we'll close with the picture of our tree. that's the monday evening broadcast. thank you so much for being with us and good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. rachel's got the night off. hopefully you had the day off or at least you're getting time off this holiday season. hopefully you do have a little time off. if you do, you can leave work behind, just think about it and really relax. it's the worst when you're trying to escape work but it won't leave you alone. for instance, take president richard nixon. in the summer of 1964 it was the mid-july, middle of summer, kind of a rough time for him. the house judiciary committee was holding impeachment hearings. it was widely expected that the committee would improve articles of impeachment and send them to the full house. and by the end of that month, they would do just that.

the white house was anxiously awaiting the ruling from the supreme court of whether it would have to hand over tapes of richard nixon's secretly recorded conversations. that order would also come down by the end of that month, the end of july. for all those reasons in mid-july 1974 richard nixon was less than a month away from resigning the presidency. though of course no one at the time knew that. even though all this was going on or more likely because all of this was going on, president nixon went on vacation. he boarded his specially branded air force one, the spirit of '76 and headed for california, time to leave the swamps of washington and take a little break. but sometimes you just can't escape the office because more bad news from washington overtook nixon before he even made it to the west coast. >> good evening.

john lickman has been found guilty of three counts of perjury and one count of conspiracy in the oldsberg break-in case. formally his domestic adviser was returned by a jury in washington this evening after only a few hours of deliberation. he could receive up to 25 years in prison. president nixon was aboard the spirit of 76 en route to a california vacation at the time the verdict was returned. the verdict was sent to the presidential plane. >> the president decides he's going to get away a bit. he's barely cleared washington air space and they're calling over the radio with news that one of his longtime top advisers, one of his closest aides has been convicted of several felonies and is now facing 25 years in prison.

just for the record, this conviction for john ehrlichman in july of 1974, that was just his conviction on one offshoot of the watergate scandal. ehrlichman and several other aides were still awaiting trial and conviction on their indictments for conspiring in the broader coverup. now, luckily for john ehrlichman, in the end he got to serve his prison time concurrently for his two separate convictions, but on that day in july 1974, richard nixon may have needed a vacation, but he was doing his best to put a brave face on. he was doing his best to look like a president who was not engulfed in scandal and looming impeachment. in fact, just before he jetted off on his vacation he gathered members of congress in the oval office and signed a major piece of legislation that would fundamentally change the way that washington spent money. >> at the white house today president nixon signed a new budget bill into law. the president described the new

law as a major weapon in the fight against inflation, the most significant reform on budget procedure since the congress began. the bill gives congress much more authority over the national budget than it ever has had before. the president, for example, no longer will be able to impound appropriated money without the approval of congress. the president saw the measure of a means that the president and the congress can work together to keep the federal budget down. >> president nixon was trying to put on a brave face and also doing his best to put the most positive spin on this piece of legislation. this is a great bill that will do great things, and i am so excited to sign it. in fact, the bill that nixon signed that day had been specifically designed by congress as a rebuke to richard nixon. nixon had a habit during his time in office of taking money that congress had appropriated for certain purposes and refusing to actually spend it,

or deciding to spend it on something else. something that richard nixon would rather spend it on. and it was one thing for president nixon to do that when he was at the peak of his popularity, when he was coasting to re-election in one of the most lopsided electoral colleges margins in american history. but in his second term with the president dogged by scandal, staring down impeachment, congress saw its moment to take more control. yes, the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1974 may have, as richard nixon insisted been a weapon against inflation and an opportunity for, quote, congress and the president to work together to keep the federal budget down, end quote. but he almost certainly would have vetoed that legislation if he had had any mojo left at that point because, well, what was it? >> the bill gives congress much more authority over the national budget than it ever has had

before. the president, for example, no longer will be able to impound appropriated money without the approval of congress. >> the president no longer able to impound money. if congress designated money for a certain purpose, the president cannot do whatever he wants with it. since 1974, that has been the law of the land and because history has a sense of humor, that law, a law president nixon agreed to, only under duress as congress prepared to impeach him a law he signed less than one month before he would be forced to resign in disgrace. that law, that law is now playing a starring role in the impeachment of the current republican president 45 years later. of course this president has already been impeached, but a remarkable thing in this case is that since his impeachment less than a week ago we have continued getting new evidence, new evidence.

