live. right now "andrea mitchell reports". >> thank you. right now conspiracy theory, why does a republican senator continue to push a debunked talking point scripted by vladimir putin's intelligence services? >> i think both russia and ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. >> you realize the only other person selling this argument outside the united states is this man, vladimir putin. you have done exactly what the russian operation is trying to get american politicians to do. are you at all concerned that you've been duped? >> no. because just read the articles. >> we'll have a fact check on the senator's so-called proof coming up. phase two, the house intelligence committee prepares to release its report and the judiciary committee prepares to open its first impeachment hearings even as the white house refuses to cooperate and the

president goes on defense. >> the ukrainian president came out and said strongly president trump did absolutely nothing wrong. that should be case over. 2020 road show. the front runners try to shore up their weak spots. joe biden gets on the bus in iowa. mayor pete is in south carolina. >> from our perspective, you got to show up and you got to show up in places that maybe haven't heard from campaigns for a while. >> can you win the nomination without winning in iowa? >> yes, but i'm going to win iowa. ♪ good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. as the intelligence committee prepares the impeachment report, republican senator john kennedy on "meet the press" still embracing the discredited con conspiracy theory that ukraine

meddled in the 2016 campaign. he goes onto say that fiona hill was only voicing her opinion, not fact that the ukraine narrative is russian propaganda. he cite ed alleged news clips a his authoritative evidence. >> i think both russia and ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. it's been well documented in the financial times, politico, the washington examiner, even on cbs that the prime minister of ukraine, the interior minister, the ukrainian ambassador to the united states, the head of the ukrainian anti-corruption league all meddled in the election on social media and otherwise. they worked with the dnc operative. in fact can i make one more point, chuck? >> sure. >> in fact, in december of 2018

a ukrainian court ruled that ukrainian officials had violated ukrainian hlaw by meddling in or election. that was reported in the "new york times." dr. hill is exciteled to h e ed entitled to her opinion. >> when does opinion become fact? does 17 intelligence services saying it, does every western ally saying russia did this. i'm sort of confused. at no point is it no longer an opinion for you? >> i don't think it's an opinion. i think it was a fact. but the fact that russia was so aggressive does no exclude the fact that president poroshenko actively worked for secretary clinton. >> my goodness. wait a minute. senator kennedy you now have the president of ukraine saying he actively worked for the democratic nominee for president. now come on.

you realize the only other person selling this argument outside the unite is this man, vladimir putin. you've done exactly what the russian operation is trying to get american politicians to do. are you at all concerned that you've been duped? >> no. because just read the articles. >> so we read the articles. today on ""morning joe"" they read the articles too. the financial times flatly denied those claims. >> but the idea that ukraine intervened in the u.s. 2016 election specifically is not something that senator kennedy can point to the financial times as supporting. i'm not too away of any credible reporting on that subject. fiona hill was absolutely right when she said this was a conspiracy theory that was cooked up in the kremlin and from farm to fork is now coming

out of senator kennedy's mouth. >> and our team here at amr has traced a supposed collection of news stories back to a posting from the federalist.com, a conservative news blog that cherry picks stories that reported moscow hacked a phone app to falsely implicate ukraine in the meddling. we have reached out to senator kennedy's office to see if that is his source. we've also reached out to the other organizations he cites. politico responded writing in part the article did not state that the ukrainian document conspired with the clinton campaign or the dnc. it also emphasized that the acts of ukrainian officials to raise questions about trump were not comparable to russia's interference in the 2016 election and reported that the then ukrainian government was trying do make amended with then president-elect trump. we stand by the reporting.

