiona hill. it closed out an intense week of public impeachment hearings. dr. hill, a russia expert who

served under three president who right out the gate called out the president for pushing conspiracy theories and explaining the dual tracks of the policy coming out of the white house garnered the attention of the nation. the nation that dr. hill herself spoke highly of recognizing that it was america that provided her with opportunities she would not have had anywhere else. >> i grew up poor with a very distinctive working class accent. in england in the 1980s and 1990s this would have impeded my professional advancement. this background has never set me back in america. >> we are very lucky to be joined by her attorney. you were by her side, but you've known her for 30 years. >> we met at harvard in the early 1990s. she left england where she came from a working-class background. her father's family worked in the coal mines. her mother's family worked in the sewers of northern edge lanlan

england. she probably correctly concluded that she needed to leave england and come to the united states in order to fulfill her potential. of course she has since become our country's and perhaps the world's expert on putin, russian security services. she literally wrote the book on vladimir putin. and she's now served under three u.s. presidents to contribute her nonpartisan expertise and furtherance of our national security and our interests and values. >> how could she work for donald trump? >> as she said in her opening statement, she felt that she wanted to do what president trump stated that he intended to do, which is improve the bilateral relationship with russia while dealing with the serious threats that russia posed to the security of the united states. but she said in her testimony and believes that it is very important for us to figure out a way to have a stabilized relationship with russia. and so she believed the president's words that he wanted to improve the relationship.

and frankly donald trump probably does want to improve the relationship. we can talk about -- or she can talk about because i'm really here today as her lawyer. >> you represent her. nou navigated her through this impeachment proceeding. do you have any visibility into how she experienced flash points like helsinki? she was part of our country's intelligence agency. he stood there in helsinki next to putin and said i believe putin, not the intelligence agencies. >> yeah. but i think she would say there are other things that happened even at helsinki. and again further to her goal of improving the relationship, there were channels that were furthered during that process, and particularly on the arms control side which is important for all of us. so she decided to serve, and, you know, i think one of the points that she wanted me to express on your air is that over the course of the past two weeks, the american people have got to meet a number of the nonpartisan experts who have

served our government in furtherance of their own security, american people security and the interests and values of our country. and so we have to be careful when we talk about conspiracy theories about those people and when we refer to the swamp in washington. there is a swamp in washington. but these fine experts are out to further our security against our adversaries. they are out to further america's position in the world and to advance our interest in values. and the american people have now had a chance to meet them. >> the american people have had a chance to meet them. i think it's fair to say by and large respect them. in her case a lot of them revere her. but donald trump essentially poured cow pop on her when he went on fox and friends this morning and repeated a conspiracy theory that literally 24 hours earlier she rebuked his allies in congress for doing. >> yes. as she said, she wants to have nothing to do with these conspiracy theories about

ukraine having interfered in our elections. it was a russian disinformation campaign. again, that's being reported. >> was or is? >> is. as of today there are reports, fresh reports, that the intelligence community has renewed its warnings to the senate on precisely this issue. these are very real concerns that she has that have been validated. >> is she concerned that -- i mean, michael steele knows this version of the republican party as well as anyone, as does tim miller. is she concerned that 40% of the country doesn't believe these fine professionals because they don't believe that they don't need to see the evidence, they are not only to a trial, they have already decided how it's going to end. >> she went through yesterday what evidence exists for the proposition of ukrainian interference in our elections. it's really an article from politico. that's pretty much about it. so as she pointed out in her testimony, the article from politico actually doesn't say what members of the conspiracy theory about ukraine and

crowdstrike say it says. it concludes that in fact there was no evidence of any top-down ukrainian government interference in our elections as opposed to what the russians did to us. >> she was very careful to describe herself as a fact witness. but she also was very clear both in her opening statement which i assume you guys collaborated on and in questioning to say that she felt as a fact witness she had a moral obligation to be there. does she think john bolton does too? >> i don't know. >> do you? >> i'm just her mouth piece today. [ laughter ] >> i think he should be there. i'll answer for her. >> let me just pursue this as -- you have worked in government. when your -- and i think tom friedman wrote this about mike pompeo. when your soldiers are on the battlefield, is it honorable to leave them out there taking arrows from people like devin nunes? >> i worked in government. you worked in government. i think one of the most important points she made yesterday was that what was

