right now. knowledge are relevant, it beats i'm ayman mohyeldin. out somebody that's 35 whose i don't know him very well. i have not spoken to his much. skills and knowledge aren't >> i don't know those gentlemen. relevant. relevancy will trump age every >> i don't know vindman. time. >> what we did, we talked to so i never heard of him. many women around the country about this issue, but we noticed >> i really don't know about that they do that work. her. >> i know more about the they do all of the work, way environment than most people. more work in terms of >> nobody knows more about trade than me. >> i know windmills very much. preparation than men. but they're still in their own studied it better than anybody. way because if they're care >> wow. >> better than anybody! giving, raising kids and taking oh, my god. a huge break, it is so scary to >> and when trump says he knows everything, he knows nothing. them. they fear failure every step of the way. when trump says he knows they feel like i can't fail, if nothing, he knows something. i do this, i can't fail. >> this is beautiful, and that something is bad. >> you don't have to go up they get an offer, a phone call, like -- you don't have to visit invitation for interview, and a maharishi to learn his insight immediately put up their own walls. it is her last game, i should go windsor man will tell it to you. to the game, or i'm still taking >> it's the bottom line. >> how beautiful is that, will care of my -- there's always reasons not to do something, but at this time for these women, they put up those walls to stay willie? somebody suggested windsor man in that safe space and then they and somebody should put together reinforce a very bad narrative a book of rules for donald trump. that's a great one, because when that things can't change.

he says he knows everything they can. >> one of my favorite books of about something, he knows nothing at all. the year other than "come back >> zero. >> windmills? oh i know everything about this. careers" that's number one, of i bet i know more about, you course, this and loaded, two know, cows left hoofs than books i carry around. anybody in america. then when he says he knows but one of my favorite books is nothing, doesn't know somebody, he's lying. >> yeah. his speech about wind most "range." i have seen talks about how recently got into the depths how everything we know about age and if you go under a wind turbine success in business. you'll see bald eagles on the ground because the turbines are killing bald eagles. a 50 plus person with a tech obviously doesn't know anything startup is twice as likely to be about that. more significantly, what we're successful in that tech startup talking about here is the idea that the minute somebody says as somebody in their 30s. something that crosses him or makes him look bad or perhaps and you can go down one study gets him impeached or into legal after another after another study that shows if you have a jeopardy, he distances himself chance to hire somebody that's immediately. as we said yesterday, it's a 50 years old plus and has a good lesson for those who cling range of experiences, they're to him he will dispose of you going to serve you better because of life experiences. eventually. >> another great lesson from >> absolutely. >> they can't be taught in windsor man, speaks well to so many people around this table, school. >> turns out experience and wisdom are extremely valuable to the worst trump treats you, the a company, right?

better history will treat you. so i can come at this story from considering the things that he's tweeted about us, we're in pretty good shape, but willie, 40, 50, beyond, my wife i'm very excited. christina, she took time off, i'm not so happy about how it had a great white career at johnson & johnson, worked really hard for 15 years to reach a slipped out. senior level there, then dipped some pictures from a couple of years ago, but i'm very excited out when we had our children. to find out that you and alex so we got our second child off have adopted a buzzer system. to kindergarten, now he is out from 8:00 to 4:00. >> yeah. it is time to start again. >> serendipitously, a buzzer on so at 40 years old, she had this your shoulder. >> yeah. >> hidden. one buzz means smile, and amuse incredible renaissance. she did something different, launched a couple of her own joe. two buzzes mean, cut joe off companies. but my role was just to be an before he blows the entire show ally and remind her how good and up. smart she was and she could do so that gives me a bit more confidence. anything she wanted to do. like the seven-second delay in she deserves the credit for it. the houston astros buzzer system. >> learned everything i know from a man's point of view as a from the houston about trostros. partner, be there for the woman that wants to make that leap. you're receiving to the >> absolutely. we need all the support we can speculation, altuve, deniedenie get, especially if you start something new. listen, there's a statistic out there, if you start something major baseball has no evidence new after age 45, 82% of people

