and say you've achieved so much, how can you be depressed and have down mental health days? so something a little bit out of the realm of politics but we think very worth while. also to you and yours and all the families out there i hope you have a wonderful thanksgiving tomorrow, thanks for watching "the beat." "hardball" starts now. the rudy connection. let's play hardball. good evening. i'm steve kornacki in for chris matthews. with the house drive towards impeachment kicking into high gear and hearings in the judiciary committee set to begin next week, new information is emerging about president trump's personal attorney, rudy giuliani. even as the president himself is trying to distance himself from the man who he is increasingly at the center of it all.

"the washington post" and "the new york times" both report that giuliani was pursuing business deals in ukraine with ukrainians officials at the same time he was trying to dig up dirt on president trump's political rivals. this according to documents and people familiar with the matter. according to "the post" giuliani, quote, negotiated earlier this year to represent ukraine's top prosecutor for at least $200,000 during the same months that giuliani was working with the prosecutor to dig up dirt on vice president joe biden. in an interview with "the wall street journal" giuliani said he decided he couldn't represent -- the information comes just days after wall street journal and reuters reported federal prosecutors are looking into giuliani's business dealings. jewel ya giuliani has denied any wrongdoing. on tuesday the president tried

to put someday light between himself and giuliani with fox news host bill o'reilly. what was rudy giuliani doing in ukraine on your behalf? >> well, you'd have to ask that to rudy. i know he was going to go to ukraine and i think he canceled a trip, but rudy has other clients other than me. >> you didn't direct him to go there on your behalf? >> no. but you have to understand rudy is a great corruption fighter. >> giuliani is your personal lawyer. so you didn't direct him to go to ukraine or anything? >> rudy's a warrior. rudy went. he possibly saw -- you have to understand. rudy has other people he represents. >> while the president now claims giuliani was acting on his own in that july 25th phone call with the ukrainian president, president trump explicitly stated this. quote, rudy very much knows what's happening and he's a

capable guy. if you could speak to him, that would be great. and last week ambassador gordon sondland repeatedly told lawmakers on the house intelligence committee he worked with giuliani at the direction of the president. >> secretary perry, ambassador volker and i worked with mr. giuliani on ukraine matters at the express direction of the president of the united states. we worked with mr. giuliani because the president directed us to do so. when the president said talk to my personal lawyer, mr. giuliani we did so at the president's direction. when the president says talk to my attorney and mr. giuliani makes certain requests or demands we assume it's coming from the president. >> for more i'm joined by shelby holiday, philip bump, and shelby i'll start with you.

we have found out even before the president's phone call, before this transcript was released giuliani was out there talking with his interest in ukraine on behalf of president trump, on behalf of his client at the time. now we find out some time maybe in this same period he was in discussions to represent a ukrainian prosecutor. what do we know about the time line here? when those discussions were taking place, how close they were coming to fruition? >> time line is important. earlier they were reporting lutsenko also floated the idea of paying rudy to work for him, and that's very interesting because rudy giuliani full time has said he didn't have clients in ukraine, everything he's done has been to help his client, president trump. and now we're seeing through some of the reporting today it

was actually the ukrainians who wanted help getting this information to the justice department, and they wanted rudy giuliani to do it for them. and that raises a lot of questions. we broke this story the other day of subpoenas mentioning giuliani and giuliani partners. and the language was interesting. it was actually any potential payments or agreements with giuliani or his consulting firm. and the reporting sheds a little more light on what prosecutors are looking at. these draft agreements and potential payments go right to the harlt of the investigation. was rudy giuliani working on behalf of a foreign government or foreign person to influence the u.s. government? >> right, so here's the question, too, we know giuliani's interest potentially at least on the behalf of trump was to get the investigation going into the bidens. from the standpoint of this prosecutors, his name came up a lot in these hearings. remind us who he is and what he would have wanted giuliani to be doing for him. >> so a number of officials who

testified in the impeachment hearings last week, referred to him as a corrupt prosecutor. he was somebody previously in the ukrainian administration. he no longer serves. he got replaced. but he was somebody who marie yovanovitch said was corrupt and didn't necessarily like marie yovanovitch, the ambassador who got fired because she was blocking some of his activities and pushing him to clean it up and do the job he was supposed to be doing. so it makes sense he had been pushing for her ouster, that's another focus of impeachment and the southern district's investigation. why was rudy giuliani pushing so hard to get you von vch out? lutsenko pushing this, bringing these things and that's very bad if that happened. >> that's a new way at looking, again, at something we've already known. we had the haegzs yovanovitch

