coverage and analysis. please join us for that. in the meantime, thank you for being with us tonight. good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. this morning, the house democraticor caucus will hold a highly anticipated meeting about the next steps in the impeachment process. this as senate leaders on both sides of the aisle strategize ahead of the upcoming trial. plus, a private security firm says burisma, the company ats the center of the speemt scandal was the victim of a phishing attack by russian spies. the feud between -- the feud between elizabeth warren

and bernie sanders. good morning, everybody. a lot to get to today, it is tuesday, january 14th. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. we begin with speaker nan pelosi and house democrats, at this morning's meeting, the caucus is expected to discuss the timing for a vote on impeachment managers andte transmitting the articles to themi senate. when askedo by nbc news last night when a vote on impeachment managers would actually take place, pelosi wouldn't say, but congresswoman debby dingell said to expect a vote tomorrow or thursday t.te steny hoyer said democrats could name their impeachment managers tomorrow but pointed out the senate would have practical problems if the house moved sooner, including missing three senators expected to take part in tonight's

debate. >> a vote ont' whether to call witnesses in the upcoming impeachment trial. there are at least four republicans to watch during all of this, including lisa murkowski, susan collins, mitt romney of utah and possibly cory gardner of california. rand paul of kentucky is also viewed as a wild card and lamar alexander of tennessee thought of as an institutionalist who may vote to call witnesses as well.es speaking to reporters yesterday, senator romney confirmed that he would vote to hear from witnesses, including former national security adviser, john bolton. >> i support the clinton impeachment model which is vote on witnesses later, but as to which witnesses i would want to hear from and so forth, that's something i'm open to until after the opening arguments. >> including john bolton. >> including john bolton. he's someone i would like to their from, and presumably i get the chance toly vote for that

after the opening arguments. >> 2/3 of americans would like to president trump's former national security adviser john bolton testify.se according to the quinnipiac poll, q 66% said bolton should testify. 17 percent said he should not. broken down by party lines, those who agree include 39% of republicans, 71% of independents and 91% of democrats. just want to make sure i got that right. as president trump tweeted over the weekend that he wants the senate to immediately dismiss the articles of impeachment against him, the clashing senate leadership is framing the debate and efforts to either protect or expose politically vulnerable republicans. top republicans have signalled mitch mcconnell is icunlikely t mandate a vote on a motion to dismiss at any point in the process. >> it's pretty clear to me that this is no longer about convicting and removing donald trump as president. this is about chuck schumer

getting 2020 republican incumbents to tough voting situations, so i think recognizing that's his goal, i think it won't surprise you that we're thinking about that too and how to avoid that as much as possible. >> and the number four ranking republican in the senate roy blunt of missouri told reporters yesterday this, i think our membersth generally are not interested in a motion to dismiss. senators lamar alexander of tennessee, and l susan collins maine who are key republicans to watch in this process signalled yesterday they have little appetite to castey a vote that looks like they are otdismissin the charges against the president. >> i would vote against the motion to dismiss. i think we need to hear the case, ask our questions, and then as they did this the clinton impeachment,id we caugh to decide then whether we need

to w hear from additional witnesses or need additional documents. >> so in the clinton -- >> to me a motion to dismiss is not consistent with hearing the case. >> i would anticipate voting against a motion to dismiss as opposed to going through the whole process and then going to file arguments and having a vote on each article of impeachment. >> meanwhile "politico" is reporting that senate minority leader chuck schumer will force a serieser of votes designed to squeeze vulnerable republicans and harmed them on the campaign trail if they side with trump. according to "politico" democrats argue the half dozen at risk gop senators need daylight between them and trump to get reelects and they're going to be seen as trump sick fan -- sycophants. they remain divided on whether the senate should vote

to remove the president from office. in the latest quinnipiac university poll 51% of registered voters say they approve of the vote to impeach trump. 48% said the senate should not vote to removeou the president from t office. 46% said they should vote to remove trump from office and 48% of americans say they disapprove of house speaker nancy pelosi's decision to hold the articles of impeachment. 44% of americans approve of pelosi's adecision. let's get into it, joining us onset, msnbc legal analyst, danny cevallos, and managing editor at the "washington magazine" jay caruso. as we heard from debbie dingell wednesday or thursday, walk us through what to expect this week in regards to transmitting these articles of impeachment to the senate. >> well, i thinkac the big thin that people are going to be looking atgo is who are going t be the house managers, that's

