some things are too important to do yourself. get customized security with 24/7 monitoring from xfinity home. awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today. all right. that does for me for the weekend. see you back here, 2:00 p.m. eastern next weekends. follow me on twitter and instagram and by the way, merry christmas and happy hanukkah. the news continues right now with my colleague gigi stone woods. >> hello. yes, gigi stone woods live from msnbc headquarter fls new york. a lot to get to this hour. first, fresh, new details surrounding the main event that led to the impeachment of president trump. new emails released by the center for public integrity show a white house request to withhold funds from ukraine came less than two hours after

president trump's now infamous phone call with the ukrainian president. in one. emails office of management and budget staffer mike duffey wrote, "based on guidance i have received and in light of the administration's plan to review assistance to ukraine, please hold off on any additional department of defense obligations of these funds pending direction from that process." earlier today a spokesperson for the omb responded with a statement he claims the holding back of funds was announced well before that calling it actually reckless to tie it to trump's phone call. meanwhile, the stalemate in congress continues over if and when the house will relay those impeachment articles to the senate. lawmakers did starring on the sunday shows as you might expect. >> we have a situation to me is simple. you'll have a trial. have the first hand witnesses, innocent, have acting chief of staff mulvaney come before the senate. swear to an oath.

settle this whole thing. >> we just found out this weekend that someone who works for mulvaney, michael duffey, had sent an email 90 minutes after the president made that critical call to the ukrainian president. this guy sent an email, i have it here. we just found it. it says given the sensitive nature of the kwft i appreciate you keeping this information closely held and said, don't release any of the funds. this man should testify. >> i wish that it had not been just a partisan vote. somebody will yell at me for saying that. i don't think this is a good time until our country's history, but we do all take an oath of office that requires us to protect our democracy and our national security. >> the case is thin that the house is sending over to us, if they ever send it over to us. >> what speaker pelosi is doing is focusing attention on the need for a fair trial and a fair trial means you get to call your witnesses. every american knows that that's what a trial is all about.

>> turn now to nbc's kelly o'clonl live in west palm beach, florida. kelly, i want to ask you about the new reports regarding the hold on ukrainian funds. what can you tell us about the omb's efforts to knock down this story? >> reporter: well, officials from the white house are saying that there were a number of different conversations and different emails that were taking place and that this one email that's drawn a lot of attention is not the only part of the story, and they say there's more context needed. they're claiming about a week earlier before the president's call with president zelensky there was already an indication sent to all departments involved that there would be a hold on that ukrainian aid, which was approved by congress nearly $400 million. a hold while they reviewed the support being given. even though approved by congress, something administration says it has the right to do. so they're saying this particular email that came right on the same day as the phone

call as you heard in senator klobuchar's remarks about 90 minutes after that call, saying that was not the whole story. at the same time, part of what is important here is that senators on the democratic side are saying there are witnesses who have direct information about some of these events that should be heard from in a senate trial. so this is the kind of information that has become public through freedom of information act filed by the senate for republican integrity able to get this 146 pages. a lot redacted, blacked out, but some of the information is giving us athts more background what was going on behind the scenes when the president considered this hold on military aid. ultimately released september 11th after the whistle-blower's complaint was known internally at the white house and known to congress. they're saying this is about the workings of government and that there's nothing to see here. democrats are saying it really shows a lot more about how deep this was going and senator klobuchar, for example, is saying, why the secrecy?

why this keep is close hold? don't let those who don't need to know know about that suggesting there was perhaps something more there that was politically damaging or a concern. certainly the issue of ukraine has blown up in ways that many of those officials when those emails were written probably could never have imagined. here we are impeachment behind us, a senate trial in front of us and could this be the evidence senators would like to see flushed out during a senate trial? gigi? >> the question of timing around this could be significant. kelly o'donnell from west palm beach, thanks. bring in our panel. former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor joyce vance. politico reporter covering the white house daniel litman. yahoo! news political correspondent brittany shepard and former republican congressman from florida and msnbc political analyst david jolly. thank you all for joining us to talk about this. a lot to unpack here. joyce starting with you. these emails about ukraine were

