ukraine. >> he does have three million and four million viewers, but he's a blowhard, he's ignorant and he's a putz. >> but donald trump doctor took him to meet kim jong un, too. >> my thanks to my guests, to you for watching another wild hour. thank you for going through it with us. that does it for us, mtp daily with chuck todd starts now. ♪ welcome to thursday, it is, tuesday, it is "meet the press" day. we're always trying to get the week over with as fast as we can these days. i'm chuck todd in washington, we're counting down to what is an historic moment. in roughly one hour. the house intelligence committee will be voting to adopt the impeachment report. send it to the house judiciary

committee, drafting official articles of impeachment, the indictment if you will. to put it in judicial terms. the evidence democrats have gathered and compiled in this report lays out a damning and clear-cut set of facts, about what they said happened. conclude that the impeachment inquiry has found that president trump personally and acting with agents in and outside of the u.s. government solicited the interference of a foreign government to, ukraine to benefit his re-election. and exercising his authority over the executive branch president trump ordered and implemented a campaign to conceal conduct from the public and frustrate the house of representatives impeachment inquiry. new revelations are including contact between rudy giuliani one of his indicted associates, the white house office of management and budget and the top republican on the house intelligence committee, devin nunes. basically, rudy giuliani's phone number is all over this report. intelligence committee chairman adam schiff addressed questions

about whether democrats should investigate these leads that they have come up with beforehanding the baton to the judiciary committee. >> i think what we have produce ed in remarkable short order is so overwhelming it ought to be presented to the judiciary committee now. without further delay. if we do uncover additional evidence and learn more every day, we will feel free to file supplemental reports to the judiciary committee. he there's grave risk when we know enough about the president's misconduct to make a responsibility judgment about whether we think that's compatible with the office of the presidency. >> it should be a game-changing moment for the democrats. they're arguably losing the impeachment battle politically. they're losing an information war with republicans. president's allies have embraced a russian conspiracy theory about ukraine meddling in the

2016 election. they've embraced president trump's conspiracy theorys that impeachment is part of some deep state coup and while they've embraced a messaging war to defend trump democrats seem divided about what it would take to go all in on a messaging war to remove him. even though the facts are arguably on their side. perhaps an even bigger question is what does it say about the threat to our democracy? if you can't win a fight based on facts. joining me with the latest from capitol hill is my nbc news colleague jeff bennett. jeff again, and we went through this, i think at, when they wrapped up their public hearings, there's a lot of unanswered questions in this report provided more unanswered questions. which lead -- and again it just feels oddly -- unsatisfactory if you care about the end of this investigation, that we're not at the end of this investigation. >> i will say this, you've got about what, half of the country based on national polling supporting impeachment. that is a high water mark.

that to your point hasn't really moved much, despite the two weeks of hearings earlier or last month. in november. but i got to tell you based on reading this report, far and away the most damning part of it are these newly disclosed call logs. showing repeated and at times lengthy communications between rudy giuliani, and the white house budget office. the department that was involved in holding up the ukraine aid that was meant to counter russian aggression. the report says this these phone records show considerable coordination among the parties involved. and then you've got additional call records showing how devin nunes, the top republican on the house intelligence committee was himself communicating with rudy giuliani and with lev parnas, who we should remind folks is the indicted associate of rudy giuliani. if you plot the timeline, if you plot those calls and the timeline, they were communicating in april, around the same time based on other

witness testimony, we know that giuliani was starting the smear campaign to sideline marie yovanovitch, the former ambassador to ukraine who was seen as a problem. so the theory of the case goes that giuliani and associates moved her out of the way so the pressure campaign could move along unencumbered. if you look at the notes of this report you can see that the house intelligence committee got the phone call records from at&t. a cell phone provider. but there's another detail in here that is bad news for rudy giuliani. and potentially bad news for president trump. because lev parnas is playing ball with the house intelligence committee. on page 228 it says mr. parnas has begun rolling production of certain records in his possession, custody or control in response to the subpoena, which the committees are evaluating. the other bit of news we got from adam schiff, the chairman of the house intelligence committee in the press conference, he said the committee continues to investigate this ukraine question. you heard him say in the open to the show that if some evident

