that wraps up this hour of "msnbc live". happy thanksgiving. i'll see you tomorrow morning on "today." >> happy thanksgiving to you and all of yours. >> thank you, andrea, have a great holiday. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," what he knew. "the new york times" reports that president trump already knew about the whistle-blower complaint when he unfroze that military aid to ukraine. that contradicts the president's repeated line of defense. >> i have never had a direct link between investigations and security assistance. okay. what that means, you know what it means? it means we did zero, we did nothing wrong. >> how rude-y.

president trump distances himself from giuliani, denying he ordered them to talk to the ukrainians. rudy's not worried. >> i see comments, he's going to throw me off the bus. he isn't, but i have insurance. and supreme ambition. a bombshell new book unpacks the secret back story of how brett kavanagh got to the supreme court. >> fueled with pent-up anger about president trump and the 2016 election. this is a circus. and good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. president trump is kicking off his thanksgiving holiday in florida with a round of golf and

a work of art for his 67 million twitter followers. yes, that's the president's tweet today, sending this masterpiece to the masses, after touting his good health to a raucous rally tuesday night in florida and choosing to ignore new details about the timeline regarding military aid finally get to go ukraine. in new reporting from "the new york times," two people familiar with the matter say president trump had already been briefed on the whistle-blower complaint before he decided town freeze $391 million in aid. this raises some big questions including why did the president repeatedly tell ambassador gordon sondland that he wanted nothing from ukraine and no quid pro quo, just two days before the aid was released? joining me now, msnbc white house correspondent kristen welker, former u.s. attorney joyce advanced, and ben rhodes, former national security adviser to president obama. welcome, all. kristen, a lot of mixed stories coming out about what did he

know, when did he know it, what is he saying, to say nothing of that photoshopped tweet. >> that's right, andrea. and the revelations that you just tabblked about, the fact tt "the new york times" is reporting that president trump was informed about the whistle-blower complaint before he decided to release the funding to ukraine essentially takes away one of the key arguments from republicans, which is that ultimately the aid was released. and so the white house is on defense about all of this. president trump overnight of course out at that welcome home rally in florida, lashing out with some salty language as well, trying to cast the entire impeachment inquiry as a sham. but it really complicates the case that the president and his republican allies are trying to make. and it also comes as they are bracing for those hearings next week that are going to be held by the house judiciary committee on december 4th. president trump will of course

be traveling overseas at the nato summit, i'll be in london with him. but the invitation by house democrats for the white house to have their counsel and for president trump himself show up, we know the president won't show up because he'll be traveling overseas, but they weren't made a decision yet about who might represent the president. it would be hard to see that they wouldn't send someone. but perhaps you could see them taking that as a political strategy. it could be viewed as hypocritical, andrea, because of course the president and republicans have been saying they haven't been allowed representation in these proceedings and that's one of their arguments for why they haven't been legitimate, andrea. >> i also want to ask you about reports that two omb budget officials quit in protest while this aid was being withheld. >> that was another big bombshell that broke overnight. we learned that in the new testimony that had been released of mark sandy, the closed-door

testimony, who said that two omb officials resigned at least in part because that aid was being held up, because they didn't see that as a normal policy that an administration should be taking, and an approach that an administration should be taking to ukraine which desperately needs that aid. so that yet another data point that democrats are going to pounce on, andrea, another data point that the administration wants to sweep under the rug. >> and ben rhodes, let's talk about the whole question of the aid, it being held up, and what gordon sondland -- i wanted to play some of gordon sondland's opening testimony from last week because he made it very clear that ukraine was very much on the president's mind. >> president trump was skeptical. he expressed concerns that the ukrainian government was not serious about reform. and he even mentioned that ukraine tried to take him down in the last election.