we have never seen before that pertains directly to the case against the president. late on friday, the friday before christmas, the justice department produced nearly 150 pages of e malls between the white house and the ent gone regarding u.s. military aid to ukraine. the trump administration had been court ordered to hand the emails over to the center for public integrity, a nonprofit news organization, under a freedom of information act request. although the justice department heavily redacted the emails it handed over, the documents still managed to contain a few tiny bombshells. for instance, here's an email from the white house budget office to the pentagon ordering them to suspend military aid to ukraine. it was sent at 11:04 a.m. on july 25th. that email was sent just 90 minutes after president trump finished his infamous phone call

with ukraine's president that morning. the phone call in which ukraine's president brought up military aid and trump said, quote, i would like you to do us a favor, though. announcing investigations that would politically inbenefit trump, including one into joe biden. so trump and the ukrainian president have their phone call in which trump appears to condition military aid on a political favor. 90 minutes later, a trump political appointee at the white house budget office emails the pentagon ordering them to withhold military aid, and that email, that white house budget official writes, quote, given the sensitive nature of the request, i appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute the direction, end quote. here is where richard nixon and his reluctantly signed impoundment control act come in.

because as we said, the white house is not allowed to impound money. they cannot stop or redirect money appropriated by congress and they definitely can't do it without notifying congress. and these emails pried loose by the center for public integrity added to the congressional testimony we already have from budget and pentagon officials show that career officials across the government were freaking out that they might be breaking the law. the political appointee in the white house budget office who sent that email to the pentagon 90 minutes after trump's phone call, his name is michael duffey. he previously ran the wisconsin republican party. he's a political appointee. mark sandy, the top career official at the white house budget office, told lawmakers in closed-door testimony last month that as soon as duffey ordered him to formally delay the ukraine aid, sandy immediately brought up the impoundment control act of 1974.

sandy told his boss basically we need to talk to the lawyers. but in an unprecedented move, the political appointee, duffey, took control of the process away from sandy, the career official. both mark sandy and a pentagon official involved in discussions at the time testified to congress that they repeatedly expressed their legal concerns to duffey and urged him to talk to the general counsel, the lawyer, because they thought they were breaking the law. mark sandy also testified the two budget officials quit their jobs over their concerns about the legality of what they were doing, specifically over potential violations of the impoundment control act. now, your level of excitement about the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1974 may vary. it is a decidely unsexy title. but what's astounding here is, a, this new evidence corroborates the evidence that trump officials knew they were doing something wrong and quite

possibly something illegal, and they were trying to keep this scheme quiet while ignoring warnings from career officials across the government. and b, we are continuing to get new evidence. michael duffey is already one of the four administration officials who senate leader chuck schumer has proposed as a witnesses in a senate impeachment trial. today schumer said these newly released emails show the senate needs documents as well. >> in the email, the top trump administration official, michael duffey, ordered the military assistance to ukraine be withheld, and he demanded the order be kept hush-hush. why? if everything was on the up and up? if the call was perfect as president trump said, why does one of his top aides, who's a political appointee say let's keep it hush-hush? the new emails from mr. duffey and the trump administration show why it's so important for