falls into their lap tule provide it to the judiciary committee. he said one of the things they're looking at is to see whether or not president trump tried to put the squeeze on zelensky's predecessor. the guy who was president before zelensky. right now the timeline starts in the spring of 2019 and ends in september when the aid was released. democrats say it was released because president trump got caught. but i think that's interesting. watch this space for more on that front, too. >> jeff bennett on capitol hill, thank you for more i'm joined on set by msnbc contributor kimberly atkins. howard fineman and danielle pletka. also an msnbc contributor. kimberly, i go to this is where democrats have said this whole

time they don't want to look too political. yet every decision they've made on how they conduct this investigation has been with a political fear on the other side. they have all a bunch more leads to pursue and they're not doing it. is that a mistake? >> it quite possibly so. especially when just as jeff pointed out, one of the big revelations in this report comes from lev parnas, who is connecting rudy giuliani, one of the many ways that the report connects to rudy giuliani and the information he has is still rolling in. there's a treasure trove of potential evidence coming out of that southern district of new york prosecution. that could be related to this. you have a lot of people tieing this to the mueller report that this represents a pattern of practice, that there's an attempt to meddle with an election followed by obstructive acts to try to cover it up. it's very reminiscent of that. the report itself is written in a way that's similar to the

mueller report. in perhaps we have the mueller report, why are we stopping at, at just the ukraine situation. others are saying this is is a clear-cut case. put it to the american people, that's all you need. there's the tension between the democrats right now, but the more that we learn, the harder it is for them to make this case. that the case is closed when it's clearly not. >> i get it, i think you have a leadership in the democratic party who look at this wall of obstruction on the right and we can sit here and debate how it happened. it's happened, it ain't going to break. it ain't going to break this month. but there's danger in leaving stones unturned. >> well i think, i think that the committee and chairman schiff made it clear that they would like to pursue not just the head of the family, but the whole organization. >> there's a lot to pursue here.

>> they say in their introduction to their report, that by name, mentioned mulvaney, pompeo and perry, the so-called three amigos. >> they weren't the original. >> mulvaney, pompeo and perry. >> they're the cabinet-level guys, don't forget sondsondland. >> they're making the point that there's more to the story in terms of the length of how long the ukraine thing was going on and the depth within the administration. what they're saying here -- is that there was a giant criminal conspiracy that went on for many months if not more than a year -- >> there's more to it but we're not going to tell you. >> there's more to it but we're not going to go after it. >> i find that as a reporter to be rather unsatisfying. >> i get the politics, do you? >> i don't get the politics, actually at all. i think the house leadership is got two personalities on this issue. one in which they want to dive in and investigate everything and the other in which they want to hold back that for reasons we

all agree we don't actually understand. but there's something else at play if i may say something that no one wants to hear. i think the american people have decided that donald trump did this. and that he leveraged u.s. foreign assistance, security assistance in order to achieve political benefit for himself and dirt on a political rival. they've decided he did it they've decided that -- probably it isn't impeachable and they're really not that interested in the details. that's a problem. >> the question you have to ask is did that happen organically? or has this been a very successful campaign on the right? and my point is this, the democrats chose not to engage in that campaign. the republicans did a good job of basically putting those moderate house members on the spot on impeachment. and has pressured them, this has pressured pelosi. >> i think that's definitely right. i think part of is it good counter campaign. where the republicans now have landed on, well if it is

improper, then it's probably not removable. it's that place that you say that the american people are at. because otherwise what are the other choices to say that it's perfectly fine to -- >> look how he reacted to censure today. i didn't do anything wrong. >> the democrats have a lot of sunk costs here on this. in other words they're in this thing. >> they're all in. >> they're all in. they may as well, continue. i mean they said, that look, we're doing this out of duty to the country and to the constitution and to history. we're not doing this for political reasons. fine. i take them at their word. if they're doing it that way, then pursue it. and however much time it takes beyond -- i'm not saying how much much time. but certainly don't rush it through at the moment when their lead is dangling out to get a full picture of a kind that we need for the sake of understanding what's happened to the constitutional process and

the rule of law. and what this means to history. that has to be done. >> i take your point. and you know we can argue about the correct sort of philosophical and legalistic approach to this. but first of all, first time i've heard anybody say the republicans have got good game. i have -- >> financially the amount of money they've put into these house districts has been very effective. >> i was away last week as a lot of people were. at 5:00 in the afternoon, with my nice glass of wine i would come back to my 9,000 "new york times" and "washington post" alerts, parnas spoke to giuliani, giuliani spoke to nunes, nunes spoke to so-and-so, delete. people like us, this is our business, and even i can't -- sit down and -- >> but the thing is you're not wrong. but what i'm saying is this didn't happen organically. the democrats did not, they