connecticut democratic senator chris murphy joining me now. we will be updating our reporting with other news organizations whom we've reached out to as well. senator, you as a foreign relation committee member, as someone who has traveled repeatedly to ukraine, can you help us fact check your colleague senator kennedy? >> nobody knows ukraine better than i do. i've been there about five or six times. it's a hornet's nest of political rivalries but it is simply a lie to say that the ukrainian government and president poroshenko himself meddled in the 2016 election that is made up out of whole cloth and there is no credible reporting to support it and there is no one in the american intelligence community who has come to that conclusion. this is just another attempt by republicans to throw as much chum into the water as they can with respect to the impeachment proceedings because they cannot

actually defend the president on the merits. they know that the president of the united states used the massive power of the oval office in order to try to get a foreign government to interfere in an american election, to help destroy the president's political opponents and that he withheld aid and a meeting at the white house in order to get that interference. they don't want to talk about the facts. they don't want to try to defend the president's actions. so they're going to try to bring third parties into this debate whether it be the whistleblower or president poroshenko, but this is a fact, ukraine didn't interfere in the election, russia did. it is sad to watch my friends in the u.s. senate so willingly avoid the truth. >> we're not only talking about chapter 1 of the mueller report which is catalogs why they were russian officials, 13 russians indicted for interfering and for hacking the dnc and other cyber

crimes. none of them of course have been able to be arrested because the u.s. can't get them back from russia. but the senate intelligence committee led by a republican senator, senators burr and warner came to the same conclusion, as did all of the 17 intelligence agencies. the president has just tweeted from air force one. this is what the president is tweeting about on his way to a nato gathering that's going to investigate what to do about afghanistan, turkey and the like. this is what's on his mind. thank you to great republican senator john kennedy for the job he did in representing both the republican party and myself against sleepy eyes chuck todd on meet the depressed. we only do that paubecause he'se president of the united states. we don't normally pick up his n insults against other people but since he's insulting our colleague who did such a great

job on "meet the press" and praising senator kennedy for propagating these meths whiyths according to the intelligence agencies is republican disinformation. how do we deal with that? >> listen, my hope has been all along that the senate would be able to survive the trump presiden presidency, that we wouldn't be pulled down into this cesspool of lies and mistruths. it's sad to watch my colleagues willingly propagate these lies. they are not required to do so just because the president is highi in lying about the facts surrounding the 2016 election. ukraine is a complicated country. of course there were individuals in ukraine who may have been rooting for hillary clinton, as there were individuals who ukraine who were rooting for donald trump in that election. but that is something very

different than saying that the ukrainian government, that the president and the prime minister were actively coordinating with the dnc. that is fundamentally not true and there's no reporting and no intelligence sources that senator kennedy, nor the president can rely on. they're just trying to avoid talking about the fundamental corruption that the white house was involved in. >> and there's also -- it's very clear when we go back to the initial cbs reporting which was picking up ken vogel's reporting from politico that that's not either ken vogel or cbs has reported. we keep reaching out to senator kennedy's office. i just want to also bring up something else that's going on, which is that you're just back from lebanon. you're doing what you did when you came back from ukraine. you're raising a question why is the administration illegally freezing money that has been

appropriated by both houses of congress for military defense in lebanon now as it did in ukraine. what do you think is going on there? now we're talking about 10$100 million. this is realtime and it's a repeat potentially of what happened with ukraine over the summer. >> the situation in lebanon is e eerily similar. the president would not give ukraine the aid illegally. he was using that aid in order to gain political help from the ukrainian government. in lebanon, congress appropriated $100 million worth of aid. lebanon badly needs it. right now the army is trying to push back against hezbollah's attempts to try to break up some really important organic

anti-corruption protests happening in the streets. we are trying to endeavor as to the reason why. i went to lebanon to see how badly needed that aid is on the ground. i've returned back to congress to work with colleagues to press the administration to at least explain to us why they are withheld that aid. they have offered no reason. they have offered no reason to our embassy in beirut. we are weeks away from the fiscal year ending and lebanon has not gotten that security assistance. i hope that the reason it's being withheld isn't as nefarious as the reason we uncovered in ukraine but it is eerily similar. >> what cbs reported is in their reporting and what ken vogel reported about ukraine were these individual actors and it was not at all equivalent wto

what russia did. this blog the federalist.com in amalgamating this stuff is completely taken out of context. senator chris murphy, thanks for joining us today. >> thank you. >> joining us for more, nbc white house correspondent jeff bennett and garrett haake on capitol hill. have you gotten any response yet from senator kennedy? >> reporter: no word yet from senator kennedy's office. i shawhat you're seeing here is comparison between apples and oranges here. there were ukrainians concerned about the prospect of donald trump becoming president. what you see in those financial times articles cited by the federalist in particular is one