in response to our persistent efforts in that meeting to change his views, president trump directed us to, quote, talk with rudy. >> so ben, there's so much disconnect here between what the president was saying at the rally and what he said, what gordon sondland testified to. >> yeah, i mean, andrea, i mean, i think it's pretty clear, there are facts and then there are the things that trump is saying. the facts literally could not be clearer, from the very beginning of this process. there was aid mandated by congress to ukraine. by the way, that is urgently needed aid for ukraine. it's not the kind of thing you can sit on for months. they've got russian-backed separatists currently occupying part of ukraine, they need that military assistance as a life ry line. we know that president trump was directing this quid pro quo to

hold up military aid to get investigations into this craziy conspiracy theory that ukraine intervened in the 2016 election and to investigate the bidens. we know that president trump in a phone call with president zelensky raised this need for investigations. so really, as usual, what we see, andrea, is there's not really a fact case that republicans can make to defend this indefensible leveraging of u.s. foreign assistance to a country that desperately needed it. they just try and obscure and muddy the waters. with each new piece of information we learn, including this "new york times" report, it's clear that the impetus for them to release this aid was they knew this was raising alarm bells within their system. >> and joyce advancvance, the w question what have the president's lawyer was doing, this got muddied up even further yesterday when the president seemed to be trying with bill o'reilly, a released radio

interview with bill o'reilly, it was what the president said about rudy and his role. >> what was rudy giuliani doing in ukraine on your behalf? >> you have to ask rudy. i don't even know -- i know he was going to go to ukraine, i think he canceled the trip. rudy has other clients other than me. >> you didn't direct him to go there on your behalf? >> no, but -- no, but you have to understand, rudy is a great corruption fighter. >> giuliani is your personal lawyer. >> yes. >> so you didn't direct him to go to ukraine or do anything or put the heat on them? >> no, i didn't direct him. but he is a warrior. rudy is a warrior. he went, he possibly saw something. but you have to understand, rudy has other people that he represents. >> joyce, rudy has said over and over again, rudy giuliani, that he went on behalf of the president, that he was his defense lawyer, and that was the justification for everything that he was doing last spring. >> that's right.

he said that, he's said it publicly, and the president has never corrected him or walked it back until just this interview. and this also isn't the first time we've seen trump begin to distance himself from someone once they get into the thick of trouble. this is almost word for word how we heard him talk about michael cohen when michael cohen's prosecution and investigation were under way. it has echoes of paul manafort, the former campaign manager, who it turned out, according to trump, he barely knew at all. the question here i think is whether democrats are playing a smart strategy of giving trump enough rope to hang himself with. and as the lies mount, one upon the other, will they ultimately spring that trap shut in a way that helps the american people understand that at the end, this is a president who has just tried defense after defense after defense, whether it's throwing rudy under the bus or claiming that he never sought a quid pro quo and that all of those defenses were lies that were an effort to cover up the

truth, which is that the president was cheating and committing crimes to try to help himself one in 2020. >> and ben rhodes, as former national security adviser watching all of this, there's another country now which is losing aid temporarily, mandated congressional aid, it's $100 million, about $100 million, to lebanon, which is involved in a lot of fighting on its borders and internally. and this is something that was just tweeted by senator chris murphy, remember, he had gone to ukraine before we heard about the whistle-blower, trying to figure out why the ukrainian aid been withheld. he just tweeted, on my way back from lebanon, people there are shaking their heads as trump still refuses to send congressionally mandated security aid. lebanon may become the next ukraine or kurds. i just wanted to call out matt lee, my colleague, the ap correspondent covering the state department who had written last week, as with the ukrainian assistance, omb has not

explained the reason for the delay. the mystery has only added to the consternation of the national security community which believes the assistance that pays for american-made military equipment for the lebanese army is essential particularly as lebanon reels in financial chaos and mass protests. what do you think is going on here? >> first of all, andrea, you know this well, the lebanese armed forces are the most stable institution in a country that has constant instability. you currently have a protest movement where young people are protesting inequality and the armed forces are protecting those young people often from attack by hezbollah. it's a bipartisan effort in the united states to shore up lebanese institutions. there has been no word

whatsoever from the administration why they're holding up aid they're required too deliver. it raises a question, based on this impeachment, whether every time we see a case like this where president trump isn't carrying through on foreign policy, why is it? is it because he has some personal interest? he doesn't feel the need to follow the rules of the game, he doesn't feel the need to deliver this congressionally-mandated aid. we see the damage to our credibility when people don't know if trump has some personal interest or if there is some alternative reason that's not being made clear from his administration about why they're not moving forward on what is clearly a u.s. national security interest. >> and he has the right under the impoundment act or impoundment law to impound aid, but he has to go back to congress and get approval or that, he can't just sit on congressionally-approved aid. to joyce vance, ben rhodes, happy thanksgiving. kristen welker, we'll bechoring