decided not to have a campaign-style war room to make their case. politically, they thought that would be problematic. i get that. it now, though, has put them in this situation. >> one concern they had was the fact that there is an election coming up. that there are some of these, the democrats are together but there are still more moderate democrats who come from districts who are tired of all this and worried about their own seats and worried about their fellow democratic seats. that was the idea that they could put forward this ukrainian set of facts, get that done, wrapped up before the early primary states started going in their primaries, that's becoming more difficult. becoming more unruly. it was a real and understandable concern going in. >> what it sounds like is the democrats are afraid that they've caught a whale and not just a big fish and there's no time -- there's no time to reel it in. >> i'm sorry, buddy. you go fishing, you pull up what you pull up.

and -- >> an interesting way to say -- >> the whale is do big, we're going to need a bigger investigative bubble. >> i'm sorry that history is conspiring against you. but this is what you have to do. >> i guess the thing that i wonder here -- here's another question that mark murray and i were tackling. which is the entire republican party is united around one message right now in protecting the president. the democratic party, kimberly atkins is not. the democratic presidential candidates get off of impeachment. if you thought he needed to be removed from office immediately, isn't the move saying -- nobody campaign for three weeks while you watch the hearings. like should that have been the move? >> perhaps. because that's one thing they more or less, the candidates are all said yes, i'm for impeachment and then they moved on to start talking about -- >> back to weather. >> and they're off talking about -- >> now kamala harris has time to do that. >> you have more people -- >> take the jump ahead. >> spoiler alert.

>> that has been the play and you still have democrats saying we don't want to talk about impeachment, people want to talk about -- >> you're sending the message that the existential threat that adam schiff believes it is. >> but republicans are sending the message -- >> that this is is a coup. a way to up-end the 2016 election and try to stop the 2020 election and for a lot of people, that seems reasonable enough and i think a lot of republicans are buying that. >> i think you hit the nail on the head in terms of you know the candidates versus the elected members in the house. because the elected members in the house don't seem to be talking to their districts, they seem to be talking to us and the candidates are out there trying to speak to the american people. if they are on a different message than the house of representatives, what does that tell us about what the american people think? >> that's an important thing to end on and think about. it's a question we've been asking over and over again. the presidential candidates aren't on the same message, that's a problem. kimberly howard and danny

stick around, we're going to talk to a house judiciary member on the next steps of the impeachment inquiry. and spreading disinformation from the highest levels of government has been a go-to strategy for a long time in a lot of places like russia. now it's happening here. we'll talk about it with someone who covered putin's russia and fled putin's russia. journalist masha guessen, next. bring it back from the ashes bringing jobs and thousands of affordable housing units with it. after witnessing the terrible toll of gun violence... he helped create a movement to protect families across america. and stood up to the coal lobby and this administration to protect this planet from climate change. and now, he's taking on... him. to rebuild a country and restore faith in the dream that defines us. where the wealthy will pay more in taxes

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the house me committee report was released this afternoon. when you compare the republican and democratic impeachment reports, you see two wildly different interpretations of the same set of facts. for example from the democratic report, president trump withheld a white house meeting desperately sought by the ukrainian government and critical u.s. military assistance to fight russian aggression in eastern ukraine.

president engaged in this conduct for the benefit of his own predetention re-election, to harm the election prospects of a political rival and to influence our nation's upcoming presidential election to his advantage. and the republicans, the evidence shows that president trump holds a deep-seated, genuine and reasonable skepticism of ukraine due to its history of pervasive corruption. the president's initial hesitation to meet with president zelensky or to provide security assistance to ukraine without thoughtful review is entirely prudent. joining me is masha gessen, a columnist for the new yorker, who russian disinformation campaign here and abroad. let's start with it is fascinating to watch this disinformation campaign. because a lot of it begins with wait a minute, he had -- it's no longer a direct contradiction, it's -- well he had skepticism.