just released through the freedom of averages act, kelly talked about. do you see new evidence of a trial here? >> you know, there's a lot of evidence of crimes here, gigi. both involving this email about the delay, the order to the pentagon to stop releasing ukrainian funds, but also about the content of the president's activity and obstruction of congress. we only see this email because a small journalist enterprise file add freedom of information request. these are documents that should have been delivered by the trump white house to congress purchase pursuant to its subpoenas and, of course, they failed to produce anything. here they got this aggressively redacted tranche of emails at the very last moment the judge permitted the government to turn them over. late at night on the friday evening before christmas. what we see here is fresh evidence that one of the witnesses who senator schumer has asked to have testify in the

senate and who mitch mcconnell has said he won't permit to testify has key evidence that the american public should hear. >> right. so that's where this has led us. and the president's impeachment in the house. daniel, what are you hearing about the president and where he stands on all this? is this driving his crazy? the stalemate between the house and senate regarding the impeachment articles? would he rather an immediate trial? is the white house clamoring for an immediate trial? >> he doesn't warrant to step on mitch mcconnell's towing too much but president trump definitely wants that acquittal and in one fashion or another. mitch mcconnell said that if speaker pelosi, she doesn't want to send the articles to the senate he's happy to just let it be and not have a trial. and so president trump is probably not very happy about that prospect, because for him to be impeached without that senate trial he hopes to get

acquitted from, and then take a big victory lap and his supporters can feel very good tha they defeated this impeachment and stopped this from happening and kept their guy in office, that is kind of damaging to the president's image he wants to say that, well, look, all republicans in both the house and senate, they stood by me, but if you don't even have that senate trial, then that talking point is much harder to make. >> right. it's possible the president will put pressure on mitch mcconnell. david, what do you think mitch mcconnell's strategy is here? is there a risk for republicans if this gets dragged out too long? >> i think the risk is because of the unknown of donald trump's behavior. he does want an acquittal. in fact, he wants an exoneration. the white house is suggesting more an acquittal. a vote of exoneration, and mitch mcconnell wants to be able to deliver that to him. i think speaker pelosi is absolutely right not to deliver the articles, and the gigi, i suggest we not as a nation get

distracted about whether or not this is about witnesses. the reason nancy pelosi should withhold referring the articles over is squarely because of mitch mcconnell's confession that he will not be an impartial juror. i think there's a real constitutional question that mitch mcconnell created by admitting in his words that he would not be an impartial juror. the united states senate according to the constitution when they are sitting for an impeachment trial have to take an oath or affirmation to deliver impartial justice. mitch mcconnell said he wouldn't do that. so i think nancy pelosi should actually turn the scrutiny and the spotlight of all the house of representatives resources on the maladministration of mitch mcconnell and it raises a historical question. can the house refer articles of impeachment over to a senate when the majority leader said he will not be impartial. if we don't get a recusal or change of 125i7statement from m

mcconnell nancy pelosi shouldn't ever send them over. no trial held with impartiality by the united states senate. >> interesting thought. a strategy of nancy pelosi's to highlight the way mitch mcconnell does thing and runs the senate and put a spotlight on it for the world to really pay attention to. but yet it's a risk for the democrats. brittany, i want to bring you in to talk about that. what are the risks for the democrats with the strategy of holding on to the articles? >> gigi, it's important to recognize the pressures that these it democrats are feeling. i want first republicans. donald trump jr. posted 30-odd risky offices essentially members of the house who. voted on a very narrow marge ton call them and give them pain for either voted yes or present on impeachment. and early polling from october, november and honestly before the actual vote. with that disclaimer in mind, so really vulnerable states. battleground states like nevada,

florida, arizona and like pennsylvania. so voters in those states really disapproved of impeachment by 44%, 47% and not for the political hobnobry of it all. right now during christmas the democrats are going back to their districts where they believe it was a calculated risk to vote yes on impeachment. they have a lot of campaign issing to do to these voter saying not only jufd a yes vote's in and of itself is a problem. to also say the reason we're holding up these articles is not about partisanship but about ensuring a fair trial in the senate. that's not a super easy narrative to pitch to voters. they'll be in a pickle come january. >> and one could argue why it was really brave to go ahead and do this in the first place. let's talk about this new evidence of the omb. does it hold a good argument for the dems slowing down the process and really working through the courts to fight for these documents?

