and then again at 3:00 p.m. eastern and then again at 10:00 p.m. eastern. thank you for watching. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. it's the twist no one saw coming. after making donald trump the third president in american history to be impeached, and the very first american president to be impeached for abusing his office to try to cheat in a future presidential contest, nancy pelosi says she will wait to trance mit the articles of impeachment for some guarantees that the senate trial will be fair. >> we have legislation approved by the rules committee that will enable us to decide how we will send over the articles of impeachment. we cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the senate side. so far we haven't seen anything that looks fair to us. >> pelosi's gambit throwing the

timing of a senate trial into limbo. "new york times" writes this. quote, with some leading democrats pushing to delay trance mittal of the articles and others advocating that they be withheld all together, it appeared increasingly likely that the limbo could persist until the new year. the house is poised to leave town on friday for the christmas and new year's holidays possibly without taking the votes that would be required to start the process in the senate. pelosi's surprise maneuver also has the potential to deprive trump of what he craves most, a speedy vindication in the u.s. senate. "the times" adding that people close to the president have described, quote, a keen desire by mr. trump to be publicly vindicated in a senate trial. that bombshell sent the senate scrambling today prompting a clash between mitch mcconnell and minority leader chuck schumer. >> speaker pelosi suggested that

house democrats may be too afraid, too afraid to even trance mit their shotty work product to the senate. it looks like the prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country and second-guessing whether they even want to go to trial. >> will leader mcconnell, breaking precedent, strongarm his caucus into making this the first senate impeachment trial of a president in history that heard no, no witnesses? we ask, is the president's case so weak that none of the president's men can defend him under oath? if the house case is so weak, why is leader mcconnell so afraid of witnesses and documents? >> now we are watching capitol hill. we are on the heels of that confrontation on the senate floor. mcconnell and schumer are said

to meet behind closed doors this afternoon in what's likely to become a testy negotiation in donald trump's impeachment. that's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. former prosecutor, andrew weissmann, karine jean-pierre, chief public affairs officer from moveon.org. former chief spokesman at the doj, matt miller, and editor-at-large for the conservative commentary the bulwark charlie sykes. msnbc correspondent garrett haake. garrett, first of all, congratulations on your body of impeachment reporting. we've relied on you -- >> thank you. >> through the whole process. so we will start today on the first day of the rest of donald trump's presidency. what is the state of play this hour? >> well, the house is wrapping up their last votes. ironically the final vote they will take is on the usmca, the trade deal that donald trump so much wanted to see get passed this year. they will leave washington, d.c. without selecting their managers for the impeachment case in the senate. that is a necessary step before

the articles of impeachment can be transferred to the senate. and while it is possible that they could do something by unanimous consent in a proforma session to some procedural efforts over the holiday break, what this tells us is something we sort of already knew, that the house is not going to push the case into the senate until the new year. speaker pelosi said today she wants the time to see exactly what the senate agrees to. it'll help inform her decision as to how many managers does she want? we are still waiting on some kind of affirmative confirmation that mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer have sat down to start having this conversation about how they will start this senate trial process. if it looks like the clinton impeachment, we'll see a two-stage process wherein both sides, the impeachment managers and the white house will present their case, and then there would be a vote on witnesses. and if so, how many.

what's not clear right now from where i stand is whether that'll be good enough for democrats, whether an agreement to vote on witnesses later will be good enough. or whether they will try to play hardball and force an agreement of witnesses up front. there is the smell of jet fumes in the air as both chambers are trying to finish all of their legislative work today and go home for the rest of the year. >> garrett, let me ask you about this question that hangs over this next step of the process. and that's the question of witnesses. because it would seem that the remedy for the republicans' complaint that the case is thin or lacks first hand witnesses is the same thing the democrats want. it would seem an innormal time in a town other than washington, d.c. a compromise would be within reach. >> you would think that. and you could be wrong. look, in this case this is both sides accusing each other of bad-faith negotiating here. democrats are saying, look, mitch mcconnell went out on tv and said he's not going to be an