the white house to produce the documents we have requested. >> these new emails we're looking at, we got them late friday thank to a court order and two days after the president was impeached by the house. so what else is out there that we haven't seen yet? joining us now, joyce vance, former u.s. attorney who has been following the story. joyce, thank you so much for being with us tonight. boy, there's a lot of news for this week. let's first of all start with what you make of the fact that we've gotten this new evidence, these emails so late in the game, and we got them through a freedom of information request. >> right. i think that context is incredibly important because this isn't information that the government produced. trump has famously said he won't respond to any subpoenas. he might as well be advertising on a banner that he's engaging in obstruction of congress. these documents came pursuant to a freedom of information act request by a small non-profit news room. the government turned them over

on the very last day they were permitted to under the court order, sort of in the dark night on the friday before christmas. so this was not information the government wanted to turn over, and it's aggressively redacted. it makes you think of the mueller report as you look through it with these large blocks of black. there is a lot more here that we don't know yet. >> yet there were key pieces of information that are quite valuable, including this email from duffey to the defense department. we had heard anecdotely about this from mark sandy. obviously impeachment is not a traditional legal proceeding, but you have had 25 years as a prosecutor. what would you do? how do you handle this if new evidence comes to light in the midst of a case or a trial? >> well, you need to hear the evidence. this just isn't a matter of politics. this is a matter of the search for the truth, which is what a process like a criminal trial or impeachment is about.

we need to know what's going on. so this witness in this scenario may be good for the president, it may be bad for the president. omb has already come forward and say that is this is nonsense, that the timing here is just coincidence. let the witnesses testify. let them tell their stories. let them be cross-examined. and let the american people hear the truth. >> we also got a court filing today from the house judiciary committee in its ongoing effort to compel the testimony of the former white house counsel don mcgahn. the house says the fact that they already have impeached the president doesn't reduce their need or lessen their need for mcgahn's testimony because if mcgahn's testimony produces new evidence supporting the conclusion that president trump competed impeachable offenses that are not covered by the articles approved by the house, the committee will proceed accordingly including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment. that's quite remarkable. can you parse that argument

that's unfolding here for us? >> sure. you know, this is a longtime civil lawyer, civil appellate lawyer, who's gone over and is serving as counsel in the house. and he's making the point here that this is not a game. there's not some kind of an artificial deadline cutoff. just because you decide you have enough evidence to move forward with one proceeding doesn't mean that there might be other as a prosecutor crimes in the case of impeachment, other articles of impeachment that you can add to an existing article of impeachment, or perhaps bring a second one. we can already hear in response to this trump's people talking about the endless witch hunt. but that's not what this is. this is a president who's gone out of his way to obstruct justice, to make it hard for congress and for prosecutors to find evidence. no big surprise that it's coming out in drips, that it sometimes comes out only when a court

forces the president to release it. it may be that when don mcgahn testifies, much of the information in the obstruction of justice volume in the mueller report will be freshened up to the point where congress will see there's a second article of impeachment that needs to be brought against the president. >> if i don't see you again before christmas, please have a merry christmas. joyce vance is a former u.s. attorney. thank you for your time. happy holidays to you. the fact that we have new evidence in the ukraine scandal, these heavily redacted emails between the white house and the pentagon about withholding military aid, and we have gotten it after the president has already been impeached, the drama of that is only heightened by what is playing out in the background. the articles of impeachment approved by the house haven't been sent to the senate. today was another day of attacks and recriminations on all sides as house speaker nancy pelosi continued to insist that she would hold on to those articles

until the senate announces what kind of trial it has planned. senate republican leader mitch mcconnell called her position absurd, and the president weighed in with a crazy nancy tweet. but given that the impeachment articles do not appear to be leaving the house anytime soon and given that yet more evidence may come out in the weeks ahead, the standoff feels very unpredictable. what should we expect? joining us is congressman raja krishnamoorthi, democrat of illinois and a member of the house intelligence and oversight committees. congressman, good to see you. thank you for being with us tonight. >> same here, ali, thank you. >> congressman, i want to get your response initially to these emails that were released late friday night as a result of a freedom of information request by the center for public integrity that underscore and reiterate mark sandy's testimony in the impeachment hearings. how big a deal are these emails? what do you think they tell us? >> i think they're significant. and here's why. all of us who are part of the depositions, who were part of