>> it really does. you know, getting the documents is slow, gigi. that could be as late at june before we hear rulings from the supreme court, but delay has been friendly to democrats in this case, because president trump has tried to obstruct so much evidence. not permitting witnesses to testify, not turning over any documents congruent to congressional subpoenas. david is right when he said the integrity of the process is in question. senator mcconnell said he won't lead a fair and impartial trial. there's a lot of, i think, movement now to slow things down, to ensure that necessary evidence is available to ensure that the process in the senate is fair, because ultimately if we have an unfair sort of a soviet-style trial in the senate, that even if the president is acquitted, he won't be able to say he's been exonerated. that won't be true given the

playing field right now. >> mitch mcconnell may be forced to call witnesses. john roberts can force him to do it and the president could put pressure on him. daniel, will trump and the white house ever accept a compromise when it comes to calling the key witnesses the democrats waubtd and would like to hear from mick mulvaney, hear from john bolton. could this ever happen, do you think? >> i don't think we should hold our breath for seeing mick mulvaney or john bolton testify in a senate trial, because if what they said is corroborated by what -- if what they say in that trial mirrors what was said by fiona hill and all the other witnesses in the house, then that testimony is going to be devastating for the trump case. so it's going to make it much harder for republican senators to acquit president trump. i think trump's advisers have told him, hey, we can't have our guys testify in the senate. let's just have a quick and easy trial, and so i don't think that, you know -- i think john

bolton is safe to keep those things for his book, which he really wants to sell very well and he shouldn't worry about going to testify against his former boss. >> well it could definitely drive up book sales. david, you know, you said you could see this never actually happening. the articles of impeachment could not be sent at all. it do you ever see mulvaney and bolton testifying? could you see these witnesses coming? >> perhaps. very importantly, the reason for the distrust of mitch mcconnell is justice roberts does not actually make final decisions. he's merely custodian of the process. essentially it's the rule of 51. whatever 51 senators agree to they can even overrule a ruling of justice roberts, and that's the concern for nancy pelosi. lindsey graham, chairman of the senate judiciary committee, gave an opening to house democrats today. he said we can't call witnesses in the senate trial if their protestations haven't been fully

litigated and heard by the court. denying the president his day in court withholding from the senate. okay, chairman graham. we understand that. let's wait for the courts to fully litigate whether or not these people have to testify, mulvaney and others, and upon hearing the ruling of the court, then the house will determine whether or not to refer the articles over. in other words, we'll wait, lindsey graham. the house can wait. >> mcconnell, schumer, pelosi, a lot to hammer out after the holidays. thank you for explaining this to us and breaking it down. joyce vance, daniel litman and david jolly. brittany shepard is staying with us to talk more. coming up, we turn our attention to the 2020 race. road warrior ali vitali spoke exclusively with amy klobuchar on a major bus tour in iowa, and we'll have that for you, next. .

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the iowa caucuses are 43 days away and four democratic countries are campaigning there right now. the political battle is heating up between two of them. senator amy klobuchar and mayor pete buttigieg. today they're only 50 miles apart. joining me now straight from iowa, nbc road warriors josh letterman following mayor pete and ali vitali covering senator klobuchar. she got had an exclusive interview on her bus today.

ali, klobuchar may have the buzz this weekend, as you mentioned polls show she has a lot of work to do in iowa. dop they have more plans to try to close that gap? >> reporter: well, gigi, buzz at some point has to amount to something. after the last debate for klobuchar it amounted to dollar signs. she raised over $1 million in the hours after that debate performance, and that's something we've seen from her over the course of the last few debate performances. her getting enough high marks to earn herself an extra million or so dollars after each are those things she's putting right back into organizing on the ground in states like iowa and ticking up in polls slowly, but not high enough she's yet in double digits, but is high enough to be qualifying each round as the debate qualifying thresholds have gotten higher and higher. while she's trying to climb in the polls, other candidates are also taking their own approach to getting about even with her in some of these early poll os. especially in states so important like iowa.