going to be the big decision, who they're going to decide on. nancy pelosi, i think, made a wise decision insi allowing the judiciary committee to conduct the hearings early on as opposed to the intelligence committee. i think that she'snt going to he to choose people that, you know, don't cometo across as very partisan, don't come across as looking to get trump, really projecting the image of wanting to gethe to the truth. that's going to be a critical motion that comes up here in the next couple of days. and nthen of course it will be when is it going to happen, when going to be a trial, and there's going to be issues around whether or not, especially as we go into the iowa caucuses, as senators warren and bernie sanders are going to have to be attending an impeachmentin trial as opposed being on the campaign trail. that's something to look out for as well. >> how likely is it that we see some republican senators vote to dismiss the proceedings before

they even begin. we know it'sth a bit of politic gamble forca folks trying to ge reelected or positioning themselves as somewhat independent from the president. >> it's highly likely there will be a l motion to dismiss. in the clinton impeachment, there were motions to dismiss baked into the rules. they were anticipated and t on e first day after opening arguments, ay motion to dismis was introduced, it was ultimately not successful but what it did was very important. the final vote on that motion to dismiss had 44 senators for dismissal. that's not enough to win, that tells you acquittal is uncertainly. 44 wanted it thrown out, there's 44 for acquittal. you know you're not going to have your 2/3 vote. >> let'se talk about republica we have been speaking about, mitt romney, cory gardener,

murkowski and susan collins, possibly defections, voting to hear from witnesses in the impeachment trial. how could this affect the president? >> i don't know how much it's going toec affect the president politically orid within the impeachmentor trial. the one thing it will probably do is set him off on twitter, and asm we've seen whenever impeachment becomes the big news of the day, he seems to get wound up and he starts tweeting irrationally, and i expect he'll probably do the same thing again. i don't know what kind of impact additional witnesses will have. i mean, and maybe danny will disagree with me or not. i think we already know everything. i'm not sure how much more we're going to h learn with additiona witnesses. look for a wad trial to play ou with some of the information coming s out, and then republics saying i'm not sure we need to see anything else. we have information related to the two articles of impeachment, we could go ahead and have a vote now. >> we're going to hear aan lot about the clinton impeachment because it's the only modern and

i don't want to say precedent because it's notn' binding. we're already seeing senator mcconnell saying that he wants to follownn a lot of the same rules and in the clinton impeachment trial, there was essentially no new evidence heard at the trial that wasn't in the star report. three witnesses, but witnesses with an asterisk, their depositions were taken by video testimony and then they showed clips.he that's not the same as having live witnesses at the trial. the idea on the other hand, though,r when you accuse someo, you're only putting forth the barest amount of evidence to get the indictment. when you get to trial, there's a lot more evidence that comes in. that's a strong argument for allowing additional evidence at a senate cetrial. we didn't do it for the clinton impeachment, so we may not do it this time around. >> you say it's not pres death penalty -- precedent, why is mitch mcconnell using that as the benchmark for what this should look like. whyou is he not compelled to ha

a fair and free trial. >> he's a not compelled to file what the senate did during the impeachment trial. >> he's not saying he's compelled. that's what worked for uss h b then. let's do it this time. doing this phase one benefits republicans so it's really just a persuasive argument. it's not mandatory they follow thean same rules but 100-1 vote the first time around to hear opening arguments and then vote on witnesses later, that benefitsat mcconnell and the republicans because they get the trial started and then deal with witnessesth later on. quickly here, what is the calculation in choosing houseat managers going forward, are they wanting someone who couldng feasibly doggedly go afr the president or someone that could reach across the aisle in their argumentative style. >> make a good legal case. >> they're going to want both. going back to clinton, that's exactly what you had during the clinton impeachment, you had managers that ran the gamut,

lindsey graham who was one of the managers, his style was different than other house managers. you have to put together people that know the facts really well and also can persuade their fellow senator rs. keep in mind, the white house and democrats added a former senator to their team in the clinton impeachment trial.cl they didn't want the senators looking at lawyers they didn't know.ye they wanted to add a friendly face, someone familiar to them. that's a strategye that worked for the democrats in the clinton era. >> i don't feel like the word friendly. >> these day in american politics. >> it's a little bit of a different atmosphere than it was back in 1992. danny cevallos, jay caruso. >> stick around. a report that russian hackers targeted the ukrainian energy company at the heart of the impeachment candidate. president trump and mike bloomberg go head to head in a fight on health care. those stories and a check of weather when we come right back. f weather whene wcome right back.