the public hearings in the impeachment inquiry were of the understanding that on july 18th a full week before a hold had been placed on military aid and had been communicated to all of the heads of the departments at issue, state department, defense department, et cetera. and so then for us to see this email in which mr. duffey is basically putting almost like a re-hold on this military aid really begs the question why. was the initial hold merely contingent, perhaps, on the phone call and what transpired during that phone call? then after that phone call, did president trump ask mick mulvaney and mr. duffey to put a hold on this again because he didn't hear what he wanted to hear on that phone call? those are the types of questions that come out of this email disclosure, and that's why i

think we need more documents, especially from the office of management and budget and mick mulvaney. that's why we need witnesses. >> mick mulvaney was a member of congress who i would imagine took the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1974 very seriously. even if you don't know about that act, you know about article i of the constitution. you know the only thing that you members of congress are compelled to do is appropriations. when congress appropriates money, it is not legal for the executive to do something else with that money. >> correct. >> kind of interesting that the office of management and budget and mick mulvaney are in the middle of something that mick mulvaney would never have stood for as a member of congress, the idea that the president, the executive branch can get involved in holding back money approved by congress not withstanding the fact that this was approved for the military aid of an ally who is in a hot war with russia. >> that's right. i think you might have mentioned

this before but the career public servants throughout the state department and the office of budget were freaked out by what was going on. they were looking at each other like is this legal? can you even not spend this money once it's been appropriated? and the testimony from the depositions and even the open hearings corroborated that. so, i do think that these folks knew at the highest levels that what they were doing was not only wrong but probably illegal. and that's why they wanted to keep things hush-hush, you know, keep this quote/unquote closely held which is just a fancy term for don't tell anybody about it. >> talk to me about what you are saying to your constituents who are asking what the strategy is that nancy pelosi is employing is not sending the articles of impeachment to the senate. what we're hearing from some republicans is that must mean the president is not really impeached. >> well, i don't think anybody

in america really believes that the president hasn't been impeached. if they want to hang their hat on that technical argument, they're welcome to do so. but that's not what people are saying out in my district or in others. i think the real issue here is are we going to have a fair trial or not, and i think it's understandable for the speaker to hold these papers or articles for a few days, figure out is there going to be a fair trial, what are the rules, how is it going to be devised and how do we proceed after that. >> congressman, good to see you. congressman raja krishnamoorthi, a democrat of illinois. thank you for your time tonight and happy holidays to you. >> hey, happy holidays. >> thank you, sir. coming up, the standoff on the impeachment trial in the senate could depend on a handful of persuadable republicans. we'll have more on that next.

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the last time this happened, it started like this. >> will all senators now stand and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear in all things pertaining to the trial of william jefferson clinton, president of the united states now pending, you will do impartial justice according to

the constitution and laws so help you god? the clerk will call the names and record the responses. >> that was the opening of the senate trial in the impeachment of president clinton. the constitution says the supreme court chief justice presides over an impeachment, so we will see this part again, only with the current chief justice, john roberts. so in terms of procedure, certain things about the senate trial for president trump will stay the same. but in terms of bipartisanship, just look back at this moment from the clinton impeachment. here are senate minority leader tom daschle and senate majority leader trent lott emerging from a meeting to negotiate some of the rules for the clinton impeachment. they actually look like they're getting along. the deal they worked on would later pass in the senate by a unanimous vote. fast forward 20 years. here we are with the articles of impeachment that are being held in the house while democrats wait to see how senate republicans intend to run the trial. house speaker nancy pelosi saying today, quote, the house

cannot choose our impeachment managers until we know what sort of trial the senate will conduct. the impeachment managers act as prosecutors during the trial that takes place in the senate. meanwhile in the senate, democratic leader chuck schumer is pushing for witnesses, specifically schumer wants to hear from four administration officials who were blocked by the white house from testifying in the house. the list includes the acting white house chief of staff, mick mulvaney, and the former national security adviser john bolton. majority leader mitch mcconnell sounded reluctant last week about calling witnesses. today he sounded a note that was closer to maybe. it could be that public pressure from senate democrats would be enough for them to get some of what they want in an impeachment trial, but with republicans having a narrow majority, democrats could conceivably get support for rules that they like by persuading a handful of republican senators to go along.