we talked about that and how it makes her feel. listen to what she told me. >> i think you've worked hard to keep your slow increase in the polls. someone like michael bloomberg coming in, though around 4%, 5%, around where you are on the airwaves and able to do that. how does that make you feel? >> well, the most, like you can't be human if you don't feel something when you spend hours preparing to answer foreign policy questions for, like, a sunday show and then you're on, and as you're sitting in the green room before and after you go on there are more michael bloomberg ads that are run than the time you're actually on the show. whoa. that happens. "meet the press." things like that. okay. but you just got to accept it, and you've got to realize that throughout our country's history there's been a lot of wealthy people and the mayor has done admirable things in this life, but it is clearly, they run and they don't always win. in fact, a lot of times they don't. >> reporter: now, look, klobuchar's campaign clearly

factors in iowa as a really important part of her inner path to the nomination, but someone else who also values the state of iowa and needs to do well here in february is the guy behind me. joe biden. just finished up an event. him and klobuchar competing in the same language, really. all want to be moderates appealing to the part of the party that wants to beat donald trump and not go too far to the left who they nominate as eventual democratic nominee. biden is also competing with mayor pete buttigieg in that lane. buttigieg has seen a surge here in iowa. klobuchar, though, trying to make her case with a sort of retail politics effort throughout the state here. she's almost hit all 99 county es. bragging rights go along with that the fact that's the way you try to win in states lie iowa, gigi. >> thank you, ali vitali. talk about buttigieg seemed to have a target on his back during that debate and campaigning with that since he's

had the serge in iowa. do you think it's changed the way he's doing things? >> reporter: he has. you can even tell from the energy in the room here and other places as we await pete buttigieg. the people are coming to see a front-runner. a different type of energy than in the part and talking to voters here about what they think about the fact pete buttigieg is getting so much attacked from sorry many different sides. meet ryan sirber an undecided voter. what do you make of the fact so many candidates are training their fire on pete buttigieg? >> yeah. i guess the way i see it is when somebody has a target on their back usually they're ahead either by perception or by the polls. but he has a target on his back. people want to hear what he has to say. he's a real, got a real chance here. >> reporter: thank you, ryan. even though pete buttigieg is someone who campaigned as the nice guy in the race, the happy

warrior. not wanting to spend much time attacking his fellow competitors we have seen that shift in the last several weeks as he's had to defend himself showing in the last debate how he could flip some of the attacks on elizabeth warren and others and show that if he's going to be under fire from these other candidates he's willing to take the gloves off himself to defend himself. >> reporter: and he's got a lot more time. >> considering he a not a senator going back to washington and can keep campaigning like biden. thanks to our nbc road warriors. joining me now, editor of the "nevada independent" john ralston and national correspondent for yahoo! news brittany shepard. thanks for being with us. pete buttigieg talking about him unveiling a new immigration plan today. meeting with voters in underrepresented communities in nevada. where does he stand overall in nevada with voters?

>> he's not doing too well here, gigi, in terms of the pompolls. the last credible poll at 7%. the way it corks, you know, what happens in iowa will matter to what happens in new hampshire. then momentum could be built up come into nevada. he set up a formidable infrastructure here. he has dozens of staffers. he's got very smart people who understand the state and so he's ready to take advantage. right now, though, he is well behind biden, warren and sanders but i think she in the right position to take advantage as you mentioned. he just left the state. he was meeting with minority voters, which has been a weakness for him here and everywhere. >> brittany, he really has had a weakness with african-americans. latino voters. do you think he can bridge that gap? can he win those communities over? >> certainly it will be difficult. not saying that anything -- anything is possible. we saw what happened in the last

election. however, when you're polling at 0 to 4% in south carolina with black voters you as a campaign should be concerned. they've taken notice to this i think. before, early states iowa, new hampshire. buttigieg would get tons and tons of crowds, albeit white crowds. look at the clip you just played. he won't get that reception in south carolina. 10 or 20 people will show out. he switched his campaign calculus in the south to having closed door intimate conversation with black thought leaders because look, black voters are voters who vote with their gut. they are -- principally put loyalty above everything else. why joe biden has such a stronghold. 20, 30-point lead in south carolina. you have to take an ax to that wall if you want to make considerable, i think the linchpin is genuine gains in that community. >> biden has such a strong history of that hold. the really going to be hard to break through in such a little amount of time. >> right. decades. that's why these next few weeks