"nbc nightly news." congratulations on all that. and good news to start your thanksgiving holiday, president jimmy carter will be able to enjoy thanksgiving dinner at home with his family. the 95-year-old carter had successful surgery to relieve pressure on his brain from falling in his home weeks ago. we wish president carter, his wife rosslyn, and all the carters a happy thanksgiving. and why a comment from eight years ago is coming back to haunt pete buttigieg. that's why at aetna, we're committed to taking care of the whole you. with medicare advantage plans that offer health coaching and fitness memberships. plus hospital, medical and prescription drug coverage in one simple plan. with monthly plan premiums starting at $0. aetna medicare advantage plans call today to learn more

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democratic candidate pete buttigieg has been rising in several iowa and new hampshire polls. but he still lags far behind with african-american voters. and now he is facing new questions about something he said about minority communities when he was first running for mayor in 2011. >> the kids need to see evidence that education is going to work for them. there are a lot of kids, especially lower income minority neighborhoods, who literally just haven't seen it work. there isn't somebody they know personally who testifies to the value of education. >> those comments prompted writer michael harriet of "the root" to talk about the

advantages mayor pete had is a white man. mayor pete called harriet on the phone and harriet responded in a column saying, a smart black kid with smart parents in a supportive community still has to fight to reach the levels of what a mediocre white man accomplishes and odds are they still may not make it. mayor pete addressed that meray pete in iowa. >> i thought it was a healthy conversation. he's right when he says we have to look at the structural factors that live different racial outcomes in our country. >> joining me now is charlie sykes, editor at large at the bulwark and an msnbc political contributor. joel payne and bill kristol join us. joel, is this an unfair hit, a fair hit?

how does mayor pete work his way out of it? he's still struggling in south carolina. >> it's politics. my ex-boss frank lautenberg used to say, it's beanbag. it was a comment from a long time ago in a very specific discussion. but there are a lot of wrought feelings about how he approaches race and his experience in south bend and whether he can a leader who can unify the country. i don't think's disqualified from having a representative amount of african-american support to win the nomination. i still think he's in position if he demonstrates momentum to win over that population. but he has a lot of work to do. >> it's a question for white candidates, white men in particular, charlie sykes,

you're a white man, you can write about this, you wrote a newsletter dubbing buttigieg "the left eating its own." on our debate last week we had examples were pete buttigieg seemed to be comparing his experience of not feeling at home in america as a gay man, closeted for quite a long time, with the african-american experience. kamala harris called him out on it as we discussed yesterday after the debate. there was that famous joe biden moment where he said he comes from the black community, and then tried to talk about how he was endorsed, had support from, he put it, the only african-american senator who was carol moseley braun, standing right on the same stage as kamala harris. that brought laughter from her and from others in the audience. so there's a challenge here.

but biden is the one who has all that black support in south carolina, not buttigieg. and i should point out, not harris and not cory booker. >> well, this whole episode i think illustrates the promise and the peril of pete buttigieg's campaign. first of all, that piece that says pete buttigieg, mayor pete, is a lying mfer, was i think grotesquely unfair because what you had here was a different perspective and he may have been wrong but he wasn't lying. there was no lie. there was an opportunity here to have a discussion about, okay, are role models important, is hope important? and this is not a gaffe. this is not a racially insensitive comment. instead of doing that we had the cancel culture which was, he's a bald-faced liar, he knew he was lying. but i have to say the mayor was impressive, he picked up the phone and called the author of