telling her story and i think there was a general understanding out there, hey, was rudy trying to run this campaign to get her out of there because that would have helped get dirt on biden, but now looking at from this angle the potential here is this would be rudy acting on, excuse me, a potential client's behalf to do something he wanted. >> the first thing that jumps to mind when you hear all of this is this is why we have conflict of interest government screening. that is why government workers have to undergo these extensive background checks so if we know there's potential conflicts of interest, who's getting paid if there's money and giuliani could also find himself for these same actions in hot water with the southern district of new york. because if you're conducting business on behalf of a foreign

government, you are required and you're trying to lobby the united states, you're required to lobby as a foreign agent. if you don't register, you're in violation of the law. >> even if you're not getting paid. >> if you're actually doing the work, it's still the same. i think this could be evidence the southern district is absolutely looking at. and it would not surprise me if this is potential charge they're considering. >> giuliani told "the times" it was his only client back in, and i went there as a lawyer defending his client. as his defense lawyer, it's my job to show if there's an alternative explanation that proves him innocent. i am defending my client the best way i know how. everything i did was to defend my client. i am proud of what i did. >> and last weekend giuliani insisted he had no business interests of his own in ukraine. >> i have no financial interests in the ukraine. i'm not going to financially

profit from anything i know of in the ukraine. i have no business interests in ukraine. it is untrue. it is false. >> so, philip, look at this now from the angle of trump and giuliani. this is what giuliani has been saying publicly. now there's this new reporting, a new twist on this. also the president's comments with bill o'reilly versus what the president has been saying. >> so the president has an established track record as soon as someone becomes inconvenient, he doesn't know them that well. he -- as you pointed out he specifically said to the president of ukraine, hey, work with rudy giuliani. he made this infamous meeting on may 23rd called the so-called amigos you need to work with giuliani. he kept pointing people towards

giuliani to work with. so now it defies all credulity he wouldn't know now what giuliani is doing. there's people giuliani interacting with on the side who aren't really related to president trump. there's the two associates of his, fruman and parnas, and this reporter for the hill john solomon, and this oligarch firtash. all are aimed at digging about this dirt, talking about what's going on in ukraine, all of which filters its way back to the president. and i think one of the things we're learning here is just how intrichet the ties outside the administration worked. >> what started what here? was this trump and rudy interested in the idea that, hey, ukraine had something to do with the 2016 campaign? we want to get to that or was this rudy starting to have a potential client relationship and then the interest in the bidens in 2016 growing out of that? which was leading which there?

>> you know, i've watched a lot of clips for giuliani for videos we've done at "the wall street journal," and he has a slightly different story every time. he's maintained this effort started last november. in some cases he said ukrainians dropped some information in his lap, in other cases he said some americans brought it to his attention. things really started picking up in january and february where he actually sat down and met with these ukrainians to talk about the biden investigation and the investigation in 2016. you heard say he's doing this to come up with an alternative explanation to defend my client. that's a little strange because president trump was ultimately cleared by robert mueller. they didn't find any evidence of collusion with russia. so what rudy giuliani was doing with respect to ukraine and this debunked theory ukraine was interfering in the election didn't make a lot of sense. >> giuliani for his part he said he had insurance should the president throw him under the

bus. >> have you talked with the president in the last week or two? >> i do not discuss my conversations with my client. you can assume i talked to him early and often and have a very, very good relationship with him. and all of these comments which are totally insulting -- i mean i've seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus. when i say that i say he isn't, but i have insurance. >> now reuters is reporting giuliani's lawyer made him call the president to emphasize he was not serious. his attorney told reuters you shouldn't joke, he's not a funny guy. what do you make of what giuliani was saying there and this explanation now? >> i think his lawyer is giving him some good advice. when you say you have insurance against somebody you're representing that is the target of this impeachment, it sounds like a threat -- exactly, if you come forward i'm going to release all this dirt i have on you, which is never a position that an attorney should be in talking about their client.