the names most commonly on that list include senators like mitt romney of utah, he sioux murkowski of alaska, and susan collins of maine. if they could get those people together, they could get the rules they needed. joins us is former north dakota senator byron dorgan. senator dorgan, good to have you with us. >> thank you, ali. >> do you think those senators i just named, three republican senators, could be persuaded to push for witnesses and convince mitch mcconnell to allow that? nobody's asking them to vote for the impeachment of donald trump. this is just about how that trial would go. >> well, i hope that they would consider that. i think mitch mcconnell believes that he has his entire caucus with him, and yet i cannot believe that that entire republican caucus in the senate doesn't take a look at what this president did with respect to the ukraine call and other

things and say this is just wrong, just wrong. my hope is as they set this trial up, they'll find ways to insist that the cover up on data and also witnesses, that that cover up cannot continue. you have to have testimony that describes exactly what this administration did. if i may make one other comment, the chief justice of the supreme court plays a very limited role here. there's not much of a role for the chief justice of the supreme court. he's there, and he reads the questions that senators send to the house managers or the president's counsel. but the fact is the party that controls their caucus in the senate -- in this case, it's mitch mcconnell -- will have significant sway if he can keep all his people. as you know, mitch is a pretty ruthless guy. look what he did to merrick garland. so he's going to try everything he can to prevent erosions from his caucus. >> here's a question. nothing is a foregone conclusion

but the bar in removing the president is very, very high. it's 2/3 of the senate. >> right. >> so at this point, why does mitch mcconnell go on fox news? why does he come out and say i'm aligned with the white house, i'm working lock step with the white house, i don't need to hear witnesses and i don't need to see testimony? the appearance of a fair trial in america, in democracy, is as important as a fair trial. >> yeah, i don't understand what he's doing, and i don't understand why he would have said i'm willing to take a oath and the oath requires impartiality, but i'm telling you i'm not impartial. what does that mean? the american people have to look at that and say wait a second. this cannot be a fair trial if the leader that controls the senate has already described himself as not being impartial. >> are we just in a different time than we were during the clinton impeachment? is it possible -- i mean, why is it so difficult for agreement on rules? we're just not talking about the

impeachment of the president here. we're talking about the rules under which the trial is going to be conducts. could you see what's happening today in your day when you were dealing with the clinton impeachment? >> the rancid angry politics is vastly different. doesn't mean there wasn't some of it then, vastly different than it was 20 years ago. and i remember going -- 100 of us went into the old senate chamber and just had a discussion, a private discussion. no one else was allowed in. how should we hold this trial because we didn't have much of a template on how you hold an impeachment trial. i remember at one point ted kennedy stood up and then phil graham from texas, vastly different people in term of how they think about things, stood up and the two of them kind of realized they were kind of saying the same thing and all of a sudden somebody said let's write this down and that is how we would begin to proceed with respect to the trial. but i don't think that would happen today so easily. it's a very different time. >> what different times we live

in, senator. good to see you. thank you for joining me on this holiday. byron dorgan is a former north dakota senator. he's the ayou thoracic of a new book called "the girl in the photograph photograph: the true story of a native american child lost and found in america." stay with us. n america. stay with us (air pump motors) (lamp crashes) ♪music it's the final days of the 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. here's another cleaning tip from mr. clean. cleaning tough bathroom and kitchen messes with sprays and wipes can be a struggle. there's an easier way. try mr. clean magic eraser. just wet, squeeze and erase tough messes