that story, i don't know if a lot of us would call up somebody who called us an mfer and a bald-faced liar. he said, i want to listen to you, i want to explain. but this cancel culture that picks out a quote from eight years ago and trying to make it into a complete indictment i think is an unfortunate illustration of some of the debates that we have. do we want to debate this, do we want to look for a solution or common ground or do we want to play this game of gotcha? i actually think that mayor pete handled that about as well as you could have, the fact that he reached out and made it clear that yes, he thinks that the hope and role models are important but that's not the whole thing. he's actually come out with a detailed educational plan. i think in fairness people ought to acknowledge that. >> and we had -- now here's something completely different, we have bernie sanders slow jamming the news last night with jimmy fallon. >> this hunk a hunk a burning

love wants to take care of all our bodies. ♪ bernie loves our body ♪ he wants to care for all our consumers ♪ >> senator, i was hoping you could take a minute and talk bernie to me. we all know you have a huge heart. >> no, no. it's a normal-sized heart. it's a completely normal, completely fine heart. >> it was a slightly awkward moment but you have to give him credit for trying, bill kristol. >> totally. you get these things that are stories for one day. it's helpful to look over six to nine months. what's the big story? biden has held his own. sanders has probably more or less held his own, not as strong as he may have expected it to be. warren had a big surge, she's

given some of it back, she's clearly in the top four. the big story is buttigieg. if we had sat here six or nine months here, we would have thought, biden, warren, sanders, that seems like a logical top three. who would be the person that came from outside? it was buttigieg. now he's going to get criticized and we'll see how he does with the criticism. we shouldn't lose sight of the forest for the trees which is he has run a pretty impressive campaign for 2019. >> it does appear, really quickly, the event of bernie sanders having that heart attack and being able to somewhat reboot his campaign, certainly we're all happy that senator sanders is healthier and in a better place but it feels like it's given him a second wind and given him an opportunity to reframe himself in a way that's a little more comical and a little bit more understanding and appealing to a different set of voters. >> indeed he has. joel payne, great to see you. bill, we'll see you later. and charlie sykes, thanks to you, happy holidays to you. up next, the broken chain of command. continued fallout from the firing of navy secretary richard

expense and her tspencer and th involvement and how that could impact the next generation of troops. stay with us on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. ports" os i helped develop at 3m was a more secure diaper closure. there were babies involved... and they weren't saying much. that's what we do at 3m, we listen to people, even those who don't have a voice. we are people helping people. at humana, we believe your healthcare should evolve with you. and part of that evolution means choosing the right medicare plan for you. humana can help. with original medicare, you're covered for hospital stays and doctor office visits, but you'll have to pay a deductible for each. a medicare supplement plan can cover your deductibles and co-insurance, but you may pay higher premiums and still not get prescription drug coverage. but with an all-in-one humana medicare advantage plan, you could get all that coverage plus part d

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just this week, i stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state. people have to be able to fight. these are great warriors. >> president trump taking credit at that rally in florida last night for intervening in those high profile war crimes cases and ordering the pentagon not to oust a navy s.e.a.l., eddie gallagher, convicted of misconduct and cleared on more serious war crimes charges. fired navy secretary richard spencer spoke out against the commander in chief. two of spencer's predecessors, former navy secretaries under george h.w. bush and bill clinton, wrote that trump, quote, does not share the military's values and that the armed forces are not an extension of the white house.

they added, wise presidents let those who have made the sacrifices of combat and who depend upon one another in combat state first what they conclude. sean o'keefe is a former secretary of the navy under george h.w. bush and wrote that piece. good to see you again. >> nice to see you. >> what is your main objection to what the president did? because he clearly has the legal right as commander in chief to do anything he wants. >> absolutely. he's got the authority all day long to make any determination he would like in that process. but to have cut off the entire standards of conduct review that the co community was doing and beginning on their own behalf among themselves to ascertain in that kind of behavior is precisely what they would expect of each other, was completely eliminated and truncated.