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welcome back, everyone. according to security experts, russian military hackers successfully targeted burisma, at the center of the controversy surrounded former vice president joe biden's son, the hacker was security firm area one issued a report on how hackers breached one of the servers, with a phishing campaign targeting the e-mail of employees at burisma holdings. the security firm's report says the hacking campaign was launched by quote the main intelligence director of the general staff of the russian army or gru. >> while it was unclear what exactly the russian military hackers found, area one stressed that quote our report is not note worthy because we identified the gru launching a phishing campaign. it is significant because burisma holdings is publicly entangled in u.s. foreign and domestic politics. according to "the new york times" quote the russian tactics

are strikingly similar to what american intelligence agencies say was hacking of e-mails from hillary clinton's campaign chair and the democratic national committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. citing experts the paper framed the cyber attack as a russian attempt to find quote the same kind of information that trump wanted from ukraine, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment. in a response, the biden campaign released a statement saying in part this donald trump tried to coerce ukraine into lying about joe biden. now we know that vladimir putin also sees joe biden as a threat. the russian government and burisma did not respond to the "new york times" for a comment on this story. let's switch gears and bring in janessa webb with a quick check of your weather. hey, how are you? >> good morning, we're dealing with dense fog. if you have been ouldtside. the visibility is low for the northeast and upper midwest. visibility down to a quarter mile, and that's going to continue at least for the next few hours. now, it's all due to that front that continues to push offshore,

and this is steady moisture that we're seeing for the south. it will make its way up to areas of the mid atlantic, new york city by your evening commute. so you're going to need that umbrella handy. it will be light to scattered rainfall throughout tonight. now, accumulation, it's on the light side, a 1/2 inch to an inch of rain across the south and southeast, and what's really sparking up the rain is the warmer temperatures that's really still live for atlanta to charleston. we're still well above normal and that heat is really not going to budge until later this week. now, this is the big talker, this next coast-to-coast system. this will be our next storm in less than seven days. once again, it will impact your weekend from the midwest to the northeast. it will start from the gulf of alaska, make its way into southern california. late wednesday into thursday. the cascades and those higher elevations are really going to see a good dose of snow, and

then by friday to saturday, the set up goes like this, we still have some kind of uncertainty but chicago, the greater cleveland area, we're dealing with that wintry mix, and then makes its way into the northeast by saturday morning into your saturday evening. so again, this is going to be very disruptive. the potential for severe weather even for the mid atlantic to the south, it's still very early to put out reports of how much accumulation, but we are expecting it to really be on the heavy side from the great lakes to the higher elevations of the northeast into new york as well. this will cause travel delays across i-95 corridor from new york into boston. unfortunate timing, once again, just in time for the weekend, a big snow event. >> thank you, janessa. new developments on the story surrounding meghan markle and prince harry. queen elizabeth has given her blessing to prince harry and

meghan markle to split their time between the uk and canada, after meeting senior members of the uk royal family yesterday including prince harry, the queen issued a statement writing in part this, my family and i are entirely supportive of harry and meghan's desire to create a new life as a young family. although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working members of the royal family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family. queen elizabeth went on to say there will be a period of transition where harry and meghan will spend time in both canada and the uk. last week the royal couple announced that they would quote step back from their senior roles in the royal family. however, details on how they will become financially independent while continuing to work to support the queen have not yet been worked out. >> interesting development there. still ahead, lsu ends their perfect season with a national title win plus a cheating scandal rocks major league baseball. those stories are next in

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and wondering if that was the last time i was going to do that thing. coming to the cancer treatment centers of america, they treat the whole person. everything is here. imaging, infusion... i don't have to go anywhere else. they care about me as a person beyond just being a cancer patient. they're my second family. welcome back now, going to do a quick break from politics and transition to sports and a new college football playoff national champion to the field in new orleans where lsu's heisman trophy winning quarterback led his team to a 42-25 victory ending defending champion clemson's 29 game win streak with a historic performance. borough scored a record 6 touchdowns in the match up.