impartial juror. why should we trust his process? and republicans are saying at least we admitted democrats have multiple senators who are running for president. do you think they will be impartial? of course not. this is politics. and so they're going back and forth on this. there is almost no effort to not be hypocritical either to the last impeachment, the clinton impeachment when the shoe was on the other political foot or to what you said the week before. i think the more likely compromise might be that there is an open process on witnesses being called that you might see some democratic witnesses with emotion that gets enough, you know, gets enough votes to call a witness. but then you might see republicans pursuing some witnesses of their own. and it's possible that even the mutually assured destruction of who republicans might call could get democrats to back off a little bit. so there is a lot of negotiation that will go into, a, just getting this thing off the ground and then the subsequent steps as it starts moving, whether that's the first week of january when both houses come back or sometime after that.

the other x factor, all those democratic senators i mentioned who are running for president. they probably don't want to be left wondering in late or early january or, god forbid february, when or if they might get called back for a senate impeachment trial. they are going to want some surety on this too. there is a lot of moving parts here. >> garrett, stick around for the rest of this conversation, if you will. andrew, how do you explain to people outside of sort of the really difficult to understand and kind of opaque intricacies of an impeachment process, which is different from a legal process, why both sides wouldn't want to hear from first hand witnesses of the conduct in question? >> so, you would think that if you're seeking the truth, you would want to have as many witnesses and documents as possible. and so when you have mitch mcconnell saying there is a paucity of evidence, that is playing right into the hands of democrats to say, fine, bring on some witnesses and documents. the truth of the matter is that

democrats have built a very strong case, and the last thing in the world that the republicans would want was to see, you know, any of these people, anybody having to take the stand because they're going to be really not great witnesses for the president. otherwise you would have seen them in the house. >> and bolton's already appeared in terms of the sworn testimony of on the people. and that testimony includes his deputy fiona hill who said -- he sent her to the white house counsel's office so that they got on the record. they're inseparable in terms of sort of a chain of command. fiona hill's reported directly to bolton. we also have sworn testimony that john bolton called it a drug deal. you have to assume as a prosecutor that if any of that was wrong we would have heard from a lawyer from john bolton? >> well, absolutely. but you can be pretty sure the white house would not have been saying we are not turning over documents, we are not turning over witnesses if they thought the documents would be good for

them. there is another x factor here which is there is going to be a judge. there is going to be chief justice roberts who is going to preside over this. and it is a very interesting role because it's not like a judge in a normal case. now, the democrats get to make a motion to the judge saying we'd like to call witnesses and we'd like a subpoena. and the rules are under rule 7 of the senate rules, the justice can, that is not required to rule on that. so, justice roberts could decide to go forward. if he does, that can be overruled by a simple majority. >> well, is there any sort of deference to him because of his role? a lot of these republican senators voted for his confirmation as chief justice. what's the dynamic? >> when you look at the actual rules on paper, you sit there and say, well, look, the majority can always overrule him. but it comes at a cost. in other words, if justice roberts were to say, look, i'm inclined to grant this, this is relevant evidence and so i'm

going to do it. that puts a lot more pressure on some of the senators, at least, to say are we really going to overrule that? now, the big question here is chief justice roberts is actually going to want to play that rule because under the rules he doesn't have to. he could say, you know what, i'm not going to rule on that unlike a normal judge, i'm going to let it go to the senate. >> well, that's really interesting. if you're examining his conduct in the last, you know, just even since -- he does seem to have an eye toward history. he does seem to balance his role. >> i agree. and as the chief justice, he is certainly more concerned i think than any other justice in terms of the institutional integrity of the supreme court. but this is a different role. this really isn't about the institutional integrity of the supreme court. this is about presiding in a unique way over a senate trial. and because the rules say that he's not quite like a normal judge, a normal judge you

don't -- the judge doesn't get to rule and then the parties can overrule him. the judge is the last word. so it's a very unusual position. but i still think the democrats have a play there, which is that if the democrats want to force a vote, they can make a motion to the chief justice, and then the real issue is either the chief justice will rule on it or the republican senators are going to have to say no, we are against having more witnesses. and i think that's pretty unappetizing. >> i think it's an unsustainable position, charlie, for senators gardner and murkowski. i want to get to acquittal. fiona hill testified, i found her credible, marie yovanovitch testified, i found her credible. by the way, so do 80% of americans. a lot of them live in my states. i can't get to acquittal until i hear from first hand witnesses. i imagine you could easily have