are oh crucial with this impeachment senate inquiry. so many senators, five, will be getting off the trail and going back to washington. in that time buttigieg could make more gains. >> that is an important point. all right. john, what do you think about the other "i" word besides issues. impeachment. is it playing as big with voters in nevada? >> i don't think it's playing as big except for one area where there is a swing congressional district here, gigi. you have a rookie democrat who is representing one of those few dozen districts in the country where trump actually won the district. so there have been a lot of ads run already about impeachment. the republicans have released polling showing that that rookie congresswoman suzy lee is not on the right side of impeachment, but, of course, these things can switch depending what happens in the trial and other issue or issues that come upint

intervening time between the election. because of ads run here and because of attention on this freshman congresswoman, the more top of mind than other places. >> similar ads running around the country for different candidates, i'm sure. thank you for joining us. msnbc political analyst and the ter of "the nevada independent" john ralston and brittany shepard. thank you for being here. coming up, talking about it. putin told me it's a new report about president trump's relationship with russian president vladimir putin. and what. might tell us about putin's influence on trump. stay with us. stay with us

welcome back. new reporting from the "washington post" exposes russia's powerful influence on the president's views. senior white house aides say the president believed ukraine and not russia had interfered in the 2016 campaign and had tried to stop him from winning the white house. trump even stated so explicitly at one point saying he knew ukraine washes it's real culprit because "putin told me." well, that assertion came after a private meeting with russian president vladimir putin at the

g-20 summit in july of 2017. now that line of thinking seems to have infiltrated tarts of pae republican party. >> senator kennedy, who do you believe was responsible for hacking the dnc and clinton campaign computers? their emails? was it russia or ukraine? >> i don't know. nor do you. nor do any of us. many ms. hill -- >> let me interrupt to say the entire intelligence community says it was russia. >> right. but it could also be ukraine. i'm not saying that i know one way or the other. >> okay. louisiana senator john kennedy there mentioning fiona hill. the former national security council official who testified last month at the house impeachment hearings and gave a warning about repeating russian propaganda. >> some of you on this committee appear to believe that russia and its security services did

not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps somehow for some reason ukraine did. this is a fictional narrative that is perpetrated and prop ga gait gated by the russian security services they are gearing up to repeat this in the 2020 election bep are running out of time to stop them. in the course of this investigation i ask you don't clearly advance russian interests. >> joining me now is ned price former special assistant to president obama, former nsc spokesperson and senior director. also an msnbc national security analyst. thanks for joining us, ned. talk about this article, president trump believing ukraine interfered in our election because "putin told him that." if this is accurate what does it tell us about their relationship? >> well, i do have to say it is an attractive theory for president trump for a couple

reasons. number one because of what you are alluding to. president trump for reasons that i think we don't fully understand, can guess, still don't fully understand it, wants to preserve this relationship with president putin and putting the blame on kyiv instead of moscow allows him do that. second, and maybe just as important in president trump's mind, this theory allows him to make the case that he won the presidency, yes, still lost popular vote by 3 million votes but won the electoral klemp not only without assistance from a foreign country were you without opposition from another foreign country, in this case ukraine. of course, this theory is bunkened and debunked by any number of experts and by the u.s. intelligence community. but as we know, president trump often does not attach himself to the truth. he attaches himself to whatever is most politically convenient for him and this theory certainly is that. >> could certainly comfort a bruised ego.

you saw the clip from the senate there saying ukraine could have been behind the dnc hack. later he walked that back somewhat. how do you think this narrative even took hold in the first place? >> well, it took hold the way other narratives that we've seen elements of the right wing republican establishment have attached to. by way of president trump, from twitter and email and other social media sites with more, they're even more conspiratorial in their tone. frankly, president trump himself has often been a purveyor of russian talking points and, of course, this "washington post" piece is just the latest example of that, but you can go back to very early in the trump administration and the first time president trump spoke to the then ukrainian president poroshenko, president trump described russia's invasion of

ukraine in a very peculiar way. he said including ukraine's long-running conflict with russia, he described it as a long-running conflict, when, in fact, it was russia's invasion of ukraine and attempted annexation of crimea more recently moreover, president trump has used russian talking points in parroting what president trump routinely says about moscow's efforts against isis. moscow is not a stalwart in the campaign against isis. in fact, moscow is a stalwart in the effort to defend and bolster regime of bashar al assad bsh, but president trump for whatever reason used those same talking boints. again, we have to ask why? could be he covets this relationship. could be he wants the russian market to the remain intact once out of the russian presidency in 2020 or 2021 or could be because he likes the theory. likes the theory it was ukraine and not russia that intervened

in 2016 for the political convenience we discussed. >> either way it is a good thing for the putin propaganda machine. thank you for breaking it down for us. >> thanks a lot. coming up, fire from google. a former employee says they got the ax for trying to help workers unionize and she isn't the only one. we're joined by her, next. we're joined by her, next. ♪ [ gunshot ]