five passing tds and 463 yards staggering. through the air is the most ever for a bcs or cfp title game, the first to throw 60 touchdown passes in a suingle season. you think he's going to have a bright future with the nfl. >> yes. >> safe bet, right. >> if he's a heisman trophy winner, i'm going to say yes. turning to major league baseball after the league found the houston astros cheated during the world series season. miguel almaguer has the story. >> reporter: after winning the world series in 2017, major league baseball says the champs are cheats, suspending manager aj hinch after the league says their team stole pitching signs during the historic season. the astros taking it a step

further, firing both. >> neither one of them started this but neither one of them did anything about it, andst that how we came to the conclusion. >> the former manager apologized saying while he didn't participate in the sign stealing, he failed to stop it. the former gm says he didn't know the rules were being broken. the league's investigation reveals virtually all of the astros players had some involvement or knowledge of the scheme. using a camera in center field, the team decoded pitching signs, the information relayed to the dugout, sometimes via text message on a smartphone which was passed along to the hitter by banging on a trash can as noted by one sport's writer here. houston also fined the league maximum $5 million and loss of top draft picks, the investigation notes then astros bench coach alex cora as a middle man. he went on to coach the boston red sox who won the world series the very next year and who are also now also under investigation for stealing pitching signs during the

regular season. the los angeles dodgers lost both world series to champions now accused of cheating. >> wow. >> that is an operation. >> that is so sad to see that happen in sports. >> our thanks to nbc's miguel almaguer for that report. as outrage grows in iran over the downing of a jet liner, nbc news gets an inside look at the iraqi base struck by a dozen missiles last week. there's a new he said she said fight between senators elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. the latest on their escalating feud coming up next. feud coming up next. ♪ $12.99 all you can eat now with boneless wings. only at applebee's. i don't make compromises. i want nutrition made just for me. but i also want great taste. so i drink boost for women. new boost women with key nutrients to help support thyroid, bone, hair and skin health.

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welcome back, everyone, i'm ayman mohyeldin alongside yasmin vossoughian. we begin this half hour overseas in the middle east as u.s. troops help clear out rubble from the iraqi air base targeted in iran. 1,500 troops are targeted at al asad air base, nbc's richard engel has the latest on that and the ongoing protests in iran. >> reporter: new demonstrations in iran, outrage over the government's admission that it accidentally shot down a ukrainian plane after days of denials. some protesters saying they were fired upon by security forces, which teheran's police chief denies. this as we were granted access to the western base at iraq stuck by more than a dozen iranian ballistic missiles, some

with direct hits where u.s. troops were living and working. officials say this shows how close the u.s. came to war with iran. this was one of the main housing units for this part of the base but it's so badly burned and damaged it's hard to tell what it even was. you only know people are living here because there's a burned out bed, somebody's bicycle, had soldiers still been inside when the missile impacted, there would have been many casualties. the soldiers did have about two hours of advanced warning from u.s. intelligence that some kind of attack was coming but fearing the base might be overrun, many stayed out of bunkers to guard the base. captain jeffrey hanson had the wind knocked out of him by one of the first missiles, then rallied. >> you were knocked on the ground, and slid under a truck. >> i did. i walked back to the shelter and knew that, you know, whatever was coming, it was much worse than we thought. >> reporter: iran says it did not want to kill u.s. troops.

>> do you think this was lethal? a lethal attack. >> a lot of people would have died if we hadn't moved. >> reporter: 39 soldiers were living in these quarters, dozens more were posted nearby. >> i think we were beyond lucky. >> reporter: the u.s. military took extraordinary precautionings bprecautions but there was also a degree of luck, the soldiers out of the bunkers guarding the perimeter faced an enormous amount of risk. american commanders fully expected there would be fatalities. richard engel, nbc news, the al asad air base, iraq. we received news on the downed passenger jet. people have been arrested for their roles in that attack. the spokesperson also said a black box recorder has been taken to france but we are still waiting for the french to confirm that. and after claiming emphatically that the united states killed iran's top general because he posed an imminent threat to the united states, president trump tweeted this