four to six republican senators voting to hear from first hand witnesses. >> you only need four republicans to basically say we want this to be a full and fair trial. when they step forward, again, the politics is this is an easy vote for them for cory gardner to say i wanted to get to the truth, i wanted to get to the facts, i may not vote to remove the president. it's the political hardball that's routine among republicans. but it's also i think smart and reasonable because she needs to have a little bit of leverage. look, we're really in the mid-point of this whole process. >> i'm smiling because i never heard so many republicans with so many glowing things to say about nancy pelosi. it's wonderful. [ laughter ] i'm trying to play it straight, but it's amazing that bill kristol and you and every republican i've known my whole career is like, wow, nancy pelosi. >> this is a good move because once she sends it over, she loses all of her leverage.

so the whole argument for going ahead so quickly with this impeachment process was you needed to act as a deterrent to the president to, you know, continue his ongoing criminal enterprise. >> right. >> but if this goes to the senate and mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham will already signal it's going to be a sham, rigged trial that's going to result in the president claiming exoneration, he will be emboldened and empowered. and a president trump who no longer faces impeachment can be seriously dangerous. so, it is in the interest of the house as part of this constitutional process to make sure that you have a full and fair trial that at least will get us as close to the truth as you possibly can. i think this is going to be a temporarily hold. but i think it's important to focus on are we going to actually try to get to the truth? are we going to hear from the people who have evidence of the american people, and frankly that history needs to hear from in this process? >> i think the republican

fawning over pelosi has got garrett jumping out of his skin. >> reporter: mitch mcconnell who's used to controlling the senate with an iron fist has the most leverage in this process up till the moment that the trial starts. that's why he's playing hardball a little bit now too and pushing back so aggressively. once the trial starts, it's a little bit more of a free for all. he's got to deal with the chief justice who may have a bigger or smaller role. motions can be made by other senators. it's not the kind of like where it might be on any legislative day. mitch mcconnell can control what comes to the floor. he has the most power right now in setting these rules. but after the rules are set, and once this ball gets rolling, he does not have the kind of decisionmaking by fiat that he's used to having which makes the negotiations going on behind the scenes so important. >> it's such a good point. i think one of the things that could open up the dams in terms of turning this into a very

unpredictable process is if john bolton is subpoenaed, if justice roberts permits that to happen or somehow puts his fingers on the scales and makes it easier to happen, he is, i've said this before, he is to conservatives what scalia was on the court. he is, if you open up the textbook and you want to see the most credible, conservative on foreign policy, it is john bolton. and if john bolton believes what he said in a closed door meeting that it was based on personal and financial gain, that jared and ivanka will corrupt this president, if john bolton -- if he thought that rudy giuliani was a hand grenade, as fiona hill testified under oath that he said, and if he sent his deputies, vindman and hill to report to the white house counsel's office. i worked there six years, i was never sent up to report on anything i saw, it could open the flood gates in terms of

turning this into a very unpredictable process. >> i think you identified exactly why mitch mcconnell is fighting so hard to have no witnesses. they know that if these other witnesses come forward, it might change the equation. it puts more of these republican senators in a difficult position. i agree with charlie. i think it was very smart what nancy pelosi did. i think you see republicans praising her because one thing republicans always respect is the raw exercise of power. [ laughter ] and she knows very much how to exercise power. she's kind of a republican in that way. >> can i tell you a secret? whether they're pretending to love trump or not, no one yesterday said he was a good man. they also appreciate the one human being in washington willing to get in his face and stand up to him. >> i think that's exactly right. look, it would be a mistake i think to hold these articles indefinitely. there is nothing that the republicans want more than to never have a trial, to let cory gardner and susan collins, but the ultimate vote to bless this