everybody has skepticism. explain how that is a very common way for disinformation to make its way into fact-based reports. >> yeah you know i don't know that i would actually call this disinformation to be honest, because this is something very interesting and new in the trump presidency. usually we have something completely insane. in this presidency, which is an argument about facts. and we kind of all know that you can't argue about facts, you can argue about opinion, but you can't argue about facts. but here throughout the impeachment hearings, we didn't actually have disagreement about facts. we have disagreement about interpretations. and in a sense you know that's a kind of proximprovement. not as insane than arguing about facts. it creates a bubble. it creates this -- this sort of film of interpretation that you

cannot pierce. >> let me read awe quote, what's fascinating. it's a quote from richard bur, and i apologize to my staff i'm pulling this out of order. richard bur was asked about ukraine interfering. he responded by saying ukraine's elected officials were all for hillary clinton. i'll leave it up to you whether you decide that's meddling or not. some form of that or not. i think i'm correctly paraphrasing the gist. which is he did not sit here and dispute the russia fact, but he engaged in the idea that look they were elected officials, that's one type of meddling. russia did another type of meddling. it's all meddling. what are you guys going crazy about? >> that's called what-aboutism. woo know how that works, it's a very old soviet trope and russians use it it's what donald trump did when he was asked by bill o'reilly about putin's

murders of journalists an for him oh, you know, do you think we're so great ourselves? also paraphrasing. this is the same sort of thing. and it uses a weakness in our very polarized, very black-and-white language. when we talk about russian interference, i mean that is a vulnerable position. because you can say look, the united states meddles in other countries' elections all the time. politicians in other countries take positions, take very strong stands, very explicit stands on american elections for a very good reason. they have a stake in them, right? all the time. so you can't when we sort of talk about meddling as something that is blanketly terrible, that's a vulnerable position. >> we're getting close to a problem that you've experienced in russia, problem that happens in the middle east. which is most people say -- i don't know what to believe any more and is now an american issue. and i guess the question is, how

do you rebuild from that? and maybe i'm asking something that we don't know the answer yet to because russia hasn't rebuilt from it. >> exactly. actually i don't know that we're in a situation where most people are saying i don't know what to believe any more. i think we're in a terrible situation, but it's differently terrible. >> you're weirdly optimistic, masha. you have a tiny bit of optimism here, i like it. >> i think we're dealing with reality, think people really strongly believe one thing or the other. the bad news is, right, that these are impenetrable reality bubbles, the democrats believe that impeachment hearings have shown abuse of power. republicans believe that impeachment hearings have shown that there's an attempted coup. the problem is that these positions are basically an equilibri

equilibrium. and equilibrium favors the status quo. nothing is going to change as long as they're in equilibrium. >> so is this then, is this a problem that basically because it's the president who is using his bully pulpit to do this, there's really -- it's are we powerless to do anything until the election? >> i think we may be powerless to do anything until the election. think you discussed this in the previous segment that you know, i think that the impeachment hearings were in a sense, a missed opportunity to sort of lay the historical record. because i think that knowing that these, that we're dealing with these impenetrable bubbles. knowing that basically the outcome of this is almost preordained, which is the house indicts, the senate aquits. why aren't we thinking about what this looks like to future historians? maybe not that long from now. is it going to look like the worst thing that happened during

the trump presidency was ukraine? >> yeah, i've thought about that, too. when you think about all the different things. i think about the resignation of the navy secretary in the last two weeks and the reasons why he resigned. he's worried about the impact on basically our judicial code of conduct inside the military. which could have far-reaching implications on the future of this country. >> that's just terrifying what's been going on with that with the pardoning of a war criminal or an apparent war criminal. and even worse, the stripping of medals from prosecutors in the war crimes trial. i mean that is just -- it's mind-boggling. and you know, i think we should be thinking more about how we set down the record. because this is what we're going to have to recover from. >> well masha, it was part of the discussion i think somebody on my show on sunday said democrats have two choices, go big or go small. they appear to be going small. you're saying go big. >> logic is understandable, but it's a pragmatic logic that i'm

not sure applies. >> masha gessen, as always, i thank you. you gave, you have sort of green shoots of optimism. >> tiny, tiny. >> little green shoots as always thank you very much. up ahead with the impeachment inquiry about to head to the house judiciary committee, we talk to one of the democrats on the house judiciary committee about what's next. plus the big 2020 news, kamala harris is out of the race. what led to that campaign's collapse and what does it mean for the other democrats still running? or is it too late to mean anything? ♪