yet, astros using a buzzer system with patches on his shoulder. a buzz from the dugout telling that do that succeed at it. your wife in particular, she had them which pitch was coming. great skills going into that, very helpful if, say, you're had a great idea. her life had significantly trying to hit chapman's 100 changed with parenthood and had an idea about something she mile-an-hour slider in the alcs. wanted to do differently. a lot of times when women are hasn't been proven. coming back at this age, we are photographs circulating. more purpose driven than money altuve wouldn't take off his jersey in the walk-off. driven or driven by big titles. we live with this a little while as yankee and rs rs red sox fan and that is an example of that. i love her story. >> what do you do about getting back into the market, you're >> people assuming if a. is qualified, probably overly true, b. must be true. qualified no matter the age, 48, 55. what do you do about the al tur no proof of wearables, if there constant, pay inequity? are wearables. >> pay transparency is how you manager and general manage of get rid of pay inequity. red sox suspended now fired. two other managers lost their there was a piece in "new york times," millennials tell each other salaries. jobs, cora and a.j. hinch, never gen x, we were brought to not

talk about them. the more we talk about them, the coached a game had to step away. a full 10% of the league's more we get insight into how much we should be making. managers stepped away. there's a lot of information on i will say this, suspicious about the other systems, you the web on sites like fairy god won't let us take off your shirt. >> that's right. boss, you can find out what a you demand i do it. position in a certain city pays, >> i never have. >> most days asked you to remove and you can ask somebody, mike, your shirt. that's getting weird, too, and what does somebody in your position make. we should talk about that, >> in this space, pay inequity jonathan. >> yeah, joe, front page of the tabloids, middle of impeachment. is such an issue, clearly men are paid more than women. carlos beltran losing his job as but if you're taking a break 15 the mets manager. >> that's terrible. years and coming back in, you you know, jonathan make as great have to be realistic, you're not point. the first three years of, every going to make what you were friday. making before or equal to it, if we had a great show you would you may have to take a huge step tear off your t-shirt and there back and do something completely would be you in, you know -- different. you may have to work for one, your white t-shirt, sleeveless, two, three years to finally negotiate that kind of pay. of course, with jeff zucker's and i think a lot of women want face on it. we don't see it anymore. everything right away, they're because zucker put the buzzer worried they're running out of right there when he was around. time. you have a long runway, sister, wipe do you think they moved him and you have to get back in, over to cnn? start somewhere. they knew about it. >> you and ginny talk about they knew about it. embracing failure. >> and now a t-shirt under here. >> because women in this space

proud of that. are especially fearful of i don't want you to see the buzzer is all. failure. >> okay. >> yeah. they feel like they're supposed we just did. to look like they have it all yeah. but i will say, though, you look together, they feel like people at the picture of altuve coming are judging them for their home grabbing his shirt, like, choices and makes them brittle don't tear it off, don't tear it in that department, and they've off. come on. that's pretty bad. got to be looser. as you said, chapman sat there listen, they have to remember kind of smirking at him when he that women that stayed in the game, they're still making hit that home run. mistakes, many of them every you were right. single day, and you've got to be he was smirking for a reason. like a bowling ball with gutter he knows that 100 mile-an-hour guards up and bounce through the slider sign was stolen. situations until you get your he knows it. game on. >> i think it is important to and he just couldn't figure out not let fear of failure stop you exactly how. it's the buzzer. from getting started. alex what alex is telling me. i think the biggest, you should he says, his buzzer obviously is be fearing never trying. not working on you right now, you need to stop fearing because we're still talking about baseball. t. oh, my lord. failure. with us now, columnist and >> the book, "come back associate editor for's "washington post" david careers." read it, know your power at any ignatius, nbc news correspondent age. >> that does it for us, chris heidi przybyla. jansing picks up coverage now. msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the >> thank you so much. thank you for the book. republican national committee michael steele and nbc news i am chris jansing in for

correspondent covering national stephanie ruhle, friday, january security and intelligence, ken 17th. we're on the brink of a truly extraordinary event, impeachment delanian joins us. good to have you all onboard trial of an american president. this morning. the senate impeachment trial of while congress is officially on a four-day weekend, there's no president trump has officially gotten under way. preliminary proceedings kicked break for democratic house off yesterday as the senate managers or for the white house officially received the two legal team. articles of impeachment and both sides are now in heavy preparation mode, getting ready heard them read aloud by the to make their case to the senate lead democratic prosecutor and to the american peopl congressman adam schiff. after that, chief justice john roberts was sworn in as the presidingup for the trial. he then asked the nation's senators to solemnly swear to do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws. the senators replied, "i do." in unison. then signed the impeachment oath. the trial will start on tuesday at 1:00 p.m. before that the house must deliver trial briefs laying out arguments to the senate by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow. white house counsel must deliver their trial briefs by noon on monday.