conduct. i think mitch mcconnell wanted the kind of, you know, holidays to come, this to simmer down, die down, and then be able to come back the first week of january, jam a procedure through by keeping his caucus together, and what pelosi has done is ensure that when the world does come back after the holidays, the first this can thatng that' is whether there will be a trial or whether there will be a cover-up. and that puts collins and gardner all in a tough position. i would never bet mcmcconnell when it comes to holding his caucus together. but you have to wonder if some of them get a little bit nervous about being too far out there covering up for the president. >> the senate is not the house. so here's what the house republicans are. they have co-signed to the call being are. they have co-signed to withholding military aid for a country at war. all u.s. foreign policy regarding ukraine running

through giuliani, so said pompeo and documents subpoenaed from the state department, so said gordon sondland, the president's hand-picked former inauguration donor. it is unlikely that every republican in the senate will co-sign onto all the corruption that the house republicans have. >> that's exactly right. the senate was built to be that way a little bit more dignified, a little bit more settled. and there is a lot going on because we are going into 2020 where there's going to be a lot of vulnerable republicans. like card enter and tillis. i mean, mitch mcconnell himself, there's mcsally. there is so many of these republicans that have to really truly think about what they're about to take on. look, there's two things that are true. number one is that donald trump wants the senate to act so he can run around and say that he's been exonerated. number two -- >> total complete. >> that's what he wants. that is exactly -- that's why he wants them to move so quickly. and number two, we know that mitch mcconnell's not going to be impartial. we know that he is going to, you

know, not make sure that donald trump does not get the due kind of process that we need to be seeing with the criminality that he did. the thing that i would say -- so i understand why nancy pelosi -- and it is amazing to watch republicans kind of say these things about her and call her basically a badass. the thing about it though is i think that one of the reasons the house moves so quickly is because they had said that we needed to uphold this president. we needed to make sure that he didn't continue doing the criminality because our elections are coming up. so you do have to be very mindful, i think the house and nancy pelosi has to be very mindful that it doesn't look too political. and what is that -- so what does that look like after the holidays? so what does she do after the holidays? and we got to get moving. we can't continue to hold this. >> i want to give you the last word on the history that happened yesterday and the substance of it. donald trump becomes the third american president to be impeached in our country's history. but the first one to be

impeached for inviting and soliciting foreign meddling. you spent a lot of time looking at the russian attack on our democracy. what do you think of yesterday's vote? >> well, it's unbelievably historic. it is also the first time that a president has been impeached who can run for office again, which makes it quite different than the prior to impeachments. the nixon case where it didn't get to an impeachment because he realized, you know, i'm going down and left before the vote could be taken. this is so far, so much worse because that involved cheating on an election also, but that was cheating on an election which involved a break-in, a burglary, a simple burglary. here you have, as you mentioned, you have seeking foreign assistance in an election. and there can be no question that donald trump knew at the time he did this that that was illegal because it was coming on the heels of a two-year

investigation by robert mueller on that issue. it was very conscious. i think that's one of the democrats' best points as to why you have to take action now, which is he is such a recidivist. he is not going to stop. >> and they have turned to that national security argument. they said this is not about '16. this is about protecting the next election. again, as a mom i study pattern recognition. he was impeached for obstructing congress. >> right. there it's hard to imagine how the senate is not -- really can't be so, that's really nothing. you think institutionally you'd have some -- >> you would think. >> you'd have some sort of self-respect which is that it's supposed to be a co-equal branch of government, and the president is saying this is an illegitimate process, i'm not giving you anything. well, it's not an illegitimate process. you may disagree with it. but they had the votes. it is a voted process.