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for more than 100 years, russians have been trying to build a bridge over this 12-mile

stretch of water between mainland russia and the crimean peninsula. it's known as the kerch strait. you can see why russia would want to build a bridge there, right? not only does it give you easy access to the crimean peninsula, it also gives you huge leverage in terms of controlling everything that comes and goes into the sea of azov. by being the sole proprietor of that bridge, you become the gate agent to that entire body of water and all the ports that are inside of it. so it's no wonder at all that russia has wanted to build a bridge there for a very long time. it's not been easy. it's comically difficult. for one thing, there's a tectonic plate right under the strait meaning it's vulnerable to earthquakes. there's also dozens of mud volcanoes on the sea floor. while you think this screen is one way, it's not. i can see you, i can read your lips saying -- what's a mud

volcano? mud volcanoes are exactly what they sound like, volcanoes that spew mud. and there's more. in the winter the strait is inundated with big ice floes, one giant sheet of sea ice actually took out a temporary bridge in the 1940s. mother nature has been a bear in terms of getting this project down, but over the past few decades, there's also been the tiny matter that crimea isn't actually part of russia. it's part of ukraine. small matter, though. in march of 2014, putin solved that part of the equation. he had russia invade ukraine, and the day after he invaded ukraine, the very next day, in fact, he announced he was going to build a bridge over the kerch strait. now, russia has accomplished that mission. today the bridge opened to rail traffic with president putin sitting up front in the first trail car. the bridge is now complete, having also opened to vehicles last year. already ukraine is feeling the effects. ukraine is complaining that its

larger ships are unable to get under the bridge's rather short arches, meaning it can't get certain goods in and out of strategic ukrainian ports. and that's having a hugely damaging effect on the country both strategically and economically. one of it's biggest port cities is now effectively handicapped. on top of all that, the crimean peninsula slipped even further under putin's grip. as the impeachment battle plays out, it's an important reminder as to just how much is at stake for the key u.s. ally caught in the middle of everything. of ev. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier. hey! my focus is on the road, and that's saving me cash with drivewise. who's the dummy now? whoof! whoof! so get allstate where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me.

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they called it the national ballot security task force. the national republican party created it in 1981 for the governor's race in new jersey. and it turned out to be trouble. >> several of these signs were reported at polling places in newark's north ward. republican poll watchers, some of them off duty policemen

wearing guns and arm bands were also part of the polls. all part of the national ballot security task force set up by the republican national and state committees to guard against vote fraud. but democrats charge it was a scare campaign to intimidate voters, primarily in minority neighborhoods. >> the republican candidate for governor won that year's election by less than 0.1% of the vote, but the republican party soon found itself in federal court over its poll-watching operation. by 1982, the republican party entered a legal agreement that barred it from engaging in any kind of ballot security activity for the next 35 years. however, that agreement expired in late 2017, and a federal court chose not to renew it. and that opened the way for this startling headline. trump adviser, expect more aggressive poll watching in 2020. the republican party has a plan for getting back into the

business of poll monitoring. citing a senior trump campaign adviser, the a.p. reports, quote, the new rules will allow the rnc to use its multimillion-dollar budget to handle those tasks and coordinate with other republican groups on election day. this news comes on the heels of new reports across the country of republican-backed efforts to purge voter rolls ahead of the 2020 presidential election. last week in wisconsin a county judge sided with a conservative legal group in a lawsuit that will remove more than 200,000 voters from that state's voter rolls. the same week in georgia the state's republican secretary of state purged more than 300,000 voters from that state's voter rolls. democrats for their part are doing everything they can to push back against these republican efforts. in wisconsin the state democratic party plans to use the open records law to find the names of everyone who's been purged and then work to