i mean, to the extent he has information about his client, donald trump, that was presumably made in confidence and would be something that an attorney or at least an ethical one would not breach and certainly would not joke about. so i think he's getting good advice from his lawyer. i hope he follows that advice and steers away from making threats like these. >> there's a bigger question here and i think a bigger theme here with giuliani just in terms of he has made a lot of money through the years going overseas, dealing with foreign governments, dealing with folks abroad, picking up and going into ukraine was sort of an extension in some ways of how he's making money. >> you'll yawny has been pretty opportunistic in which clients he takes on. i think it certainly was the case that his eyes opened for other opportunities. and while he was making these presentations on cable news broadcast he was at the same time trying to make a side

hustle which i think is very on brand for rudy giuliani as well. and the question is how much that, a, gets him into trouble, and b, bleeds over into what he was doing for the president of the united states. and i want to add as a journalist i'm happy to have him keep talking. >> we've certainly seen not just on the news, twitter. we've seen quite a few -- it's one of the interesting aspects of this era. shelby holiday, philip bump, thank you all for being with us. and with a new phase set to begin in the impeachment investigation there's new reporting what president trump knew and when he knew it. "the new york times" reporting the president knew about the whistle-blower complaint before he released the military aid to ukraine. plus ten weeks from tonight we will be talking about the winner of the iowa caucuses. and coming up, what the polling tells us about the state of the race for each of the top candidates. there is some good news, there is some bad news. we're going to go through each piece of it for all four of those candidates. we've got much more to get to. stay with us. more to get to. stay with us

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welcome back to "hardball." the impeachment inquiry is moving into a new phase as the house judiciary committee takes up the case. the committee set to hold its first hearing next wednesday ob, quote, the historical and constitutional bae constitutional basis of impeachment. meanwhile new reporting from "the new york times" cast doubt on trump's earliest denial of a quid pro quo and raises new questions on what led to the release of security assistance on ukraine. according to two people familiar with the matter, quote, president trump had already been brief said on the whistle-blower's complaint about his dealings with ukraine when he unfroze military aid for the country in september. that briefing came from white house lawyers in late august. the implication is that by september the president was likely aware that the whistle-blower had alleged a link between the freeze of military aid and the president's quest for dirt from ukraine. that could have influenced trump's decision to finally

release that aid. but trump's knowledge of that allegation may also have prompted his unsolicited denial of a quid pro quo to ambassador sondland on a phone call on september 9th. even sondland didn't know why the president brought up a quid pro quo in that conversation. >> and i asked him the open ended question as i testified previously, what do you want from ukraine? his answer was i want nothing, i want no quid pro quo. >> do you know what prompted him to say that? you ask him what do you want, and he goes directly to there is no quid pro quo as opposed to directly going to the list of things that he wanted. what prompted him to use that term? >> i have no clue. >> however, the president is still relying on that denial as a chief line of defense against impeachment. here he was last night. >> last week sondland testified that i told him, quote, what do you want from ukraine. and i said i want nothing. this is a quote. i want no quid pro quo.

i want nothing. >> and i'm joined now by gabby orr and rick tyler. so the significance here of this reporting is exactly what we just heard the president saying there, and we had a number of republicans on that committee during the past couple of weeks point out. hey, trump was on the phone with gordon sondland, he told him directly no quid pro quo. the significance here is this reporting suggests the president knew when he was saying that about the whistle-blower complaint. >> right, steve. and one of the biggest parts of the republicans defense so far of the president is there couldn't have been a quid pro quo because foreign aid to ukraine was eventually released. but now we know the president was fully aware of the whistle-blower complaint before the foreign aid was released on september 11th, it does poke holes in that defense. because now the question becomes was the president releasing that aid out of benevolence for

ukraine or was he releasing that aid because he wanted to begin a cover-up because he knew this whistle-blower complaint was going to land him in trouble. >> there is a gap there, the number of days of the reporting suggests the president knew of the is-wheel blower complaint and when the aid was finally released. is that enough of a gap for republicans to stick the ties line, or do you think they're going to abandon it now? >> sadly, yes. and are the facts really in dispute here? anybody with a lick of common sense who has known donald trump or spent ten minutes with him know exactly what his motivations are here and the pieces of the puzzle fit together. the fact he had been briefed on the whistle-blower before he released the aid just tells you he got caught, and it's as simple as that. >> in a letter yesterday jerry nadler set a deadline for the