the court has found that it is a legitimate process. so, it really is an affront to checks and balances. and there you really would hope that there are enough senators who would say that's a bridge too far. >> and it's an argument that you would hope a republican would make. nancy pelosi put her side's argument yesterday in a frame of history, republicans playing for the political, not even minute, the political second. it's amazing. thank you so much for spending time with us. garrett haake, my friend, thank you for today and every day. you've been awesome. after the break, red-faced and sweaty is how one newspaper describes donald trump at the moment the house voted to impeach him. we'll bring you the white house's furious red-faced attempts at counter programming that includes a vicious insult for a hometown hero that could cause trump a win in the battleground state of michigan in 2020. also aled, vladimir putin weighs in on trump's impeachment sounding more like jim jordan

than any other foreign leader. how did russia get on the very same talking points? and tonight's 2020 democratic debates gets underway. and how the candidates address trump's impeachment. all those stories come upping up. l those stories come upping up

you know what they call it? impeachment-like. with richard nixon i just see it as a very dark era. you don't even like to think. i don't know about you, but i'm having a good time. it's crazy. [ applause ] but i also know we have a great

group of people behind us in the republican party. >> no matter how much he denies it, rages against it, smears it, donald trump made the kind of history yesterday that he fears most. he became the third president in our country's history to be impeached, all but guaranteeing that the first sentence written about him anywhere, everywhere until the end of time will be this. on december 18th, 2019, donald j. trump was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of congress. a quick glance at his twitter feed over the last two days lays bear his fury. "the washington post" captured this moment in trump's presidency this way. quote, the president's furious visage red-faced to the shade of burnt sienna, sweat beading on his upper lip, even as he faced an historic low point. the anger has been boiling for a while. our friend jonathan lemire in the "associated press" writes this. quote, allies in recent months have described him as seething

over the prospect taking impeachment more as a personal attack than an attempt to delegitimize his presidency than a judgment on his conduct. the aforementioned jonathan lemire joins us now. this idea that he thinks it's to -- i mean, if he's impeached and removed, mike pence becomes the american president, strengthening mike pence's first run should he run for election in 2020. the only person who sought to delegitimize a sitting president was donald trump with the birther movement. >> but that's not how he views it. he claimed that the democrats attempted to drum up the russia conspiracy just to sort of undermine his presidency. and of course we know there was outside election interference. what happened yesterday is something he has feared for a long time. as much as his political advisers have said, and he is to some degree bought in that impeachment can be helpful politically next year, and his

campaign, they showed data how their fundraising has gone up since the impeachment inquiry started, rally attempts have gone up. they say they point to their internals and say that among independents in battleground states they largely disapprove of the impeachment effort. it's too early to judge on that. but we can judge right now is he's the third president in the history of this country to be impeached. and for someone who is so concerned about branding, so concerned about reputation, that is a deep stain on him, and we saw his fury erupt last night from the stage. he had a two-hour and one-minerally. >> those poor people. [ laughter ] >> and he was indeed red-faced at times. he was quite sweaty. he went on a 40-minute or so rant about impeachment. this is something that has been at the forefront of his mind for weeks. and yesterday it finally came to be. and he knows, as i wrote, this is now the first line of his obituary. this is going to be how he is remembered. and no matter what he does, and maybe he will be the first president impeached and

re-elected. but the word impeached is always going to be there. >> and this brings out the worst in him, doesn't it? what you saw there, by the way, who's given speeches from fidel castro for two hours? if you're donald trump, you kind of want to run a little bit on it's morning in america again as opposed to this campaign of grievance and victimization and pure anger and lashing out at john dingell. there is something about this sort of thing that triggers the very worst in donald trump and that's pretty bad. >> let me show that before everyone jumps in. >> debbie jidingell, that's a rl beauty. she calls me up eight months ago, but i didn't give him the b-treatment. i gave the a-plus treatment. she calls me up. it's the nicest thing that's ever happened. thank you so much. john would be so thrilled. he's looking down. he'd be so -- thank you so much, sir. and so that's okay.

don't worry about it. maybe he is looking up. i don't know. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> that was donald trump doing as he did with the kahn family, as he did with the widow of david t. johnson, smearing as he did with john mccain, smearing the late congressman dingell, whose wife debbie dingell serves in the house. >> i think the people in that rally audience were taken aback. but i am mystified that the president would go this way. this is the donald trump that we have seen over the last four or five years. so anybody that is professing, well, this was a bad moment, i have no idea why donald trump would do this. this is what he does when he's under pressure when he's feeling victimized. and, again, this is the donald trump that we're going to be seeing now lashing out after impeachment. and the longer this hangs over his head, i think the more of