re-enroll likely democratic voters. wisconsin democratic chairman ben wikler tells nbc news, quote, this is an organizing challenge, not a crisis. the purging of voters, quote, just adds to our to do list. it's a reason to work, not to freak out. joining us now is ben wikler, chair of the wisconsin democratic party. ben, thank you for being with us. >> thank you so much for having me ali. >> let me ask you about that quote. you call this an organizing challenge as opposed to a crisis. that's a different way than a number of democrats with whom we've spoken characterize this. do you think this is a better way for democrats everywhere to look at these kinds of efforts, these voter purges and these other things that suppress the vote? >> there's no question we're in a crisis for democracy. the question is what do we do about it? as democrats i think often we have this tendency to oscillate between abject despair and

euphoria. the right place is to be on the hardworking edge of anxiety where you take what's good in the world and turn it into energy to win the election. if we get the list of purged voters and reach out to folks, we text them, we call them, we make sure they know exactly what they need to bring to the polls. in wisconsin we have same-day voter registration. we can get them back on the rolls and get them voting again in the spring of 2020 and in the fall of 2020. that's what trump doesn't want us to do. part of how voter suppression works is you intimidate people into not even trying to vote. >> right. >> so, our message is no matter what the republicans do, show up. come to the polls, bring all your documents, be prepared to wait in long however long it takes. we will there to support you and help you and make sure there's plenty of pizza on hand and get your vote counted. >> i know you're not a psychologist, but does that carry the same weight as the photos, the images i showed my viewers from 1981, the idea of people in an intimidating stance, the threats, the idea that you're not going to be able to register? in other words, does the

positive message that you'll send somebody perhaps on their phone, does that outweigh the efforts to intimidate people into not voting? >> all the research about fear is that the opposite of fear, the way you drive out fear is affirmation about your power and earning a about what the other side is trying to do to you. those are positive emotions. hope and righteous anger fuel the energy that we need. and so that's where my head is. i hope that's where other folks are. when you see republicans pulling these shenanigans, purging voters, saying they're going to ramp up these voter suppression activities, turn that into organizing energy. that's what we're doing on wisconsin. we knocked on 54,000 doors in one weekend this past november. that's more than all of 2015 and all of 2017 combined. so i think folks are getting that message. and the key thing is to keep fueling that all the way through election day next year. i think if you let republicans convince you that they're going

to steal the election, then they will have stolen the election. the way that we win is by remembering that we still have the power to win. we threw out scott walker in wisconsin last year despite a ton of different attacks on voting, including harsh voter i.d. laws, and we can do it again with donald trump in 2020. >> with all the talk of suppression, with all the voter id laws, with all of the purging of voters, does it make your job when you go to somebody to register them or encourage them to vote, easier or harder? does it mean you have less explaining to do with the fact that your democratic right to vote is being meddled with by people? >> the fundamental thing, the idea that americans of all races have fought and died for for generations is the idea that it should be one person one vote, that everyone person should count in a democracy. when someone attacks that, whether it's russians or the trump campaign or the two of them working in tandem, that pisses people off.

that is a turnout force for us and we want folks to know that their right to vote is under attack because their right is so powerful. any voter in this election has more power to shape human history than almost anyone ever has or ever will, especially in a place like wisconsin. a handful of voters could make the difference for every human who will ever live again. that's a huge amount of power. that's why republicans are targeting so intensely. the thing we have to do is remember that we have that power and to turn that into the kind of organization, the kind of energy, the kind of turnout that the country has never seen. >> that sent chills down by spine. any voter has the power to shape human history. you're exactly right. you're 100% right. we're seeing people in the world today taking up arms for that right. we have it. and you're just telling people they need to use it. ben, thank you for joining me. thank you for your efforts. >> thank you so much. ben wikler. more news ahead, stay with us. r,