president to introduce a lawyer in the judicial proceedings. however, "the new york times" reports, quote, a person familiar with deliberations among the president's legal team said no decision had been made whether to engage in a public defense of the president during those hearings. gabby, this seems a very significant question. we're talking about this judiciary committee hearings beginning next week. it would be the judiciary committee that would draw up articles of impeachment, if that's where this ultimately is going. this seems like a basic decision the white house needs to make sheer whether it wants to acknowledge erparticipate as a legitimate exercise or just to say, hey, we're not going to do this. >> and white house officials will acknowledge there are internal deliberations going on right now whether or not they should get involved. the tough spot they find themselves in, though, is that for the past several weeks they have claimed this is an illegitimate investigation, that this whole process has been a

sham and it has denied the president the due process he would typically be afforded. and so for them now to get involved and to claim this is something that they need to take seriously, it becomes difficult to reconcile both of those approaches. and i think that's why you're seeing the white house counsel's office behind the scenes determine whether or not it would be wise for the president to have an attorney represent him before the house judiciary committee. >> rick, watching those intelligence committee impeachment hearings the past couple of weeks i think folks were trying to see if there were any cracks on the republican side. a lot of attention was paid to will herd from texas who was seen as perhaps the most likely tattoo break. he didn't. we're now starting to get some of the post-hearing polling starting come out. what is your sense of the temperature blitically on the republican side? is it still lock step behind trump, any potential for breaks here? >> look, i don't think so. i think the republicans are

going to stick with trump because they feel trump is sticking with power to their re-election? i think it's rather sad and shortsighted. i don't know that the lawyers -- what lawyer is going to want to go and defend trump in this thing? so that's probably the internal deliberation. and by the way they'll have jumpy jim jordan who will make a fool of himself defending the president. the only reason not to show up is the facts aren't in you're favor and you can't defend this. and that seem tuesday be the line they're going in. but remember this is process, steve, and people need to understand because the white house has done a pretty good job of trying to undermine the process. we are now at the point in the process where the president gets to defend himself. he has been trying to say that he's not been represented because they were on a fact finding mission. now it becomes the point where he can send someone to defend himself, tell the story, and if the facts are on their side they will send someone and prove the whole thing the president says is a hoax. but they're not going to do that

because the facts are not on their side. no one disputes the elements of the story, so the only thing they have left is, a, to undermine the process or, b, it happened what are you going to do about it, or everybody does it. that's where we're at and we'll see how it plays out. >> there's also news from the expected findings of the review of the russia that was conducted by michael harowitz. separately "the new york times" also reports that he also, quote, found that fbi leaders did not take politically motivated action in pursuing a secret wiretap on a former trump campaign advisor. however, quote he unearthed errors and omissions when

advisers applied for the wiretap. gabby, it's interesting. a lot of folks here have drawn comparisons in terms of what trump defenders were hoping for and expecting from this inspector general's report to what trump critics were hoping for and expecting from the mueller report. >> yeah, it is a good comparison because a lot of people were looking at the mueller report to be far more damning than it ultimately proved to be for this president. if you ask his political advisers and people involved in his campaign. the reaction president trump will have to the harowitz report should be interesting. on the one hand i think a lot of his officials and advisor of the campaign will ultimately do what they did when the mueller report was released which is find the evidence that works to fit their narrative and elevate that and drive it home to the president's base and independent voters and people they need to bring into the fold in 2020. wait for them to sort of cherry pick the things they find most

interesting. and we do know just based on reporting leading up to the public release of this report that harowtiz will be critical in some instances of fbi operations. and i think exactly what you can expect the president and his team to hone in on. even if there are elements of this report that did doo not vindicate the president's claims he's been making about internal spies inside his campaign. >> and rick, also in the inspector general's report there's also the review that barr, the attorney general is conducting that republicans are also looking at. >> that's the report i've been told over and over by trumpers i'm to wait for and all the revelations coming out. the harowitz report is very important because it puts into perspective what happened, it sets the record straight. and long after trump is long gone, historians will look back and say, the i.g. did a report

and it's simply not true. vise, surprise. >> rick tyler, gabby orr, thank you both for joining us. and up next with less than 70 days to go until the iowa caucuses, going to head over to the big board and break down the good news and the bad news for the top tier candidates. we've got a bunch of polls this week to tell us where the race stands. you are watching "hardball." use stands you are watching "hardball." chu- cut. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪ ♪