happening with gordon sondland and rudy giuliani and the president according to sondland's testimony, is that they basically co-opted u.s. foreign policy making national security decisionmaking for political purposes. she said that sondland was on a domestic political errand. and you've been in government, you know that when you're in high office your goal is to advance the interest of the united states. it's not to advance the interest of any particular u.s. politician. and that was what was so pernicious about what happened here as she stated yesterday. >> but i think one of the most dramatic moments i think we might have is when she said -- oh, god i love that she explained what happens to women who get mad in the workplace. i'm going to save that on my phone and play it every time -- let's watch it because i love this. >> i had a bit of a blowup with ambassador sondland. i had a couple of testy encounters with him. i was actually, to be honest, angry with him. and, you know, i had to say it, but often when women show anger

it's not fully appreciated. it's often pushed onto emotional issues perhaps or deflected onto other people. >> and what she was angry about is she thought he had gone rogue. she realizes in part i think from his testimony the day before, right, that he was on an errand from the president. >> a domestic political errand which was not foreign policy. so, we have a hefty agenda with the ukrainians bilateral agenda that is meant from our perspective to advance our security and our interests and values, a fragile democracy that is building itself toward the west, trying to, and trying to emulate our interests and values, trying to build the rule of law. and that's been taken hostage by a re-election of the u.s. politician. that is contrary, i think she would say, to how our country is supposed to work, how our foreign policy national security decisionmaking is supposed to work, where you're supposed to be advancing the interests of our country.

>> and she came to understand that it was the president that gordon sondland was answering to, right? that was her testimony yesterday? >> and that was his testimony the day before that the president told him to do these things. >> she was the first witness who seemed to have internalized and almost intellectualized all of the previous testimony. can i just go through with you what you think was established over these two weeks as someone who, obviously, went about that endeavor with her. do you feel that it was clearly established that a meeting was conditioned on a public commitment to conduct investigations into burisma in 2016? >> well, that seems to be what the evidence is. and most of that was established during time periods after she left the nsc on july 19th. >> do you believe that the attacks on the whistle-blower have any legal significance, or do you think the fact that everything in the whistle-blower complaint was corroborated by 17 witnesses, i think 11 of them

political appointees? >> yeah. i mean, look, again, at some point you sort of have to look at the totality of the evidence. >> and the public testimony. >> and how it sort of came about. it was interesting, but it's not determinative of what the body of the evidence is. >> representing someone who i think came to symbolize what you said she hoped people would see, these nonpartisan, nonpolitical public servants who are truly the best of the best in their subject area. do you think that representing someone who is sort of the highest level of that, what do you think they want to see happen? >> that's a good question. i think that all of us who care about our country, most of all as opposed to who's going to win a particular election and remember these people are nonpartisan. they serve in all

administrations. >> right. >> i think that, you know, again i think the most serious concern is when domestic politics start to infect that process, which has been set up to be nonpolitical. because it is intended to advance the interests of our country 300 million plus americans who depend on that part of our government to keep them safe and to advance our interests as a country in the world. so when that process gets impeded or infected and the national security process gets infected and impeded by that, by domestic politics, that is i think when many of us who have worked in this area would want to prevent. >> this is my last question. you've been so generous with your time. she didn't testify to this, and i wonder if she had an answer if she'd be asked. was anyone other than donald trump opposed to releasing the military aid for ukraine? >> well, you know, a lot of the key events with respect to

military aid happened after she left. but i think as she and other witnesses testified, it was the bipartisan consensus of the ukraine policy community that the aid should be released. she had at one point opposed lethal military assistance for ukraine. but that was in an earlier point when the ukrainian defense forces she felt were not properly equipped to handle it. she was also concerned about russian escalation dominance during that time earlier. but i think it's a unanimous viewpoint that lethal military existence was important to deter the russians. >> it's a matter of life and death, as bill taylor -- >> absolutely for them. and also critical to our country in terms of our willingness to confront russian aggression across europe. >> thank you so much for spending some time with us. we are happy to have you here as fiona hill's lawyer. you are welcome to come back any day. more on fiona hill's remarkable day in the spotlight.