yesterday, it doesn't really matter if the threat was immeant because of his horrible past. attorney general bill barr is down playing the need of an imminent threat to justify the killing. >> i do believe that this concept of imminence is a hered herring, when you're dealing with a situation where you have attacks underway, you know there's a campaign that involves repeated attacks on american targets, i don't think there's a requirement frankly for, you know, knowing the exact time and place of the next attack, and that was the position of the obama administration when droned leaders of terrorist organizations. >> barr said the justice department was consulted before the soleimani strike and there was no requirement for the white house to consult with congress. meanwhile the president is being criticized for retweeting a fake photo that shows nancy pelosi and chuck schumer in

traditional muslim fire. the mimted photo has drawn push back -- manipulated photo has drawn push back, one saying it was disappointing but not surprising that the president would use his massive twitter platform to, it has not been authenticated by nbc news but the has a history of tweeting about iranian issues and pro trump content. stephanie grisham appeared on fox nude to defend the president's re-tweet. >> i think the president is making clear that the democrats have been parroting iranian talking points and almost taking the side of terrorists and those who were out to kill the americans. i think the president was making the point that the democrats seem to hate him so much that they're willing to be on the side of concerns and leadership of countries who want to kill americans. >> let's make a turn to domestic politics here in 2020.

six presidential contenders will face off tonight in the last democratic debate before the iowa caucuses, the cnn "des moines register debate lineup will feature bernie sanders and joe biden, mayor pete buttigieg and elizabeth warren, followed by senator amy klobuchar and businessman tom steyer on either side. the 7th democratic debate will kick off tonight from drake university in des moines at 9:00 p.m. eastern. and stoking the already brewing feud, senator elizabeth warren claims bernie sanders told her he did not think a woman could win the presidency in 2020. in a statement released, the comments came during a meeting. among the topics that came up, what would happen in democrats nominated a female candidate. i thought a woman could win. he disagreed. sanders campaign has denied it calling it ludicrous. president trump tweeting out,

bernie sanders volunteers are trashing elizabeth poke h-- warren. joe biden remains steadily ahead of the rest of the democratic field despite dropping five points since december. the former vice president sits in first place with 25%. senator bernie sanders following up with 19, and senator l elizabeth warren at 16. both are statistically in the 4 point margin of error. pete buttigieg is next wi8%. micha just three weeks before the iowa caucuses, joe biden has taken the lead over the rest of the field in the state. in a monmouth university poll, biden is in first place with 24%. bernie sanders, pete buttigieg, elizabeth warren are statistical statistically tied for second. sitting at 18%, 17, and 15

respectively. amy klobuchar rounds out the top five with 8%. let's look at the polls in new hampshire showing joe biden taking the top spot and senator elizabeth warren dropping 7 points. biden comes in first with 26%. senator bernie sanders is next up with almost 22%. followed by senator elizabeth warren with around 18%. they both are statistically tied for second. pete buttigieg, michael bloomberg, tulsi gabbard, statistically tied for fourth place. bloomberg and gabbard with 4%. joining us from washington, d.c., managing editor at the washington examiner magazine, jay caruso. i know you want to weigh in on the houston cheatos. we'll get give you a chance to weigh in on that. let's get some of these poll numbers. what do you make of joe biden's

surge to the top that other polls are showing the more progressive candidates, elizabeth warren, and bernie sanders combination ahead of him. >> well, the big thing for joe biden is what it's been that's always kept him at the top and that is african-american support which is still very strong for biden. pete buttigieg, bernie sanders, even elizabeth warren haven't made end roads within the african-american community, and that's where biden's polling is the strongest, and what you're seeing now, if you look at the polling for iowa specifically, this is kind of similar to what happened in 2004. for the longest time it was howard dean who was leading in iowa, and seemed like he might go on to win it, and in the last couple of weeks, it was john kerry that kind of came in and took over, and eventually won. it's still up in the air a little bit, and somebody else may win, but once you get to south carolina, even looking past new hampshire at this point, joe biden's support after that is in double digits. his lead is in double digits, pretty much everywhere. and i think no matter what happens in iowa, no matter what

happens in new hampshire, once you get to south carolina, if biden has a strong showing there, that will just continue and all this talk about probably a brokered convention, which everybody seems to love to talk about but never comes to fruition probably won't happen again. >> let's talk about these debates that we're all going to be watching tonight. i believe, and correct me if i'm wrong, this is the smallest stage that we are seeing as the debate cycle. >> and certainly the least diverse. >> yeah, absolutely. both of those things. what are you going to be looking for tonight as we are watching these candidates debate on that stage? >> well, you know, the debate stage moderators try to create a little spark and what you're going to see is probably bernie sanders and elizabeth warren get asked about this latest dust up between the two campaigns over whether or not a woman could win in 2020, of course sanders denies saying it, and excuse me, warren said that he did, so that will be interesting to watch. the other question is now that we finally have a stage where