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welcome back to "hardball." what we said about ten weeks from now, we're going to know who won the iowa caucuses. we're going to be on the verge of the new hampshire primary. this thing is going to off and running. maybe you'll get a nominee quickly. maybe it'll go all the way to the convention, but we figured we would take the temperature where this race stands. there are four candidates on the democratic side who are really in double digits, they're really kind of popping in the polls, and we thought we'd take a look what's good for them right now and what's bad for them because really it's kind of a mixed picture for all of them. what is good joe biden in the polls right now, it's the obvious one. this is national polling average and joe biden is ahead. he's ahead by double digits, in the high 20s. his numbers have been stable around there. remember a little bit more than a month ago elizabeth warren was

charging up, again she's fallen back. biden is the clear leader in the national polling average. that's not a bad place to be especially if you've been there for a while. what's the bad news for joe biden, he's not the leader in the first two states that judge. in iowa, you've got to go down to fourth place. joe biden fourth place in the lead off state and also fourth place in new hampshire. you can see that is the risk for joe biden. does he underperform in iowa? does he look like he's running the idea of an electable, does he look like a loser coming out of iowa? does that spill over to new hampshire? does he do terribly in iowa, terribly in new hampshire, and does that affect his support in other states? so biden looking good nationally but not necessarily in the first two states. okay, let's take a look at elizabeth warren. what's good for elizabeth warren in the polling? this was the national polling average, actually. a little typo there, but this

was the polling in the middle of october. she is capable of moving up in the national polling. she got into the lead nationally, but again what's bad -- again, this should say national. but what's bad is her support has fallen in half. basically warren has gone from 28% down to 14%. that is major problem for her campaign. the trajectory it was up, up, up for her for months and now down and down sharply. what's good for bernie sanders right now in the polling is this. he's back in second place. we mentioned warren falling off, sanders in six place. less than two months ago we were talking about sanders heart attack, health, and given everything he's been through, and given where this thing stood for him, not a bad place to be. bad news for sanders, it's this. when you look inside the numbers for him, this is age gap.

youngest voters, 28%. very solid. 25% to 49%, down to 18. 65 plus, 3%. here's the thing over than half of the votes in the democratic primaries are going to come from these age groups right here. we saw this with sanders in 2016 as well. older voters, there are a lot of older voters and very skeptical of bernie sanders. pete buttigieg, among white voters in the democratic primary, new poll came out this week, buttigieg is now in first place. he's ahead of biden, warren -- he's ahead of everybody. first place with white voters. what does it look like in the state, 0%, south carolina, 0%. south carolina 60% of the electorate is black. nationally 25%. buttigieg has not shown any traction there yet. he's got if he wants to win the democratic nomination.

four candidates popping right now. what's good, what's bad, we've still got a ways to go. up next what do these big polling shifts and discrepancies mean at this point in the race? you're watching "hardball." es mean at this point in the race you're watching "hardball. and we want to keep you connected to those you love, with the new iphone 11. so t-mobile is giving you an iphone 11 on us for each new line of unlimited. for yourself, or up to a family of four. keep your family connected, and hurry into t-mobile today, to get up to four iphone 11's on us. only at t-mobile. of millions of americans during the recession. so, my wife kat and i took action. we started a non-profit community bank with a simple theory - give people a fair deal and real economic power. invest in the community, in businesses owned by women and people of color, in affordable housing.