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involving a double agent and fake classified documents. the state department said the two men had engaged in, quote, activities incompatible with their diplomatic status. in other words, espionage. that was 32 years ago, chinese

diplomats suspected of spying and expelled. nothing like that has happened since until this past september when the american government secretly expelled two chinese embassy officials after they drove on to a sensitive military base in virginia, not just any military base, one that is home to u.s. special ops forces. the diplomats, including one man suspected of being a chinese intelligence officer, evaded personnel in pursuit. after fire trucks physically blocked their car. the episode raised concerns that china is expanding its spying efforts in the u.s. and that chinese diplomats, quote, have become bolder about showing up unannounced at research or government facilities. now, that can't help but ring a bell with recent events at the president's home in florida. in march when a chinese national showed up at mar-a-lago and talked her way in by saying she wanted to use the pool. she just happened to be carrying

four cell phones, two passports, and a thumb drive infected with malware and a faraday bag. she also had nine flash drives, five sim cards, a device to detect hidden cameras and 8 grand in cash in her hotel room. she was convicted of trespassing. just the other day it happened again. another chinese national showing up at mar-a-lago under suspicious circumstances. she too was arrested at mar-a-lago for trespassing after being turned away by security. the woman snuck through a service entrance and started taking pictures. she eventually fled on foot. when police apprehended her, she refused to hand over those pictures. we should say neither of these two dhie neez nationals have been charged with espionage. but we should note the president is spending the next two weeks at mar-a-lago surrounded by -- how would you describe it -- a

who's who of impeachment scandal, rudy giuliani, pat cipollone. more members of the team are expected at mar-a-lago in the coming days to keep the president up to date on the potential senate impeachment trial. with one caveat. at mar-a-lago, aides say, quote, there is less control over who gets face time with the president and who might be able to whisper an idea in his ear. so, who knows who will be whispering in trump's ear this christmas. the usual suspects, all president's men, or just an enterprising someone taking their chances at mar-a-lago? [sneeze and sniffles] are you ok? yah, it's just a cold. it's not just a cold if you have high blood pressure. most cold medicines may raise blood pressure. coricidin hbp is the... ...#1 brand that gives... powerful cold relief without raising your blood pressure.

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florida south coast. during the great depression, the property was turned into a trailer park. about ten years ago a real estate developer swooped in and dazzled the residents who reportedly call themselves briannys with big money. he offered to buy the whole town. they agreed to sell. the deal eventually fell through. enter, i kid you not, vanilla ice. brianny breeze is about 12 miles down the beach from mar-a-lago. trump changed his residence from new york, new york to florida this fall. that gave a real estate developer an idea. he thinks trump should buy briny breezes and turn it into his presidential library. james arena, an avid trump supporter says he thinks he can

convince the president to buy the land and turn it into a personal monument. arena says he has the ball rolling by reaching out to his friend, rapper and palm beach county resident vanilla ice who is close to the trump family. quote, vanilla ice ran it by don jr. he called me back and said man, i think they're really into it. but brinys should not get too excited. "the daily beast" reached out to don jr. and kwot a denial, quote don hasn't spoken to anyone about a presidential library and has never even met vanilla ice. that's ice, ice cold, baby. mr. ice has tweet aid denial. i don't know donald trump, jr. i don't understand why they said that. but if they want me to build a library in palm beach on the ocean, i'm in. then he took the opportunity to append the following hash tag. vanilla ice project.

never let publicity go to waste. no one appears to have demanded a correction from the post and this is trump and this is vanilla ice and this is florida, so who with amon mohyeldin filling in for lawrence. good evening. >> i was going to say ice is back with a brand new invention. >> take it away, friend. that was good. >> we have a lot to get to. today a new editorial hits, saying senate majority mitch mcconnell -- senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is a clear and present danger to the u.s. constitution. we're going to talk about that. and as the impeachment stalemate continues, is there a chance moderate republicans will buck their leader and president trump in support of impeachment witnesses in the senate? also ahead, the show trial in saudi arabia for the murder of u.s. journalist, u.s.-based journalist jamal khashoggi. u.s. intelligence says the crown prince ordered the assassination. but today anyone close tth