if the house wishes to file a rebuttal brief, it must be handed over by noon on tuesday. at the white house yesterday president trump was asked about the upcoming impeachment trial and once again described his phone call with the president of ukraine an issue at the center of his impeachment as perfect. >> well, should go very quickly. it's a hoax. it's a hoax. everybody knows that. it's a complete hoax. the whole thing with ukraine. >> according to the "new york times," president trump capped his day by meeting with several campaign aides, and grilling them on how voters were receiving impeachment. while speaking with advisers yesterday, trump once again repeated that he couldn't believe he was facing such a predicament as impeachment. the "times" notes trump says he wanted people to be prepared for a motion to dismiss and has hoped for one even though majority leader mitch mcconnell has signaled that it won't happen. willie? >> bring in nbc news

correspondent hans nichols at the white house where the president spoke yesterday. hans, good morning. so we hear the public posture of the president that this is all a hoax, phone call was perfect, he's not concerned, but what is he reading right now and what is he really thinking as he sees the chief justice of the united states supreme court being sworn in to oversee a historic impeachment trial? i note that the president was praising senator lamar alexander on twitter yesterday, one of the republicans who's been viewed as perhaps one who might swing over to at least vote to include witnesses in this trial if not to convict the president. >> reporter: look, the white house, the president, are making last-minute adjustments. for all the talk and prelude to impeachment doesn't seem they've settled on their strategy. two fronts. number one, it's not really clear what the full sweep of the defense team will look like. right? the plan had always been as soon as the house announces managers the white house would put forward their team.

they haven't done that in a definitive way. guys, when there's a delay there's typically a dispute. the other big question the president is pondering this morning, should he get on air force one and go to davos on monday? because yesterday when you listened to him, clearly hedging. saying, well, probably i'll go. later on seemed to say, i've got all of these meetings. the reason that's important is because there's a conversation inside the white house on whether or not you want the president in the country, close to his twitter feed, close to his phone, or do you want him abroad trying -- stress on trying -- trying to look presidential? and one challenge they're having is it's one thing if he had, say, a nato summit in brussels, meeting with an agency in russia, davos has a different tenor, the global elites get together. they're weighing at the white house this morning what to do with the defense team and whether or not the president should get on the plane. as always with the trump administration, i suspect we'll get an audible from the president and i didn't say audible because we have the lsu

tigers coming here later today, but we do have a little college football sports here, guys, here, too, as well. guys? >> all right, hans nichols, thank you. great seeing you the other day in the office. hope to see you again very soon. have a great weekend. so -- michael steele. you hear donald trump, and he really, he's talking to himself when he talks about a perfect phone call, yeah. >> no. really. he says it's a hoax, because what he's facing now isn't even what he was facing with mueller. there's more of a split when it came to what the american public believed, but he said it's a hoax and nobody can believe this is happening, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and yet over 70% of americans want a full and fair trial. >> yeah. >> they don't want moscow mitch and lindsey graham to shut things down. over 70% want to here from witnesses. over -- that's seven in ten americans. they want to know the truth.