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in about an hour we expect the impeachment proceedings will nbt hands of chairman jerry nadler and the house judicial committee. focusing on laying out the constitutional grounds for impeachment. joining me as a member of the house judiciary committee washington congresswoman vernilla judge jaipal. i don't know if you caught our conversation earlier. which was simply, based on what we read in the report, the new leads that are out there, new information that's coming in, from an outsider's perspective. this doesn't look like an investigation that's finished. >> well i think the challenge here is two-fold. one is that we have actually

been conducting this investigation for sometime now. we don't want to be subject to any specific calendar. however, the threats of having a president who say busing his power every day, is a serious one. it's a very grave threat to our democracy. and so we also are not going to wait until every single thing is in. we have had tremendous amounts of information provided to us and i believe that there is a very strong case of a pattern of abuse of power that has been laid out in this report. >> can you respond to an idea my last guest threw out there, masha gessen. a columnist for the "new yorker," she's a journalist who has been in eastern europe and russia and got her share of this. she made this observation, she said what i don't understand about the impeachment is that when you look at the history of donald trump, is ukraine going to be the worst thing he did? her argument was, are you

focused on the right thing here? are you missing some of the bigger picture? she's not the only one that has laid that out. what's your response to that? >> my response to that is no. i think there's plenty of things that we don't know about that will probably emerge long after this president is gone from office. however, ukraine is the thing that is right in front of us. having read the mueller report, chuck, three times, 400 pages plus of the mueller report i will tell you that what we're seeing unfolding on front of us with ukraine is the same pattern of obstruction and abuse of power and obstruction of congress that we saw in the mueller report. witness tampering, that was the thing that i had questioned robert mueller on. so do i think there's other things besides ukraine? you know, i would have to say probably yes. but we can't wait for all of those things to come to the forefront because the threat to our democracy and our elections is so severe that we do need to

quickly move on this. >> let me get to you respond to something from one of your republican colleagues on the judiciary committee. that basically it's he threw down the gauntlet on what his goal is with these hearings that begin tomorrow. take a listenland let me get your response. >> you say they can run right over you. but you know, i know a lot of the republicans on the committee. you're going to be combative as they're running over you. >> yeah. we will be, we will be, we won't be like a speed bump, we'll be like a stop stick with spikes on it to try to put a flat tire on that truck running over us. >> he's basically saying they're going to do whatever it takes to sabotage your hearings perhaps you can interpret it any way you want. that's a harsh metaphor that he used. are you guys prepared for that? >> we are prepared for it i have to tell you how disappointed and really how disgusted i am by

that attitude. we are not talking about some game here. we are talking about our democracy. we are talking about our elections, we're talking about our national security and i just had the former republican senator from my state, slade gordon wrote an op-ed about a week ago saying republicans have enough information in front of them to impeach this president. bill reclehouse stepped down during the saturday night massacre because he was not willing to fire the special prosecutor. we need some of that courage and patriotism from our republican colleagues instead of treating this like this is a game. i don't think that's helpful at all. >> i hear you on that. >> you have a republican apparatus and outside group spending millions of dollars essentially trying to strike fear into some of your colleagues in tougher districts, they have played, they basically decided to make this a campaign. and engaged in it like a paid

campaign with political tv ads, if you eliminate tom steyer, democrats have not responded to that. i understand not wanting to make this political. but in hindsight did that turn out to be a mistake? >> i just think if you look during the country and you look at the swing districts and you look at the target districts, we've more and more seats that are turning towards democrats because i do think the american people know what has happened is wrong. i'm not saying we've got every within in the country. but i think there's something here that goes beyond politics, that goes beyond party and i hope that our republican colleagues will come along with us, because they do control a big microphone. but we're ready for whatever is coming. at the end of the day we have to do our duty and uphold our oath to the constitution. >> pled care for all, for me you're the person i associate most with on capitol hill, at least on the house side. don't tell some of your other

colleagues that. i'm curious, there's been some reporting that suggests were you disappointed that elizabeth warren essentially backed off. >> you know offered an alternative plan that somehow allies of yours fear essentially really means is, she's for the same plan that buttigieg and biden are and she is not going to end up fighting for medicare for all. number one, do you believe that? do you fear for that? and number two, how does this impact your potential support between sanders and warren? >> no, i don't believe that. but i have to say because i'm here talking to you about medicare for all, the best plan, gold standard plan is my plan in the house, it has a different transition than even senator sanders does. but that doesn't mean that i don't think senator sanders is all in for medicare for all. elizabeth warren has a different way that she's going to get to the end result. what i want to know, chuck, is at the end of the day in four years, the first term of the next president, will they take on the private insurance companies and insure that there's a government guarantee