there's only six candidates that are going to be on stage, they will get a little bit more time. you know, i think voters want to hear a little bit more about what they're going to do, and not have to hear it in 30 second sound bites. >> that was the same thing communicated in the last round, we got to hear from the candidates and their plans going forward, and that was integral. houston cheatros, how do you feel about that. >> as a yankees fan in 2017, watching the houston astros beat them to go on to the world series, i'm one of those leading the charge against the astros and having a little fun at their expense. >> important that you put your bias out there. need to be forthcoming about that. >> jay caruso, always a pleasure. >> thanks. still ahead for the second year in row, president trump plans to divert military money in order to fund construction for his wall along the u.s. southern border. 2020 candidate mike

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welcome back, "the washington post" reports president trump is planning to divert to an additional 7.2 billion in pentagon funds for the border wall construction this year. that's five times the amount that congress authorized him to spend on the project according to internal planning figures obtained by the paper. the pentagon funds would be extracted for a second year in a row from military construction projects and counter narcotics funding. this additional funding would give the government enough money to complete roughly 885 miles of new fencing by the spring of 2022. if the white house follows through with the plans in total under the trump administration,

$18.4 billion would be allocated to pay for that border wall. and president trump went after 2020 presidential opponent michael bloomberg on twitter yesterday sounding off on the hundreds of millions of dollars the former mayor is spending against him. in a series of tweets, the president wrote in part mini mike bloomberg spending a lot of money on advertising, i will always protect your preexisting conditions, the dems will not. his administration is currently backing a lawsuit that would render all of the affordable care act invalid, eliminating those protections if its backers win. bloomberg responded to the president's tweet writing in part, glad to see you're watching our ads donald trump, i know management isn't your strong suit, perhaps you don't know the justice department supports a suit that would undermine protections for preexisting conditions. now that you know, why not ask them to drop the suit. >> fighting words. let's get a check of your weather with nbc meteorologist janessa webb. >> did you pull the winter coat

back out. >> they were back out yesterday morning. >> i just didn't want to put them away because i know the moment i did that, it would come back roaring. >> exactly. way too early to put them away. >> it will change quickly. i feel like i'm going to lose my alaska card for that one. it was chilly this morning. we're going to continue to see temperatures in the mid-40s across the northeast but that still is well above average for this time of year. you can see this steady stream of moisture from the gulf of mexico coming in and that will impact washington, d.c. to new york city for your evening commute. it will remain on the light side. but make sure you have that umbrella handy. still very warm air pumping in. we're above average but i promise you, this is going to be broken down due to our next coast-to-coast storm system and it's going to first impact the pacific northwest to california all the way to portland. could see about an inch of rain for this afternoon, and this is storm number two. this will sweep in late wednesday to your thursday.

this is almost like a pregame before the major storm system makes its way in, going into friday and saturday. first this will impact the upper midwest to the midwest. this will be a deal part system with heavy snowfall up to 3 to 6 inches for chicago, and then there's that potential for severe weather for the mid atlantic to the south. so if you haven't broke out the winter coat, once again, i know it's in the 60s in some areas. bring it out this weekend. >> don't be fooled. still ahead, the u.s. drops china's label ads a currency manipulate to manipulate. a makeover in the works for casual dining chain tji fridays, as it prepares to be publicly traded for the first time again in decades. the story on your business day is next. decades the story on your business day is next. oh, the pic? that was actually a professional headshot.

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into. welcome back, everyone. yesterday the treasury department reversed its branding ahead of a trade deal later this week. joining us live from london we have a lot more on that, and let's talk a little about that quickly. what is this move? what's the significance of this move and what does it signal for negotiators and phase one of this deal? >> they've added this about two months ago. two days before it is signed. timing is some of this. and clean it up before preparing

to sign on the dotted line. the u.s. treasury department saying it is enforceable. china made concrete commitments to avoid future devaluation of its currency. the u.s. says it gives advantage to chinese goods, becomes cheaper when china is weaker against the u.s. dollar. very important getting rid of this trade deal in the next couple of days to be signed by president trump and you have the chinese vice premier, may have heard of it venmo. a company you wouldn't have heard of, called play. providing software, backhand to venmo, provides apps to your bank accounts. a quarter of americans used their software to connect some kind of app. visa an earlier investor, now buying the firm for $5.3 billion. just an indication of how that entire space is changing dramatically around payments.