that process was never permitted to happen. as a result, this creates a real fissure, if you will, between the administration, certainly, the white house, and the military units. >> now, sean gallagher, eddie gallagher's younger brother, has written an opinion piece in "the navy times" defending what the president did. he said, the moral hazard is a system that sends troops to war and then sacrifices them to some perverse political agenda when they get home. the gallagher family will continue to cast our ballots for those who actually support our war fighters. that puts it right in the political context. do you agree there was a political context to the punishment proposed for eddie gallagher? >> absolutely not. this is a very standard procedure over the last decade, there have been better than 150 cases brought before a similar

s.e.a.l. unit review process in which they determined that the standards of behavior that were exhibited were not of the ones they wanted to see reflective of their own community and therefore denied the opportunity for that service member to continue to wear the s.e.a.l. trident emblem. >> and what are you hearing from within the navy, within the s.e.a.l. community? >> there's a lot of anxiety over, again, just stepping through the process and shutting it off before they ever had a chance to render their own determination of what those standards should be. and then the challenges with good order and discipline as a consequence of completely stepping past the chain of command, made this a very difficult set of circumstances to govern the kinds of behavior you want to see.

it's not just a nice protocol, tradition matter. it is to preserve the safety of the units themselves from the kind of activity that otherwise would be brought against any other service member by acting in the manner that they thought was inconsistent with what their own standards are. plus it's not who we are as americans. both of those are very valid factors as to why this was not an appropriate process consideration on the president's part. >> and for those who claim this is all politics, you served under former defense secretary dick cheney during the bush 41 administration, hardly an outlier. you are a cabinet member when you were the head of nasa under george w. bush. >> yes. at no point do i ever recall on any disciplinary matter either the president or the secretary of defense issuing an instruction on what the directed

outcome needed to be before the process ever began. that was not -- that was the furthest thing from their minds. >> in the case, one of those cases, the three cases, lieutenant golstyn had not even come to trial yet. thank you very much, good to see you again. coming up, kavanaugh called out. how the supreme justice came to the president's attention. plus where his accuser's father stands on kavanaugh. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ndrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. e holidays.♪ ♪'cause no matter how far away you roam.♪ ♪when you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze.♪ ♪for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home.♪ the united states postal service goes the extra mile

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janssen can help you explore cost support options. you're saying there's never been a case where you drank so much that you didn't remember what happened the night before or part of what happened? >> you're asking about, yeah, blackout. i don't know, have you? >> could you answer the question, judge? so that's not happened, is that your answer? >> yeah, and i'm curious if you have. >> i have no drinking problem, judge. >> yeah, nor do i. >> brett kavanaugh was an aggressive witness in his own defense at last year's explosive confirmation hearings. now a new book describes how a conservative washington legal establishment rallied to get him

confirmed. joining us is ruth marcus, "washington post"'s opinion editor, author of a new book about kavanaugh. great to see you, congratulations. >> thank you for having me. >> fascinating new details. what role did anthony kennedy play behind the scenes, which was highly unusual? >> justice kennedy retired but there was a big behind the scenes effort on the part of don mcgahn, white house counsel, and others in the trump administration to woo him to retire. one thing i report in "supreme ambition" is that at justice gorsuch's swearing-in, justice kennedy asked for some time alone with the president because the president had done something very unusual, he had assembled a supreme court short list of people he would pick from. but there was one person who

justice kennedy cared a lot about who was not on donald trump's first list and he was not on tonight's second list and that was brett kavanaugh. and justice kennedy suggested to president trump that day when they finished in the rose garden that it might be a good idea to put brett kavanaugh on the list and lo and behold, guess what happened, he got on the list and was selected. >> with the help of leonard leo and this conservative legal foundation to try to get president trump to persuade critics in the conservative establishment and evangelical establishment that this former democrat who was once pro-choice could be trusted not to name what they called a david souter. >> right, no more suitors, w s the republican rallying cry.