insurance plan for every single american in this country? are they going to bring down costs? i believe that elizabeth warren will do that. it's a different plan than mine, it's not the one i chose, but i believe she's committed to that and i believe that senator sanders, who i worked with very closely has been a champion on this. and will continue to be. >> do i read correctly in your plan that you ska is carefully. a guaranteed government plan out there for everybody. that doesn't mean you're eliminating private insurance? or it does mean you're eliminating private insurance? >> no, this is one of the things that i keep saying from the very beginning. the questions are framed all wrong. because there's nothing in my plan that says private insurance goes away. all it does is says that the government guaranteed insurance plan that's out there is going to be so comprehensive that there will be a much smaller role for private insurance. and no, we will not do duplicative coverage under the government plan. just as we don't under medicare. i'm sure i have confidence in the private insurance companies

that they'll find south other way to make money. it won't be on providing the basic, comprehensive care for anybody. >> it's nice that we snuck in other issues in here. >> i would love to come back and talk more about that, too. >> i appreciate you coming on and sharing your views, nice to talk to you. we're going to be keeping an eye on the camera outside of the security room in the capital where the intelligence committee will vote and when that happens, it will has been in a few minutes, we'll be here to chronicle it. ♪

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he borrowed billions donald trump failed as a businessman. and left a trail of bankruptcy and broken promises. he hasn't changed. i started a tiny investment business, and over 27 years, grew it successfully to 36 billion dollars. i'm tom steyer and i approve this message. i'm running for president because unlike other candidates, i can go head to head with donald trump on the economy, and expose him fo what he is: a fraud and a failure. itreat them all as if, they are hot and energized. stay away from any downed wire, call 911 and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe.

welcome back. the historically large 2020 democratic presidential primary field just got a little smaller. kamala harris announced she's suspending her campaign. always the weird wording. the fcc makes you use it. is dropping out. she withdrew 20,000 people. said she does not have the money toin to continue. kimberly howard and danielle are back. so howard, this the only thing

surprising to me was the day of the week she chose. she -- could have easily done this next month. it did feel like a candidacy that was, that had just gotten off the rails. or never got on the rails. >> i covered her some about when she was a statewide politician in california. and i followed her career. think she's enormously talented. i think she's a great on the stage of politics. great in a courtroom. great in a hearing room. you remember she eviscerated bill barr with great skill. she launched with a lot of enthusiasm and hope. but you have to have a clear consistent message of some kind. beyond the fact that she would be the nation's prosecutor to take out donald trump, which of course now is what the impeachment is about, it wasn't there. she was confused about what she wanted to do on health care. she got in it with joe biden in a way that seemed dramatic at

the beginning in terms of race and history. >> she didn't know how she was making the point. >> she got confused on busing a bit in terms of her personal stollry and the politics of it. the organization wasn't very good. so with the way it's a lost opportunity. i think she still is an amazing talent. but the presidential political game turned out not to be her thing. >> it's smart she got out before the end of the calendar year. kimberly atkins. kamala harris is a reminder if you've never dreamed of running for president your whole life, don't do it she struck me as somebody who said look at this, i've got a way for you to become president. the whole campaign was tactics. there was never a, this is why i'm running. >> i'm not sure that that is the case. >> it looked tactical to me. >> think there was an attempt by her and i have no reason to

believe that it wasn't genuine, to run the type of campaign that barack obama did. to try to certainliy strategically -- to try to build that -- listen we can't let this subject pass without making it very clear that it was very difficult she dropped out because of money. why was she not getting people to open their pocketbooks and get the same kind of money that pete buttigieg and other people are. time and time again, i like kamala paris, but i'm not sure she can win. i'm not sure a women can win or a woman of color can win. if you ignore those factors that were major impediments for her in the race, without her in it, if the debate were held right now it would be a bunch of white people on the stage this is still where the democratic party is. >> and how much of this is on kamala? how much of this, danny is bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, joe biden, pete

buttigieg, none of them were, none of them seem insurmountable in january. and yet now if you're kamala harris, they look insurmountable. is that kamala harris' fault or did she get out-tacticed? >> pete buttigieg, is sitting on beto o'rourke's support, amy klobuchar's support. he became the candidate everybody else thought they would be. >> not to take away the fact that prejudice still exists in the country. i think the idea of successful black woman is actually a really exciting one. so maybe that's right. people are opening their wallets to a gay man, a gay mayor from indiana. and without prejudice at least so far. so -- i don't know whether those were the things that stand in her way or whether she failed to capture the imagination. the the one word i keep thinking