ukrainian trying to raise alarm bells about donald trump. that's not even remotely the same thing as a top down kremlin organized pew lynn led effort to fundamentally interfere in a u.s. election. what you're seeing more broadly is an effort by republican lawmakers to throw as much chum in the water as possible here and just bog this process down in counter measures and counter charges and complaints about one another and other countries here that republicans don't have to win these arguments. they have to make them confusing enough that people just tune them out. i think that's what you're seeing from republican defenders of the president in this stage of the inquiry. >> to jeff bennett at the white house, here's the president on his way to a summit complaining that the impeachment is muddying the waters and it shouldn't be taking place on wednesday, the same time as he's at a summit in london. he's tweeting about all of this himself in route to london

glnch. >> reporter: you're right. the president is doing what he can to invigorate and unify republicans to defend him in this crucial chapter in the impeachment process. come wednesday's hearing, president trump's counsel has already made clear they're not going to participate. so it will be up to republicans on that committee to do the work that the counsel would do. i would add that one of the reasons why you see so many of these republican lawmakers turn themselves into partisan flame throwers in service of president trump is because in many of these states and districts president trump himself is more popular among republicans than the lawmakers are. that is certainly the case in south carolina where have senator lindsey graham up for reelection. that helps explain what many people see as graham's curious evolution. this is what partisan tribal politics looks like.

you have will hurd, a sober minded serious republican who is retiring a guy who's broken with president trump on other issues in the past, but yet when it comes to impeachment will hurd looked at the mountain of evidence and said it's not enough to impeach. >> a former cia officer himself who comes from the intelligence community that has been disparaged and ignored and produced the fact checking that led to the state department and nsc witnesses and their evidence. when that happened in realtime, i was on the air and it was extraordinary and it was a real tell. jeff bennett, garrett haake, thanks so much to both of you for your reporting today. what role could rudy giuliani play in the impeachment of his most famous client? impet of his most famous client? hears to avoid screening for colon cancer. i'm not worried. it doesn't run in my family. i can do it next year. no rush.

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>> because the whole thing is a hoax. everybody knows it. >> president trump today saying he will not let his lawyers participate in the second round of impeachment hearings as the judiciary committee hears from experts on wednesday. this as the intelligence committee prepares to release its report supporting the charges outlined originally in the whistleblower report. nbc news legal analyst andrew weissman is a former senior fbi official. what do you think a about the president's decision not to participate in the judiciary committee hearings? >> i think that representative nadler basically called the white house's bluff on this. seeing what happened in the intelligence committee offered the white house a blank check

basically, saying come on in if you want to participate and call witnesses and cross examine, go ahead. and i think you saw the white house counsel blink in a letter that i found as a lawyer somewhat disspiriting because it really was more of a press release than a legal document. >> in what sense? to those of us who are not lawyers. >> so what you expect from a lawyer is raising real issues. so even just the outset of that letter it started by saying the democrats are conducting an impeachment hearing. of course that's not the case. the democrats are in the majority and they voted on behalf of congress. so congress is holding the impeachment hearing, not the democrats. you don't expect to see in a lawyer's letter something that's really more appropriate for the president's personal counsel to

be saying. and i really think there has been a real shift in the white house counsel really not understanding the role that the white house counsel is counsel for the institution and not counsel that is personal to the president. >> one of the other things that really should be pointed out is the republicans get to interview the witnesses paubecause they w in those closed sessions and they were in the public sessions and they had their time, they had their counsel there. some of the witnesses that they had proposed were also presented there. it's not as though they brought no witnesses forward. >> that's true. it's also the case that in a court of law you don't just get to call any old witness. the witness has to be relevant to the issue. to just say, gee, they're not

letting me put on any witness is a really a red herring. >> i want to ask you something about something that was pub hirsch lished in the daily beast. lisa page gave her first interview. here she's speaking out about what it feels like to be attacked over and over again. she said i have to deal with the aftermath of having the most wrong thing i've ever done in my life being public. that's when i became the target of the president's personal mockery and insults. i wouldn't even call it ptsd because it's not over. it's ongoing. it just keeps happening. you know lisa page. we haven't had the opportunity to interview her. what is your impression of what she admittedly having done