assembling this supreme court list was one of the most effective things donald trump did to make him president. the book tells the story of brett kavanaugh's long term ambition to become a supreme court justice but also how his confirmation was the culmination of 30 years, and you have i have covered a lot of that time, andrea, 30 years of effort on the part of the conservative legal establishment to finally, finally, finally get a conservative majority on the court which they now have with brett kavanaugh. what i do is tell you, everybody remembers those moments from the hearings, but what everybody doesn't know, whichis hope you can read in the book, are these behind the scenes moments of how this came to be, scenes of the judiciary chairman chuck grassley and the ranking member dianne feinstein huddled, i'm not making this up, in a bathroom to discuss -- >> when i read that, in a bathroom in a senate office

building. >> to discuss christine blasey ford's allegations, one republican senator bursting into the anteroom saying he wants to fight a democratic senator because they're so angry about it. the white house counsel who is literally refusing to take repeated phone calls from the president, tells his aide -- >> i just want to read that quote because it stands out. this is don mcgahn who of course is in the news right now for his resistance to the house subpoena on impeachment. so this was when trump was seething about limiting the fbi investigations, not interviewing key witnesses including ford and kavanaugh. he, the president, called mcgahn the next day instructing the white house counsel, tell the fbi it can investigate whatever it wants.

mcgahn advised caution, and mcgahn told his aide, don't take a call from the president. >> the president was trying to reach don mcgahn, the day we all remember, that christine blasey ford and justin kavanaugh testified. if you can imagine not taking a call from your boss, he's not taking a call from the most important person on the planet and finally his deputy says you have to take this phone call, the president is trying to reach you, and he said, i don't talk to quitters. >> that's don mcgahn talking about donald trump. >> he was convinced, and i'm not sure he was correct, but he was convinced the president was getting ready to pull the nomination. what this tells you is that brett kavanaugh from the point of view of don mcgahn and the conservatives who rallied round him in the senate and elsewhere was just too big to fail and they were going to do whatever it took to get him across the finish line including ignoring witnesses that might have changed some minds if minds were open. >> and president bush, who had

been his employer but most importantly had employed his wife is an assistant in the bush white house, was one of the people advocating for him. >> the irony of president bush is that he was in some ways the biggest impediment to brett kavanaugh being chosen because president trump famously does not like the bushes and didn't want somebody so bushy. but then once he was chosen, president bush made extraordinary efforts to get brett kavanaugh across the finish line including repeated phone calls to senators saying, i know this man, you should vote for him. >> and blasey ford's father was a golf partner of brett kavanaugh's father? >> they are members of the burning tree country golf club, an elite all-male golf club here. one of the stories i tell in the book has to do with the day after brett kavanaugh's confirmation when his father ed kavanaugh opens his email and

receives an email unexpectedly from his golf friend ralph blasey who says, this has been hard on both our families, i'm glad brett was confirmed. imagine that. he had been very supportive of his daughter all the way through and said he was proud of her, but that's an amazing moment. >> there are so many amazing moments in this amazing book. "supreme ambition." ruth marcus, so proud to be your pal and colleague. >> same here, thank you, andrea. >> this is great work. thank you for bringing it to us. lots of luck on the book tour. coming up, talking turkey. the president unleashes, unloads, i should say, at his rally in florida about the impeachment inquiry. polls on the war against thanksgiving. what war against thanksgiving? he thinks there is one. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. rea mitchell reports" on msnbc. hey there people eligible for medicare.

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billions of problems. morning breath? garlic breath? stinky breath? there's a therabreath for you. therabreath fresh breath oral rinse instantly fights all types of bad breath and works for 24 hours. so you can... breathe easy. there's therabreath at walmart. president trump unplugged, in a freewheeling rally in florida last night, a homecoming rally now that he's a legal resident there, talking about everything from the impeachment inquiry to thanksgiving. i want to warn you, the president uses profanity that might offend some. >> they're pushing that impeachment witch hunt and a lot of bad things are happening to them because you see what's happening in the polls? everybody said that's really bullshit.