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they came together as a team to do something here. their googliness is truly off the charts, oh my -- stop with the googliness. what does that even mean? >> the fact that you don't know what it means is why you will never work here. >> the 2013 movie "the internship" celebrating employee-friendly culture at google but times may have changed. a fifth google employee says they were fired for participating in union organizing activities. the movie is fun but this issue is serious. kathryn spiers saying fired from her job as a google engineer for creatoring a pop-up on the browser. it appears when visiting the website workers saw as an anti-union law firm hired informing them of working conditions. thank you for sharing your story. you did this in the wake of four

fellow employees fired in november claiming partly over unionizing activities. did you expect the company to react the way they did to you? >> i didn't expect to be fired, no. i expected this cl, this change to start a conversation and i'm saturdayened to see the response. >> absolutely. >> let's give them a chance to respond. google's spokesperson released an email on the subject claiming you created a pop-up without authorization from your team. here's what it says. to be clear, the issue was not that the messaging had to do with the national labor relations board notice or workers rights. the decision would have been the same had the pop-up message been on any other subject. what's your response to that? >> it's blatantly untrue. changes like this happen all the time including last year during the women's walkout. one of the other teams changed the wallpaper backgrounds across google to a penguin holding a protest sign for the women's

walkout. to my knowledge, that group was never punished. i went through the standard proper approval process for my change and got all the review i needed. >> brought it up pi your team loader and got full permission to do this? >> a non-standard way of getting review. my team posted publicly i got all the review i needed. that's about it. >> also you say you were interrogated for hours by google without access to a lawyer or representative. is that part of your complaint to the national labor relations board? >> a part of my complaint, yes. the night i made this change was supposed to go on a date and wouldn't let me call and reschedule the date. >> well, that's just -- worse than anything. listen, you worked at google two years. talk about the shift in the relationship between workers and management in that time? i think that's part of what this is about. that, you know, it started out the message was do no evil, and google has become a lot more corporate and similar to the way

other companies are run. >> yes. i can't speak to how everyone else at google is feeling however my experience over the last two years has been them ratcheting up secrecy and limiting employees' visibility into the company. deeply concerns more me as a security engineer, because i believe this makes google less trustworthy and less secure. given they have action to billions of users data, it should be concerning for everyone. >> what is your goal here? would you want your job back at google? >> that is something i'm hoping for, yes. i believe i can still do good work to protect google's year yoos. more long-term i want to see a google we can trust. >> interesting topic. we'd like to hear more. kathryn spiers appreciate you sharing your story. >> thank you for giving me the time. coming up, why donald trump hear appears to be on his way to surviving an impeachment battle

while one took down richard nixon. key differences between these two republican presidents. we'll break it down. burger... i want a sugar cookie... wait... i want a bucket of chicken... i want... ♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft. for the win win. ♪ work so hard ♪ give it everything you got ♪ strength of a lioness ♪ tough as a knot ♪ rocking the stage ♪ and we never gonna stop ♪ all strength, no sweat. ♪ just in case you forgot ♪ all strength. ♪ no sweat secret. all strength. no sweat. cologuard: colon cancer and older at average risk. i've heard a lot of excuses to avoid screening for colon cancer. i'm not worried. it doesn't run in my family.