the sort of unhinged moments you'll want to see from him. >> certainly my colleague in the room last night said that the crowd wasn't with him on that. you could hear some of the groans there. but apparently in person it was even more obvious. he's a favorite son there in michigan. he won it very narrowly last time around. >> i think i have some of those, what, with 10,000 votes? >> with 10,000 votes. i know his campaign is a little pessimistic about michigan than some of the other rustbelt states. but he's been to michigan a number of times. there's a reason why he was there last night because they know how important it is. it shouldn't be surprising. we have just listed the number of deceased public figures or soldiers that he has slurred while they're in the grave and no ability to punch back. and that's what one of the other more sort of galling things, stephanie grisham, press secretary was asked to defend this.

the president, he is a counterpuncher. >> i think we have that? we are going to show that because it is extraordinary. i think both things that you're saying, what you're all saying is, right, we shouldn't be surprised, we have seen this before. but that doesn't mean we don't hit pause and remind people that this isn't normal. this from a spokesperson is not normal. watch. >> why do you think the president said that overnight? >> you'd have to talk to the president about that. he was at a political rally. he has been under attack and under impeachment attack for the last few months and under attack politically for the last two and a half years. i think that as we all know the president is a counter puncher. it was a very, very supportive and wild crowd, and he was just riffing on some of the things that had been happening the past few days. >> he is under attack? i mean put on your big boy panties and get in the arena. >> i am starting to think she's not very good at her job. >> we can't become numb of it. this is not normal. this is not the protocol.

this is not how the president of the united states treats the office. look, behind all the bluster, the tweets and the rhetoric and these rallies, what happened last night, that impeachment that is now the asterisk next to donald trump's name has really stung him. we have to remember last night was probably the first time he has ever been held accountable in his entire life. so you think with that and him wanting to be a fighter and fighting all the time and going after whoever, a 16-year-old, which is one thing that he did, he went after all of the practically all of the women who have accused him of sexual -- this is what he does. and that accountability last night i think really got under his skin because no one, no one has ever done that. >> all right. after the break, vladimir putin weighs in on impeachment. [ suspenseful music ]

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it is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our national security

and the integrity of our elections the basis of our democracy. >> we cannot rely on the next election as a remedy for presidential misconduct when the president threatens the very integrity of that election. >> president trump's wrongdoing and the urgent threat that his actions present to our next election and our democracy leaves us no principled alternative but to support these articles of impeachment. >> we are on the precipice of the 2020 election, and congress's ultimate responsibility to protect the sacred equalizer, our right to vote. >> the reason we are here according to democrats in the midst of donald trump's impeachment, is because donald trump's conduct when it comes to elections is ongoing and unchanging. and as if to make their case clearer and more startling, russian president vladimir putin speaking out on their behalf. putin defending him in the case

the very specific case of impeachment and saying he shouldn't be convicted and saying he hopes it pushes him to another victory in 2020. sounlds like he was on that call, lemire. >> he got the talking points. you'd like to say with friends like these, but i'm sure president trump welcomes the help. he speaks highly of him all the time. he has refused to denounce russian election interference in 2016. we should be numb to it but we shouldn't be. russia is an adversary to this country. >> trump can always count on his base, and there is no more reliable base than vladimir putin who's been there from the beginning. i thought the clips you showed from democratic members of congress really drove home how well they handled this case yesterday as they have from the

beginning. the way they described the president's abuse of power and their constitutional obligation to take it seriously, but i think in these kind of unhinged scenes we saw from the president last night, there is a lesson for democrats, which is because he is the only president to be impeached in his first term, he is not going to stop fighting this fight when the trial's over. he wants this trial because he wants it to exonerate him, and he wants to run around the country and claim to the american public that they were out to get me because they were out to get you, the democrats and the coastal elites. they need to continue this fight over the fairness of this trial and make clear that he cannot be exonerated if the trial's a sham. a sham trial can deliver a verdict. it cannot deliver legitimacy. >> so what do you recommend? what's your prescription? >> they obviously need to keep fighting for witnesses. >> how far do they fight? do they wait for the courts? >> they need to have the trial sometime in the next two, three months. but they need to make clear that if it's not a real trial, it's not a real verdict and the