something wrong in terms of i guess the professional aspects of her personal life and how that is playing out in the public arena. >> so i think there's a legal aspect to this and there's a personal aspect. on the personal aspect, it's really tragic. you know, people have affairs. it usually doesn't play out on the front page of the newspaper. it certainly doesn't play out where the president of the united states with an irony that's palpable that the president is focusing on that when this is definitely a case of glass houses. but on the legal aspect, i think there's a very important issue here that i think a disservice has been done to the public. lisa page has done nothing wrong. she has a first amendment right to speak even as a federal employee. so it's really a fiction to

think that juriy jurors, judges political employees don't have political views. the issue is whether they act on them. people act on principles all the time. it's simply not the case to think that personal views are going to affect what a prosecutor does. >> thank you so very much. coming up, poll position. biden and buttigieg on the trail. biden and buttigieg on the trail. ♪ - [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this,

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on the trail today former vice president joe biden and mayor pete buttigieg are campaigning where they need the support most. biden has been in iowa on a bus tour this weekend across the state, where one recent poll had him in fourth place. mayor pete is in south carolina looking to earn the backing of black voters who are as of now sticking with biden.

joining me former congressman joe crowley and charlie sykes. great to have you at the table. so joe biden goes to iowa and is trying to shore up support. it's an acknowledgment that he can't wait until south carolina as his fire wall. he's got to do better in iowa, at least place somewhere in iowa rather than wait for those first two primaries or the caucus and the new hampshire primary. new hampshire is going to be a harder fight for him as well. what are his shots in iowa? >> it's all about momentum. if joe comes in fourth or fifth, he loses a lot of momentum going into new hampshire and certainly then heading into south carolina where he really has his stand. it's nothing new in the sense that he's going to put all he can into iowa to the best he possibly can and hope that that

momentum follows him. >> there's a new quinnipiac national poll today. we know national polls are not that meaningful when we talk about the electoral college. joe biden has 43% among black voters nationally. bernie sanders is the only other candidate in double digits even. elizabeth warren, kamala harris, pete buttigieg, 4%, cory booker. i mean, all the way down. the fact that kamala harris and cory booker are within the margin of error there in single digits, they're african-american candidates who are not persuading black voters. the african-american vote is a key part of the democratic coalition for any primary victory. >> it's hard to imagine anybody winning the democratic nomination without getting a substantial portion of african-american voters. but you pull back a little bit from the frame here and what's happening in the democratic race and you are seeing the moment

for the seicentrists to surge. you're seeing biden and buttigieg and the democrats are pulling back and are beginning to focus on this question of electability. i think two things happened in the last month. number one, there was a little bit of elizabeth warren panic and the recognition that she might not be as competitive in some of these swing states. when that "new york times" poll came out you caught that collective intake of breath among the democrats. >> she came out with her numbers and how she was going to pay for medicare for all. then she pulled back and said she would phase it in. so she seemed to be acknowledging that. >> right now it's kind of a centrist moment. we'll see whether or not pete buttigieg can solve his problem with not just african-american voters but also latino voters. but joe biden, who is constantly being written off by the

conventional wisdom, is remarkably durable. >> one centrist moderate from a read sta red state montana has dropped out of the race today. steve bullock who never had the chance to get on the debate stage. >> which is very unfortunate because he was a very, very compelling candidate. he had an interesting message and nobody ever got to hear from him rmg him. >> i sat says a lot about the process. >> it does. >> marginal candidates are making the debate stage raising money online and not somebody like steve bullock who is a known vote getter in a red state. >> they like him but there was

no discussion about him then and the next day he drops out. >> the reality is i think everything seems to be flawed. the emphasis on iowa and south carolina for instance and not to disparage those two states but the likelihood a democrat is going to win either of those in a general election is close to nil. yet we spent so much money there because it's all about momentum for joe biden to get to south carolina and for others to get their names up in iowa. >> joe crowley, charlie sykes, great to see you here. thanks. coming up next. > coming up t what's for dinner? (fake gagging noises) ♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest.