of when i here people talking about her is authoritarian. which is so weird. >> what? >> no, look, i don't think of her that way, that's the word that people say. >> the first race she ran for was san francisco d.a. you know what i read into that? i read into that somebody who loves the law. i don't think she has thought of herself as a politician in the same way that some of these other people woke up every day like you know and said what do i do to become president of the united states. i wonder if she just never had the same aspiration. >> i think she couldn't decide to what lane ro run in and barack obama was skill enough to run in several lams at the same time she didn't have that kind of messaging experience. >> that's a hard coalition to try to read about. >> she's most at home as a prosecutor and as a public explainer. i thought she's very good at it. she never was totally consistent

about what message it was she wanted to explain. >> she didn't want to be who she was. i'm sorry, she's a rule of law, she's an articulate. she's successful. she didn't want to run as who she was. >> what does this do to the race? >> it just shows that 2s still early. it is still a matter who have can play the money game. it shows us not to discount people like michael bloomberg because he comes in -- >> not discounting him. >> with a limited funds. we don't know what's going to happen there. it shows it's still early in the race. >> south carolina is going to be very important. >> kimberly, howard, danny, thank you very much. coming up, tensions with trump. president trump clashes with another world leader. this one was on camera to become part of our family. man: that's why our chevy employee discount is now available to everyone. the chevy price you pay is what we pay. not a cent more. family is important to us.

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i heard that president macron said nato is brain dead. you just can't go around making statements like that about nato. it's very disrespectful. when france makes a statement like they made about nato, it's a very dangerous statement for them to make. >> welcome back. trump/macron moment, the president in london calling out the french president, criticizing nato, an alliance

trump once called obsolete and spent weeks railing against nato. those comments came just hours before the two met. when the cameras were rolling, they clashed again on turkey, syria and a lot more. >> we have a tremendous amount of captured isis fighters over in syria and they're all under lock and key, but many from france. would you like some isis fighters? >> that was one of the greatest nonanswers i've ever heard. >> political report carol lee in london for the nato summit. carol, i'm stunned. i'm old enough to remember when the person that insulted nato the most was the president of

the united states, and now he's angry that france has. >> reporter: yeah. >> what is this about? and, more importantly, is nato speaking with one voice, via macron, or is macron going rogue here himself? >> reporter: he seems to be the outlier. a lot of other nato leaders have basically disputed what he says, that they don't agree with it, including president trump. you know president trump is taking something personally when he's defending nato. i think what's really gotten under his skin is when macron said nato is brain dead, he said lack of u.s. leadership, specifically president trump's decision to withdraw troops from northeast syria without notifying allies when nato allies have troops there. he is a fan at taking a shot at

somebody who he feels like has slighted him. >> there is a much bigger issue that nato will be dealing with. that is, is turkey basically going to stand in the way of checking russia? >> reporter: there is real division. saw president trump again today defending erdogan, saying he has a close relationship. he was noncommittal. he said turkey has purchase this had russian middle defense system, has activated it, tested it, will you implement sanctions, which they've been noncommittal to do. he is aligning closely with erdogan and defending him. at the same time lot of other nato members, including the secretary general, says we need turkey inside the tent not outside of the tent. that's a better way to go about this. >> turkey always talk themselves into this.

>> reporter: yeah. >> is this a nato meeting that's going nowhere? >> reporter: yeah. i mean, it's hard to tell. all of this interesting action happens on the sidelines. >> right. >> reporter: the president has spent over three hours talking to the press today. there's a lot there. i'm not sure there's anything real substantive that's going to come out of it. >> carol lee on late-night duty. thank you for staying up and doing this for us. >> reporter: thank you, chuck. >> we'll be right back. s. >> reporter: thank you, chuck. >> we'll be right back (dog barking) ♪ (music building) experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment.

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well, that's all we have this hour. we'll be back, of course, with more tomorrow. "meet the press." ari melber has rolling press himself. you've got the book report. >> you and i are the same, when the government does big things, it's worth reading the primary source. and now people see on twitter, we've been reading it. >> it's amazing. i was just going to say, if you choose to read, you will learn something. >> i agree. and that's not unlike supreme court opinions. there's a lot in the footnotes. >> thanks a lot, brother. we begin with breaking news. as congress releases its blueprin