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everyone was in the loop. it was no secret. to secretary pompeo, secretary perry. chief of staff mulvaney and mr. mulvaney's senior adviser rob blair. a lot of senior officials. >> i believe that those who have information that the congress deems relevant have a legal and a moral obligation to provide it. >> fiona hill's obvious sense of duty, more obligation to appear. a sentiment evidently not shared by some of the key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. democrats are relying on testimony from some of the supporting characters in the ukraine saga because many of the major players, the officials who allegedly participated in the scheme have so far refused to testify. namely donald trump, rick perry, rudy giuliani, mike pence, mike

pompeo, mulvaney, and the aforementioned john bolton. seven people central to the investigation who we may never hear from. nancy pelosi seems confident that the narrative they painstakingly established is enough that lawmakers don't even need those big names. but as peter baker details in the "new york times," it's a risky calculation. quote, house democrats have opted for expeditious over comprehensive electing to complete their investigation without filling in major gaps in the story. it's a calculated gamble that they have enough evidence to impeach mr. trump on a party line vote in the house and would risk losing momentum if they took the time to wage a court fight to compel reluctant witnesses to come forward. joining our conversation peter baker. this is something that's been sort of whispered, and of course it's you that puts it in black and white. take us through what you're reporting. >> reporter: yeah. look. you named them all. but these are people we heard a lot about in these past two weeks. people who were in the room,

people who were in the loop at least according to testimony. people who had major roles to play one way or the other. and we have not heard from any of them. mulvaney was said to be a facilitator of this ukraine pressure scheme. is that correct? remember he told us in the briefing room that there was quid pro quo of security aid. and john bolton was against it according to fiona hill and other witnesses. he thought it was a metaphorical drug deal. he thought that rudy giuliani was a hand grenade waiting to blow up. who wouldn't want to hear more about what they said? the republicans said correctly in some cases, that some of these witnesses were second hand. bill taylor never talked to the president of the united states. alexander vindman never talked to the president of the united states. guess who did talk to the president? >> so let me just dig in a little bit because you have done a lot of reporting on john bolton. if john bolton, and i don't know that he's not, but if he were

totally happy and at peace and at rest, would never, ever, ever having to go in behind his deputies who have been krusified and vilified by donald trump's allies in congress, people like colonel vindman, people whose voracity of their account like fiona hill have been questioned. might his lawyer have just kept his mouth shut? you reported on that letter his lawyer wrote. i think it was two weeks ago today. mr. cooper who wrote a letter saying john witnessed a lot of stuff. why did he do that? >> that's a great question. it's kind of a tease. he teased us back again on twitter saying i'm back on twitter, i'm not going to be silent anymore. but he is not going to say anything about ukraine. he decided he won't talk unless a court tells him to. but i think he's ready to testify. i don't think he would have any philosophical problem explaining his role in all this, explaining his opposition to what happened.

but he wants at least the protection or the cover or the validation, if you will, of a district court judge saying you have no choice, you have to do it. that would help him both in terms of his legal concerns that he might have. it would help him politically. remember he wants i think to have a future in the republican party. he's restarted his political action committee. he doesn't want to be ostsized because he testified against the president trump. if he does testify and it's harmful to the president presumably he'd like to say that a judge made him do it. >> peter baker, just your thoughts. we haven't had a chance to talk to you about just the sweep of testimony this week. you have covered a couple white houses. this is a story told i think most succinctly by gordon sondland and fiona hill of an operation that wasn't the black op, it wasn't the rogue op. it was the op. and the op was that donald trump ordered rudy giuliani executed, vice president pence knew and mike pompeo was involved on a phone for a mission of a meeting

with donald trump and holding up military aid until investigations were announced into burisma and the bidens in 2016. >> yeah. it was really interesting to listen to fiona hill yesterday talk about that, how she reading the previous testimony hearing the previous testimony came to understand that it wasn't, as you say, a rogue op. it wasn't sort of an outside channel. this was what was going on, this was ordered by the president obviously he had some involvement in it. the problem of course for the investigators is they don't have many people putting words in his mouth in meetings that would help them build their case. but they say two plus two equals four. you can clearly see what's going on here for the witnesses that they did have. and i think that's a powerful conclusion to realize that it's not in fact a one-man operation on the outside. this was in fact something that a variety of people were at least aware of and had apparently no objection to. gordon sondland one thing he said that was really important. he says not one person objected to what was happening as far as his conversations with him. >> unbelievable week of public

testimony. it wasn't surprising but it's always jarring to see donald trump swatting back at all of it on fox and friends. peter baker, thank you for all your reporting this week and for spending some time with us. we are going to sneak a break. on the other side the panel jumps in on it all. for every dollar you spend at a small business, an average of 67 cents stays local. shop small and watch it add up. small business saturday by american express is november 30th.