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yench >> yes, it really was. there were emotional scenes in both london and cambridge where there were commemorations for the two victims 25-year-old jack merit and 23-year-old saskia jones. it's not just the raw emotion at those vigils that strikes me. i think this is the most raw and sensitive and divisive atmosphere after a terror attack that i can remember. as you mentioned, it's because of a political row. jack merit's father appealed to politicians not to make political hay. but boris johnson the prime minister decided that it was absurd that convicted terrorists should be released early and decided to do a media blitz about that. that media blitz was covered by the newspapers and i've got a

couple of them here. as you can see, it says new blitz on freed jihadis. jack merit's father david saw this and he's very, very angry indeed. he tweeted, don't use my son's death and his and his colleagues' photos to promote your vile propaganda. jack stood against everything you stand for, hatred, division, ignorance. it's a veiled attack on a deeply divisive political atmosphere in this country. tonight donald trump arrives in britain. he has said very insensitive things in the past about london's handling of terror incidents. he's insulted the mayor of london. of course mr. trump has had

plenty to say about boris johnson as prime minister. and then there's nato. so everyone here really hoping that president trump buttons up and doesn't throw more fuel on a very, very bright fire at the moment here. >> that really sets the stage for us, because as the president heads to london at this hour to join the nato gathering, the question is will he attack nato and their allies as he did at their last summit in brussels. there's a lot of controversy over france's president macron saying nato is brain dead. nato is wrestling with what to do about turkey's incursion into syria, the u.s. drawdown into afghanistan and the president's talk of a peace deal with the taliban. joining us is james stavridis.

and karen donfreed, t. admiral first to you because you have the uniform. let's talk about nato. it's a military alliance. the president has repeatedly complained about nato's individual countries' defense contributions which is really how much they're spending of their own companies gdp. it's not like they're putting money into a nato bucket. but he has kind of confused all of that and gone after angela merkel and other allies. >> he has indeed. it is a military alliance but its center of gravity is political. and thus when the president continues to bang away at the allies for defense spending increases, he kind of weakens the fabric a bit.

that creaking sound you're hearing is the trans-atlantic bridge. the president has gotten some results. there are some additional monies being spent. but you have to question whether or not at the end of the day you undermine the fabric of that alliance excessively by making that your only message every time you show up at nato. and i'll close by saying just to put those free loading europeans in perspective, collectively the european defense budget is the second largest in the world after only the united states'. that european defense budget is larger than russia and china combined. >> karen, the fact is that the president announced the withdrawal from syria without even informing our nato allies who are on the ground there. he did it first in december and then did it for real this last

time and went along with erdogan who's a nato member. there are a lot of schisms here to be dealt with to have to be smoothed over. maybe it can all happen at buckingham palace when the queen receives them. >> it was interesting about the fraught situation in the u.k. at the moment in the runup to the election next week. and we see that same fraught situation within the nato alliance. and the comments that french mt. macron made about the alliance's brain death were prompted by the president's decisions about syria, because french special forces are on the ground in syria and they were distraught that the u.s. would make a decision about u.s. forces without at least consulting and coordinating with our allies that rely on u.s. enablers like surveillance and reconnaissance. so that's one example of deep schisms. you mentioned turkey. the turks also beyond what

they've done in syria have purchased a russian air defense system that has also roiled the alliance. and there is great anxiety about whether president trump will further roil the waters with comments he might make in london about defense spending, which has been an issue he has seized on throughout the years as president. >> the british were also on the ground in syria without any publicity. we are the air support. we are the supply line. once the u.s. withdrew, they couldn't stay. >> and the medical evacuation and the logistics. we are the backbone of that operation. to simply walk away from it and to walk away from our kurdish allies is a signal that will haunt u.s. foreign policy for decades. >> nato is present as an alliance in afghanistan so there's great concern about what the president might decide about

afghanistan and the extent to which he will coordinate with every other nato ally that's on the ground. the point that president macron was making is while defense spending is important and while our european allies need to do more, it's not the only metric that matters in the alliance. macron was trying to refocus attention on the underlying strategy and the political cohesion in the alliance which is being damaged by unilateral decisions. >> this becomes very important with afghanistan, which when i commanded that mission as supreme allied commander, we had 150,000 nato troops there. today it's down to only about 20,000 troops. so the importance of a united front there in order to carry home negotiation with the taliban is crucial. that's what nato ought to be talking about, is this afghanistan mission, the syrian situation, cyber security.