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ever since the specter of impeachment faced the trump presidency a lot of people have drawn comparisons to richard nixon including president trump himself. >> impeachment light, it's impeachment light. that's why you know with richard nixon, i just see it as a dark era. very dark. you know? you don't even like to think. i'm having a good time. >> regardless of where you stand on the issue, there are clear differences when it comes to the two impeachment battles. and as the new york times put it in a recent piece, the different between the two embattled presidents isn't necessarily measured best by the severity of the accusations or the solidity of the against them. instead factors unrelated to the facts are shielding mr. trump to a degree nixon would have envied. with me is someone a former

water gate prosecutor nick ackerman. we're happy to have you. this is an interesting discussion. we have to talk about the biggest difference is, of course, the lack of special prosecutor. president trump has bill barr which is extremely different. >> right. arch bald cox was the water gate special prosecutor was independa independant. we didn't have indictments approved by the department of justice. we didn't have a bill barr making a spin. we had total independence and we put together the entire case along with the senate select committee that ultimately went to the judiciary committee for impeachment. by the time they got it, there wasn't a question about someone like the people in the white house who were directed not to testify. i mean all the testimony was taken. in fact, what happened during the nixon era was most of the nixon people went into the grand jury, before the senate committee and lied.

and they wound up getting convicted and going to jail for lying. so here instead we've got a directive by trump, telling people that they could not go in and testify. so the question is, will these people be called before the senate now? i mean, for the house to have waited for time to go by to get subpoenas, to go through the appellate process, to go to the supreme court, i mean, we'd be well into the election. and it just wouldn't have made any sense. we didn't have that problem in water gate. because all the testimony was taken at that point. >> and while we're making comparisons they had clinton's testimony before they went to impeachment. >> that's right. that's key. if you have a real trial and a real trial means calling witnesses, the first witness i would call if i were the prosecutor would be donald j. trump. i'd put him on the stand. >> good luck. >> if he thinks the call is perfect, let mem explain it and

let him be cross kpcexamine on that part and on the history leading up to the phone call and how it was he cut off the aid to ukraine in the middle of a -- a fighting war with the russians with people getting killed on a daily basis, and yet, he's holding it back to shake them down to achieve his own political end of getting an investigation announced against his prime opponent, joe biden. so he'd be the key witness. what we're talking about now is having a real trial. the constitution provides that the house in a sense is the prosecutor who puts together the indictment. once you get an indictment, then you get a trial and a fair trial means being able to call witnesses on behalf of the prosecution. >> so what do you make of it when mitch mb come says himself he's not going to be an impartial juror. >> that may be one thing to not be an impartial juror.

it's different to be in a position to say there's no trial. what he's basically saying to the american people is we are going to rubber stamp what donald trump did. we don't care if he was doing what vladimir putin wanted him to do with respect to cutting off aid to ukraine. we don't care if he's going to parrot the russian position. we're just going to keep him in office. he's basically violating the u.s. constitution that provides for a real trial. i said a real trial means witnesses. >> walk us through how the possibility could even happen. >> one possibility is you need 51 senators in order to form the rules that governor this trial. so one avenue might be for the prosecution in this case, the house manager to ask john roberts who will be the presiding judge, he's the jeff jui justice to issue a subpoena and a bench warrant to get john bolton up to here the testify. if john roberts agrees with that, then it takes 51 senators

to overturn that. so the question is will you really get 51 senators in this particular senate who are willing to go along and tell the american people you're not going to hear the facts and we're not going to let you hear the facts? that's hard position to be in. >> especially in the face of history and voters. >> i have to ask you. the elephant in the room, the change between nixon and now, the biggest one is the media landscape. us. i mean, there's so much misinformation out there. there's so much information out there. none of this could have happened in that time. >> no. it was completely different. we had three major networks. most everybody watched walter cronkite. the most believable, trusted man in america. everyone agreed on the facts. there was nobody out there like fox news making things up. there weren't these alternate facts coming out of the white house with kellyanne conway, you know, spouting basically lies and all these other --

>> you said it. i didn't. >> well, i said it. they're basically making things up, and you didn't have that back then. i mean, rch everyone agreed on the same set of facts. you didn't have the internet or social media. you didn't have a proliferation of different sources for people's news including facebook. so it was a completely different landscape. but, again, you had people in the senate back then that had some moral imperatives. people that were willing to go to president nixon and say the jig is up, it's time to leave. you lied to us. i don't think you've got anybody in the senate that is willing to do that or has the moral background to do that. >> there could be some surprising and moral imperatives coming out. we really appreciate your expertise and your viewpoint, because i mean, i couldn't think of anyone that would be better to talk to about this. thank you to former water gate prosecutor nick ackerman. >> thank you. that about wraps up this hour of msnbc live.

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good evening. and welcome to "politics nation". tonight's lead, the standoff continues. on this eve of christmas week, the battle over the impeachment trial ispi