>> wow. >> talk about this tgifridays story. >> one of my favorite restaurants from my high school days. >> you know about booking regulars offing if ing itgifrid >> any bar is good. >> tell us about this. >> it's a little ways away until the weekend. don't get too excited. what they're trying to do as they get ready for this public trading is really grow the revenues on the bar side. you know that restaurants and bars both businesses make a lot more margin profit on drink than on food, and the guiy has come back to running if i fri ing it. we want to focus on that happy hour crowd. get people off the crowd and back into the friday fold. >> come on.

shot and a bar on a friday? everybody knows that. >> always friday in here. always a pleasure. thanks . >> reporter: coming up on "morning joe," joining the conversation ahead of this morning's key meeting with house speaker nancy pelosi. and the big question this morning, everybody. are democrats closing in on the votes needed to call witnesses at the senate trial? we'll get the latest on that. plus, more an russia's hacking of the ukrainian gas company at the center of the trump scandal. could it be a repeat of the dnc hacking only this time targeting joe biden? "morning joe," moments away. om.

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making easy work of tough messes. dawn takes care of tough grease, wherever it shows up. scrub less, save more... with dawn. welcome back. joining us from washington with a look at axios a.m. political reporter for axios, jonathan, good morning. >> good morning, guys. >> talk about axios's "one big thing" today? >> nancy pelosi has, suddenly has a new card to play trying to press the senate majority leader

mitch mcconnell to allow witnesses and documents in the impeachment senate trial. this is the trove of text messages, photographs, and other information that the indicted giuliani, former giuliani friend lev pardon as provided to the house intelligence committee. and my colleague spoke to pardon parnas' lawyer and he said i have reason to believe at least some of what was transmitted to the community will likely make the public record. a pretty clear senate we could see pelosi use this as leverage as a way of pressing senators like susan collins of maine and others like cory gardner who feel rather uncomfortable about the idea of a senate trial being a rubber stamp for donald trump. >> jonathan, let me get your

thoughts quickly about the house sending the articles of impeachment to the senate and how it could push majority leader mitch mcconnell to come to agreement over documents and witnesses. how do you see that part of it playing out? >> so, look. mcconnell won the first round, which was keeping his -- keeping all the senators, republican senators, united on his strategy of following the clinton impeachment trial in the sense they would not have witnesses initially, but there's a big asterisk next to that, which is, they're going to have a vote on witnesses after that initial presentation of arguments, and the sense we're getting from some of these moderate, perhaps vulnerable, republican senators is that there may well be enough of them that want witnesses that force mcconnell of hand on that. that's far from a forgone conclusion. we don't know how this will play out over the next couple of

weeks but we are seeing early signs this is where this could head. >> let's switch gears a bit here. we know the president wanted to make his mark with regards to a mideast peace plan with his son-in-law jared kushner leading the charge on all this. he's facing headwinds trying to broker a peace deal in the middle east. that's putting it lightly. >> an understatement. >> kind of an understatement. also you have israel's upcoming elections. how is that going to impact president trump's plans? >> so i spoke to the national security adviser, robert o'brien about this, and he said something that's quite interesting. so where we've reported already on axios, my colleague, based in israel, incredibly well sourced over there, israeli officials believe the trump team is going to release the peace plan before the israeli election, march 2nd. very worried about that on benjamin netanyahu's made a point that benny gantz says a huge interference. worried about that. ip asked whether they were

taking that into consideration. he said, no, we're not taking into consideration israeli domestic politics in the timing of the release of this plan. so there is a lot of expectation in the region we could see this peace plan, finally, finally, after all of this time, in the next month or so. >> welcomed by somebody like netanyahu if it shows americans are willing to accept his calls to annex the west bank and give him a push in the polls there. thank you for your reporting and to everyone over at axios. reading axios a.m. in a bit. sign up for the newsletter. sign up at axios.signup.com. >> that does it for us. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside amy mohyeldin. next up, "morning joe." good morning. along with joe, willie and