these are big topics for the alliance. i fear it will get lost in this constant conversation about who's paying what. >> we're going to have to leave it there. thank you so much. great to see you both. coming up, one of the self-proclaimed three amigos at the center of the impeachment inquiry bids farewell. farewell rick perry. achment inquiry bids farewell. farewell rick perry. may be your detergent... that's why more dishwasher brands recommend cascade platinum... ...with the soaking, scrubbing and rinsing built right in. for sparkling-clean dishes, the first time. cascade platinum. gimme one minute... and i'll tell you some important things to know about medicare. first, it doesn't pay for everything. say this pizza is your part b medical expenses. this much - about 80% - medicare will pay for. what's left is on you.

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we'll have the longest serving member of trump's cabinet is out the door. rick perry involve inside the ukraine controversy saying good-b good-bye. he could not remember the name of it towards the debate. >> my last day of secretary of energy, i want to tell everyone what a wonderful, fabulous trip it has been for me and my family and the american people as we become the number one in oil and gas producing country in the world. we see our reactors being accepted to help change the world and god bless you and may god continue to bless this great country of america. >> joining us now with the inside scoop, white house

correspondent with "the new york times" and anne gearand and here you got rick perry recently referred to president trump as chosen by the lord almighty. let me play that for you. >> god choose imperfect people. mr. president, you said you were the chosen one and i said you were. michael, it is really a new level of i don't know what you call it of the cabinet official trying to cozy up to the president. that's a polite way of calling it. >> yes. andrea, it is remarkable to hear rick perry comparing implicitly

comparing the president. i think on some levels, it is important for people to understand how evangelical christians like rick perry remains supportive of the president sort of justify the seeming contradiction of what the president represents and so many of their values particularly when it comes to kind of social and character issues is this idea that god works in marysterious ways and president trump is chosen. i think for many americans it is hard to understand but i suppose that on some level, kerry is give liing us insights. what he's not talking about is his role of the ukraine saga. he's not answered any challenging questions of what his role was or why some of his political supporters texas got a big energy contractor in

ukraine. we'll see if he's able to sustain that and shedding lights on. indeed, and we won't bore everybody with rick perry's comments in 2016 when they were running against each other. >> what strikes me now is how happy he seen. he's one of the as you should say one of the original, the last original standings and he seen absolutely delighted wal waltsing out the door in the years left. he's also now becoming the second of the three amigos to leave, leaving only gordon sondland who you may think his days may be numbered if his testimony to the house last month of any indication.

he's still on the job. and there is still a possibility that rick perry can end up being apart of the impeachment hearings in the impeachment case. he's definitely walking out the door with a whole lot of that of his unfinished business and he se seem pleased about it. >> i am not sure he gets away. somebody is going to want to talk to him at some point down the road in this impeachment inquiry and off to the road with rudy giuliani and what connection he had with rudy giuliani. >> we have not heard from

mulvaney and john bolton. the hearings that we witness under the huge amount of compelling information but there are still so many central players who have not come forward and perry is one of them. well, and that against the backdrop of the white house complaining they have not had their time to weigh in but still withheld the testimony of all key players. >> michael crowley and anna gearand, thank you for being with us today. we'll be right back. l be right . we made usaa insurance for members like martin.

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that does it for "andrea mitchell reports." remember to follow our show online and on twitter, here is "velshi & ruhle" with ali velshi and stephanie ruhle. >> hello everybody, it is monday december 2nd. the white house says they'll not part in the hearing that's coming up point the reason, trump says it is a hoax. >> president trump is meeting in nato, he's railing how the united states is being treated unfairly. we'll break down trump's complicated relationship with the alliance. the supreme court is takiing on gun case today, how it could affect gun owner rights across the country. coming up. a big development in the impeachment inquiry. the white house says they're not going to participate in the house first impeachment hearing on