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nobody in the first three years of a presidency has done what we've done, nobody. nobody. that's very important. but with your help we're going to complete the mission, and we are draining the swamp indeed. on election day 2020 inkrause r crazy democrats are going down in a landslide. >> welcome back to "hardball." with the iowa caucuses just a little more than two months away president trump is eager to face-off with his democratic

challenger, whoever it ends up being. it's not quite clear who it will be or when the nominee will emerge. i'll start with you. when we're putting all the numbers up the biden one is interesting because it's almost a test, do you want to be the candidate losing fourth place in both iowa and new hampshire? which one of those is more important right now? >> everybody loves a come back story and we've seen it time and time again, somebody comes out of iowa, people write these headlines, new hampshire says we have a voice in this, too, south carolina says we have a voice. nobody wants to feel as a voter things are wrapped up before they vote, they're not being sort of sought after as a

constituency. and everything very helpful everyone likes to take shots at the front-runner. if you're at the bottom on some of this polling one of the best things is you have nowhere else to go but up, and the challenge is actually doing it. but you at least get to have this narrative of building momentum, starting at the bottom moving moving up. >> how do you assess his political standing because there's a theory, wow, it's been six months he's still in first place. and there's a theory wow if you've seen him in these debates and people are paying close attention, those numbers are going to drop? >> i don't, look it seemings like there was a floor under biden and the floor is 28%. that is what you look at from april until now. he was at 28%. if you drew a line through the graph, of course you want to be that guy. i mean would you prefer to be

that guy and in first place, yes but it's not that far behind and they're kind of clumped the four of them a bit, and we have this kind of buttigieg bubble particularly in iowa, and he's going to have to sustain that. but it's just as easy to say that biden could come in a close second in iowa or the three people could effectively tie eniowa, and he could do perfectly fine for new hampshire, and then he goes south and he devastates the field from south carolina through super tuesday. and that 28% carries him to the nomination. >> danielle, i think it seems likely if biden can win or certainly two of those early states or be seen as succeeding, as john says you don't nesari necessarily have to win. then that support he has in south carolina and beyond should hold. but i think the question is what if he does come in a distant

third in iowa? he's 10, 15 points behind? what if he does come in a distant third? his campaign talks about south carolina, his support from black voters is a firewall. is it? >> no, it's not. here's the thing we have to understand about black voters right now is that we are not a monolith. there are young black millennials who are not for biden because he doesn't speak to any of their issues. he doesn't speak to student debt relief, climate change in an aggressive way. you have older black voters on his side looking to see where are the white voters who voted for trump going to go. we understand what oppression and discrimination looks like on a daily basis and we understand trump to be a lethal threat to our way of life. and as it's polling right now we'll go the way that seems the safest, but it doesn't seem if

joe biden comes out of new hampshire in fourth, that south carolina is going to save him. they're going to look at him and say, wait a minute, maybe we should be taking a look at elizabeth warren because she has a plan for black women and hbcus, maybe we should look at bernie sanders. and with pete buttigieg, what we've seen with him there's a pattern that comes out of pete buttigieg's campaign where he doesn't naturally speak to black issues and black people. and that is something we're seeing. 0% right now is something we see at all. >> you mentioned buttigieg, the polling we've seen has been among college educated vite voters. kamala harris had a big jump with them over the summer, seemed to shift to warren, now seems to be shifting to buttigieg. are those voters finding a home there do you think or is there going to be another candidate that emerges, what do you think about that?

>> it is -- i have no idea. that is the one thing i'm absolutely sure of. but it seems like what happened with republicans in 2016 was that they cycled through a couple of different candidates, it turned out to be donald trump and they did something that not many people expected, they coalesced because they wanted to be democrats more than they care truly -- and i wonder if that's the same thing that's going to happen with democrats. there's going to be a very intense fight, very strong fight about principles and strategy. and i think when voters start thinking about how pure of a candidate they want coming out of a primary versus donald trump, when they speak to those kind of issues about an existential threat from the administration, i truly wonder how much are they going to make a strategic choice. >> trump enters the race in june, by august he's in the lead

and he never surrenders the national lead. and every pundit, me, everybody else is like he's going to die, he's going to collapse, something's going to happen, he's going to make a fool of himself, people are not going to take it seriously. once they really focus after the super bowl, after the world series, after this, after that, and it didn't happen. and that is biden's potential ace in the hole, that we're all sitting around waiting for him to collapse. he has not collapsed. there have been four debates. everyone thinks he did badly, doesn't seem to have mattered a whit. it's not that he's defied gravity it's that he's achieved some kind of equilibrium in the polls i'm sorry that has him in the lead. >> a minute left here. let me ask you this, the same question all-of ow. if not biden, who do you think is best positioned to take this? >> elizabeth warren. she's best positioned she has