president is in no way exonerated and they need to take the fight to the voters and make sure all the senate seats. >> explain it over and over. >> they need to make sure that when donald trump is out fighting about this for the next 11 months going into his election that they are too. they can't just move back to -- >> this is exactly right. >> if they really believe their argument that the president's abuses of power make him unfit for office, they need to be making that argument for the next 11 months until the election. >> for example, we talk about vladimir putin. all roads lead back to vladimir putin. it's all -- >> so says nancy pelosi, right? >> and there are stories playing right out now involving lev parnas. lev parnas pays rudy giuliani the president's free lawyer. lev parnas gets money from russia. follow the money. one of the reasons and a.b. stodord has written about this.

one of the reasons i think republicans are so anxious about getting this behind them and moving on is that time is really not on donald trump's side with all of this. but you are absolutely right. i think that the democrats have underestimated the need to constantly let the voters catch up with them on all of this. they feel that they got all this evidence, they had all this testimony and they didn't have to explain it. and donald trump will repeat it over and over. >> remember the transition tour, the thank you tour during the transition? the white house actively is considering a plan now that after the senate verdict comes down and he is found not guilty, they will go barnstorming on the country sort of waving that around suggesting, look, i've been exonerated, they've tried to get you, and they think this could be the thing that inspires them. they know they are not going to change people's minds in voters. they need to find new voters who might like the president and they need some reason to inspire them. they think impeachment could be it.

>> if i was a democratic committee chairman, i would have a raff of subpoenas ready to go the day after the trial. they have learned in the last few months how to conduct effective investigations. they ought to use it right up until the election. >> and i think those very vulnerable republicans, they need to take a vote. and once they take a vote and they're on record, hold them accountable. i think that's the beauty as well as having the trial, hold those guys accountable. >> when he slips into the 30s, that victory tour won't be the weapon they think it is. after the break the men and women running to replace donald trump as this country's next president. we go to los angeles for a preview with our friend john heilemann. that's next. riend john heilemann. that's next. before we talk about tax-smart investing, what's new?

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and as though there weren't enough important big huge political stories this week, there is a democratic debate tonight. obviously the first one since the president was impeached.

here's who we will see on the stage. joe biden. a person actually named in one of those articles of impeachment. pete buttigieg, tom steyer, elizabeth warren, and andrew yang. nbc and msnbc analyst john heilemann joins us now. what do you expect tonight? do you think impeachment will be a bigger thing than it has been in previous debates? >> i do. and i think it's one of the most striking things, nicole. we have done these debates all yearlong. this is number six. and i think if you look back at the past five, one of the most striking elements of them has been the absence of impeachment talking on the stage. there have been debates where the subject does not come up at all, whether it was early in the year around the mueller investigation or now in the ukraine context. i can't imagine but that it's not going to be a central topic tonight both on the merits of what happened and also just, you know, a lot of these democrats who are on the stage, the one who are united states senators are thinking really hard about

what this is going to do to the campaign come january. there is a lot of uncertainty now in the context of nancy pelosi and the articles of impeachment about when this trial might start, how long it might go. everyone's kind of dealing with that uncertainty. and it's kind of the behind the scenes kind of anxiety that's kind of rippling through all the democrats here. what is this going to mean for me and my ability to spend time in iowa, new hampshire come 2020? >> john heilemann, what is the sort of reality for these campaigns of not being able to grab the spotlight? obviously the trump story is all-consuming under any circumstances, but the trump impeachment really does kind of blot out everything else. >> the reality of it is it's super frustrating i think, nicole. i can't tell you, like, when this started back in september, and you could see how this was unfolding and the timeline it was unfolding on, a lot of people in our business, and certainly me, said this is going to overshadow what's going on in the campaign trail.