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point on the political calculation but fiona hill left a mark. i'm sorry. >> look. i think that what the democrats were able to do is something that the russia probe could not do, which is have some proceedings in public and put the fact witnesses in front of the public. that they could see them in work, see their opinions, and form their own judgment. in a way, mueller was fighting with one hand behind his back. it was all in secret and people had to kind of make a guess basically. and here, we can see a parade of people harkening back to a very old american tradition of bipartisan foreign policy expertise. and perhaps there are people on the far margins who didn't buy it. but i think they certainly presented a compelling portrait of people who are not there out of partisanship or ideology. but they're there for their expertise and facts. >> i think one of the important points hill made is people get to see her not only as a professional, an expert, but also as a human, as an american.

when she talked -- when she admonished the lawmakers about partisanship and how that is not just making it difficult to get things done in washington but it's eroding american faith in democracy. it really let you know that there was there out of a sense of duty and certainly not out of a sense of helping one side or the other. >> you know, tim, i thought a subplot in the last two weeks was sort of the intersection of donald trump's attack on immigrants, legal and illegal. i mean, the smears against colonel vindman. you know, basically accusing him of espionage on fox news. the smears against him this week. i thought one of her most eloquent and underplayed comments was her defense of americans by choice. >> yeah. well, i got to do a disclaimer. i'm such a big fiona hill fan, i'm ready to amend the constitution to a foreigner can run the government. no, i agree with you. she had this earnestness of an immigrant, right? there is the zeal of the

converts they say, for religions right? she has the zeal for like the original american traditions. that is lost now, right, because i think that particularly on the republican side but a little bit on both with this partisan gamesmanship that's been happening for the last week or two that sort of dismisses some of these underlying core american ideals where, you know, the congressmen, they get to live in this fantasy world where the facts benefit them. but when the facts don't benefit them, then they play this game for donald trump and fiona hill undermined that so clearly because she actually defended donald trump on a few things. and i thought that was what made her testimony so powerful. and just the fact, just really quick, that donald trump jr. and the president himself retweeted these attacks on vindman and on fiona hill implying that they are not loyal to our country.

they have more loyalty to our country in their little finger nails. >> speaking of horrific and gross and the trump family, i want to get to your story about the buying of books and i want to get michael steele in on it. rnc spent nearly $100,000 on copies of donald trump jr.'s book. there is nothing at which the trumps don't cheat. >> all about the business, baby. that's what it's about. this isn't about the running the country and the presidency. this is about cha-ching. getting paid. and when you bring the rnc into the -- the universe of trump world and specifically his campaign, it is not surprising. look, i -- when i became chairman in 2009, i had written a book about how to rebrand and rebuild the party and move it forward. i got criticized because i wrote a book.

on how to build the party. this guy writes a book about god knows what and they go out and spend $100,000 of -- and here's the kicker -- of contributors' money. this isn't money that comes out of some magical vault inside the rnc. these are the $5 and $20 donations of those very same people who are, you know, thinking that this is all gonna go right and their party's gonna do the best thing for them and this is not the swamp engaging in swampish behavior. so i don't know why anyone's surprised. i'm sure if you did a little bit more digging, you'd find out the rnc's spending a whole lot of money on a whole lot of other stuff that should shock the conscience at this point. >> you're the digger. >> one correction there. i think donors who got this book had actually signed up to give money in exchange for getting the book. so in some ways, for the party, it's a win/win.

party gets some money. don jr. gets to sell a book. but it certainly points to this idea of the way two of the trump children, don jr. and ivanka, have been able to leverage their father's presidency to build political careers and business careers really of their own. he is a very popular surrogate for the party so i'm sure it was a good deal for the rnc but they have been able to build out this brand. >> it's been unbelievable. you have to really accept that irony's dead that they're out there trying to attack hunter biden. >> to clarify, those donors gave twice. they gave before and then they gave again. so let's understand that this is again rank and file dollars. this is not anything more than that. >> all right. we have to sneak in our last break. we'll be right back. st break. we'll be right back. w customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah, and now business is rolling in. get started at fastsigns.com. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. i wish i could shake your hand. granted.

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we're out of time but i have to thank michael, kim, nick, tim. most of all, all of you for watching today. what a week it was. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts now. with chuck todd starts now