[ cheers and applause ] they said, he went into the hospital, and it's true, i didn't wear a tie, why would i wear a tie if the first thing they do is say take off your shirt, sir, and show us that gorgeous chest. we want to see it. we've never seen a chest quite like it. >> back with us now, bill critici kristol and yamiche alcindor, political correspondent for "the pbs news hour." the president says people are attacking thanksgiving. christmas that was pushed by the network and the president when he was running by the president. who does not like thanksgiving? >> there is this real discussion

of christopher columbus and the founding of this country. >> is that what they were talking? >> this is president trump's sweet spot. he likes to be in culture wars and remind people that he's someone that wants the traditional sense that everyone around him is about a war on christmas and christopher columbus of a great guy and people questioning whether or not christopher columbus was not some way murdered or killing native americans. no one is saying thanksgiving is a bad thing. the president is backed against the wall with the impeachment inquiry. he's going back to what he feels comfortable with. >> suddenly trying to under cut america appreciation. i think what yamiche said is

right. >> impeachment is getting to him. he's going to be impeached and i think he'll be. it is not quite as certain as everyone thinks. just listen to the trial and think everything is just fine. i think he's more worried and he does play this silly card you may say. you got to play something. he does not want to discuss the impeachment and urge people to testify before the people of the house. he's so confident in this case, why does he not testify or ask rudy giuliani to testify or pompeo or mulvaney or all of these people who were his loyalists. all these public servants and certain trump administration testified under oath. >> news now being broken by "the new york times" and "the washington post." rudy giuliani was in talks with lutsenko and other ukrainians to

do paid work for them when he was trying to dig up dirt for the bidens. yamiche, this raises more questions on the conflicts interests. who is rudy working for? >> this gets the heart of rudy giuliani's intention. we always knew he had this lucrative consulting business doing work all around the world. he saw his work with the president as intertwined with his both personal dealings with his law firm as well as national security. this new reporting tells us that rudy giuliani likely also had a personal interests in making sure ukrainians felt good of what's going on and he was someone who could make money in this deal. there had been questions of people who's close to rudy giuliani, this new reporting about him possibly making money in ukraine makes it seem like he felt he was playing the president a bit. >> it does go to the heart of

his potential defense there is, a lawyer client privilege involving what he was doing, avoiding any kind of testimonies in court potentially or at the hearings. >> i guess so. president zelensky talked to rudy. >> go back to that. >> trump thought rudy was advancing his own interest. let's just hear it from mick mulvaney. if trump had nothing to hide and mulvaney behaved in a poor way, why don't they just let minimal testify. >> rudy giuliani claims this down that there was this deal that ukraine was trying to give to him that he really thoupght about it and did not want to do it. who was rudy giuliani working for? what was his intent. president trump is backing off rudy giuliani and he told bill

o'reilly, i am not quite sure what rudy giuliani was doing. he was offering his opinions. there is money being involved and everyone says follow the money. it seems lieke he had a financil interests in making ukraine possibly feeling like he's possibly on their side. >> yamiche alcindor and bill kristol. >> stay with us, you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. reports" on msnbc. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting. chantix reduces the urge so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

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and a brief personal note before we say good-bye for the thanksgiving holiday. there is someone we have to give special thanks to, for the past four years, we have had the incredible privilege working with our senior producer, casey dolan. the heart and soul of our team. she spent countless hours covering by my side and too many cities to name. she put together the 76th anniversary of d-day where her grandfather served. she's a phenomenal producer, she's going to leave a tremendous weight on our team as she moves on from msnbc, she's

leading on with halie jackson, we love you and we'll miss you. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." >> happy thanksgiving to all of you. >> casey always has a great thing to say, helpful thing to do. we are not going to miss her because we'll see her some where else but we'll miss her on your show. andrea, thank you. >> coming up at this hour on "velshi & ruhle," we got new critical information about the timinging of the whistleblower' complaint and president trump release of aid to ukraine. we'll tell you what trump knew and when this could be big for the impeachment inquiry. president trump keeps on losing the battle, is he winning the war? we'll dig into the strategy. dire new warnings on tclimate change. can the next administration save this or is it