it's obviously hugely important. to the extent it overshadows what's happening on the trail, it's justified that it overshadows it. but if you're a candidate running and especially one of these candidates who's not in that top four, a candidate that's trying to get air time, it's the case that they are still getting coverage in iowa and new hampshire and south carolina. local press is not nearly as focused on impeachment as national press is. but for someone like cory booker who is sitting there on the bubble getting on national television super important in terms of donors and polling. they're frustrated. >> you and i talk a lot, not about the frontrunners on these days of debates, but about those people on the bubble. it's usually your connect analysis that the stakes are highest for them. so who would you put the stakes as being highest for tonight? >> well, i think the stakes right now, if you think about this is obviously a smaller debate stage. you've just got those seven people up there. often the case if you're someone who is kind of fighting to get into that next debate, if you're andrew yang, if you were the

last one to make it in, if you're tom steyer who is not really getting that much traction beyond what his money has been able to buy him. but i think among the top four, is elizabeth warren anyone is eh warren. who i think it's fair to say was running the best-executed, most coherent, strongest campaign for most of 2019. then two debates ago, had that debate where pete beauuttigieg amy klobuchar came after her about medicare for all. and you have seen elizabeth warren lose altitude over the course of these last two months. she's coming in as seeing bernie sanders on the rise. she's got a lot. she's trying to kind of get that second burst of enner squi juer. i think there is going to be a lot of people taking shots at mayor pete tonight. >> john, will you stay with us? another dynamic we're watching tonight on the table all wants to jump in on all of this. it's the least-diverse democratic field on a debate

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♪for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home.♪♪ we go the extra mile to bring your holidays home. democratic debate tonight in los angeles. john heilemann, this is the least diverse this field and this party will look. how is that landing in advance of tonight's debate? >> not well. i mean, i think look. you started out with the most diverse field in american history in this party. and now, you're down to six white people and andrew yang. and i think there's not a lot of

happiness about that. not just on the part of the non-white candidates like julian castro and cory booker but also on part of the other candidates, too. these candidates recognize that a big, broad obama coalition built on the backs of non-white voters is how democrats are going to win. and having a -- a debate stage that looks essentially like a republican debate stage is not what democrats want to be showing voters at the -- at the very end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. >> karine. >> yeah. i mean, you're absolutely right. like you said, we started off with a very diverse field and now you won't see that reflected on the stage tonight. that is incredibly problematic. that does not represent the democratic base. the diverse democratic party. and the dnc's going to have to reexamine their rules. and how they can figure out to better reflect that diverse party that we have. >> matt. >> yeah. look. i think the dnc rules at the beginning of this made sense. you don't want to in a month and a half before people start voting still have 20 candidates on the stage. so i think they were right to have some sort of process.

i don't think they could have predicted this. it's really unfortunate. kamala harris had qualified for this debate. had she not run out of money, she would be in it. but i think it's incredibly unfortunate that cory booker is not there. >> and contrast the lack of diversity on stage tonight to the remarkable diversity we saw among the past representatives, the democrats in the house yesterday as they spoke. you know, republicans seemingly one white man after another. >> yelling. >> yeah, yelling. the democrats were not only passionate and sort of sober at the moment but remarkably diverse field. and i do think this will -- not only the dnc perhaps lead them to reexamine their process. but whether iowa and new hampshire should be the first two states. >> charlie. >> the first openly-gay presidential candidate on the stage and this is an outsider. it is remarkable watching the circular firing squad and the -- and the viciousness of the attacks on mayor pete. and so i agree with john. one of the things i'd be looking for is, you know, how intense is this going to get? at this moment, when i would

think the democrats would want to be focused on donald trump. whether or not they are going to continue to eat their own. and the animus directed against mayor pete is having truly extraordinary -- >> this is how republicans watch it. we feel like any one of you is better than trump! just why can't you all get along? we have to sneak in our last break. we'll be right back. ack. as soon as the homeowners arrive, we'll inform them that liberty mutual customizes home insurance, so they'll only pay for what they need. your turn to keep watch, limu. wake me up if you see anything. [ snoring ] [ loud squawking and siren blaring ] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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. we're late. my thanks to most of all to you for watching. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts now. tp daily" with chuck starts now welcome to thursday. it is "meet the press daily" and good evening. i am chuck todd here in washington. an indelible mark has been left on the trump presidency and the immediate fallout has been