the best policy ideas and aside from the fact billionaires are attacking her left and right, which everyone should be paying attention to who's attacking her and why, that makes her a strong candidate. and i think it may get in her way. >> sanders seems to have this kind of rock solid support base. he does have some support. there are warren supporters and sanders supporters who have some affinity for each other. >> i'm going to say if it's not biden and if things don't really shake-up, we're going to a -- >> there it is. >> no one is popping. that's the simple matter. no one is popping. three people at 22% or something like that. >> all the false alarms for four decades, maybe it'll actually happen. up next, chris talk tuesday a giant in the media business about journalism in the age of trump. you're watching "hardball." n thf trump. you're watching "hardball.

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as washington bureau chief and later as national columnist for the san francisco chronicle. frank now is currently the executive vice president of hurst and out with a new book. frank, thank you. you know when you represent, you represent that golden age of newspapers all around the trunly, the san antonio paper and the whole collection of hurst papers. and you were the guy who i hold -- well, i give you credit like everybody else for saving the hurst corporation and all these changes. >> massive. a great brand, great trip. >> and everybody talks about the depth of newspapers and every night on this program we rely on newspaper accounts, how's that working out? >> as i've said in the book and elsewhere, our papers are profitable, not as profitable in their heyday, but as we get it right on the digital side it's really now a combination of the

reading paying more and succeeding in digital. and if you can have your website, the newspaper website be the leading one in the marketplace, you can do reasonably well. newspapers in general used to garner about 25% of all advertising. today that's a teen number, maybe 13% or 14%, so we're having to do without and so the reader has to pay more. >> how important is it we have a free press? simple question but you've been around. >> super important. i really can't imagine the united states or a world without a free press. and we're under as much duress right now as we've ever been, and that might be an overstatement -- >> i know you're not partisan but we have a president who calls you fake news every day. >> and a true larger part of the population buys into that as being real. and it's the reason we have to be better than we ever were, not

only in our newspapers but in our television stations and our radio stations. and everything we do because the scrutiny. >> do you think journalists now are more or less opinionated than they were when you first got into it? >> well, it became okay to become o opinionated. but it slips into the column, it's not so good. and i think the really good ones you and i admire know how to write opinion and make it clear that's opinion. but i think it's a different -- a different world. and the objectativity we were right down the middle and of course that's gone away in today's world. >> you know we've got the jeff bazos who's a billionaire, the family up in that you

recollect -- "the new york times" and the hurst. is this something we can count on in the future, wealthy families willing to be philanthropic and -- >> i think so. i think the problem is going to be where it was the livelihood of families that aren't that rich and have not been as well, and if you can't attract capital, it's hard to stay in business. but i think the families that are devoted to it are really devoted to it. and they pass it along and it's up to guys like me who can be sure that culture survives me. one of the reasons i didn't read and become the executive vice chair instead of president and leaving is i believe what we've done over the past eight years because i'm going to be there to do everything i can to preserve our independence and the job we do for our community. >> it's a book by a guy who knows how to save newspapers, he

put it all together, leave something on the table by the great and i mean that. thank you, frank. >> chris matthews, the former hurst ceo frank bennett. stay with us. you're watching "hardball." k be. stay with us you're watching "hardball. month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. humira can help stop the clock. prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection.

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the my account app makes today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. not my thing. that's "hardball" for now. i'm steve kornacki. thanks for being with us. chris matthews returns on monday. he'll be joined by former secretary of state john kerry.

also be sure to check out my podcast. called article 2 inside impeachment. it's a great way to catch up as you travel through your holiday destination and we wish you a very happy thanksgiving. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> i have no financial interests in the ukraine. i'm not going to financially profit from anything i know of in the ukraine. >> more trouble for rudy giuliani. >> what was rudy giuliani doing in ukraine on your behalf? >> well, you have to ask that to rudy. >> new reports that the president's lawyer was trying to get paid by ukrainians while he was pushing trump's extortion effort. >> you know, i have no business interests in ukraine. >> tonight the growing evidence of rudy giuliani's flagrant corruption. >> then new evidence that trump kept two sets of books on his business asset. >> it was my