that's all they want to know. they want to know the truth. >> that's it. >> and -- and -- but also, think about this. over 50%, majority of americans, think he deserved to be impeached. again, he says it's a hoax. nobody can believe this. he's talking to himself. majority believes he should be impeached. we remember that fox bowl and other polls that show majority believe he should be removed if office for that phone call. >> right. >> and the things that he did around that as well. so this is a problem with the republicans not being able to put together a defense of donald trump. he lives in a separate universe from the rest of them factually, and he's -- he's disconnected from the reality of this political crisis. >> well, i think that's an essential part of this narrative that a lot of folks, certainly in republican circles, talk

about in a rather hushed tone, because, of course, the president is the grand master planner here. after all, this is his strategy. what you're seeing is his strategy. he didn't want a war room during the house impeachment trial. he did not want to set up the internal structure that would reinforce messaging, that would actually design a message, and then reinforce it to the public. so what happened was, particularly when nancy pelosi decided, you know what? i'm just going to sit on the impeachment articles, put them over here on the table a little bit. it threw the whole game to another level and allowed a number of things to happen, despite the gnashing of teeth around it. that strategy actually proved to be smart, because is solidified the interest and the desire among americans to want to know more and hear more, particularly as more information was coming out, without a counternarrative outside of, this is a hoax, put forward by the president. there was no effort, really, to

put in place what you would need to have going into this trial next week. and that's why they're sitting at the white house right now, do we go to davos? do we stay here? what do we say? what do we do? because there's no internal structure. this is the president's strategy from the gut, and the politics of this does not necessarily work out well with him, particularly with the revelations from parnas and others. >> the revelations, heidi przybyla. i wonder how this impacts this whole issue about witnesses? i mean i don't know how some of these republican senators could not want to hear from witnesses when every day there's incredible news backing up this story, like -- >> you hear about susan collins. now talking about wanting to hear witnesses, probably. martha mcsally embarrassed herself yesterday and the people of arizona trying to raise money by attacking a reporter, who

really is down the middle, and has been attacked by democrats. >> so the bottom line is, it appears, and who knows which way it could go. we have to keep an open mind, but this information's coming out whether we hear it from witnesses in the trial or whether it comes out in a different form, i mean, how do these senators not want to hear testimony? >> mika, i was trying to speak with some of these senators and calling around to their offices yesterday, and i was instructed to look at a video that was tweeted out lie lamar alexander, you mentioned him earlier. retiring senator who has great bipartisan respect, and who is taking a very close look at this himself. he said he's potentially open to witnesses. you mentioned how the president was tweeting, looking at the president's twitter feed, not once but twice, maybe even suggesting he might give a gold medal to a tennessee service member. this is the group that we should be watching. perhaps even more so than these

vulnerable republicans, mika and joe. some of the dynamics in the chamber i think were instructive yesterday about who their targeting yesterday. i was sitting up watching as this was all takes place, as the articles were read, and the senators took their oaths, and what you saw was two groups, really. first, it was senator murkowski and senator collins, who after everyone disbursed, senator mcdonnell's floor managers made a bee line for them, consulting with them. then you saw senator mitch mcconnell talking up pat reports. that's a name you haven't heard much about. this is, again, fitting into that group of retiring gop senators who are truly unlike some of these house members, who voted against all of this, really may be instructive here, because they are leaving congress. they actually are retiringance a,

and they will be watching this closely and a lot to happen over the next two weeks. yesterday saying they hadn't actually read the lev parnas materials. they'll have serve days to look over that, come back and think about it. even if these vulnerable republicans don't vote for witnesses because they're worried about their primaries, those retiring republicans have a lot to think about right now. >> well, and david ignatius, you know, we've known pat roberts and lamar alexander both of us, for a long time. and as they come to the end of their career, i would think mitch mcconnell would be concerned that these gentlemen would vote their conscience and not just follow donald trump and stroet have t vote to have a fair, open hearing and trial and get this new evidence that's coming in, that's come in since the house impeached. i don't -- i don't know what the motivation for either pat roberts or lamar alexander would

be to have at the end of their senate career a line about them blindly following an impeached president, and basically sacrificing their dignity and their integrity to suppress evidence, suppress the truth, when seven out of ten americans want an open and fair trial, and want to hear from these new witnesses. >> as we've discussed often, joe, trump's insurgency in the republican party is burning the house down. dependent on the fear of republicans who didn't defend their party, didn't defend its values essentially it fled, that as you say, someone who's retiring from the senate, who's thinking about his legacy, her legacy, is in a different place. the fear factor doesn't work in the same way. what i felt yesterday, as many

viewers did, watching what we could of these proceedings is, this is real. it's really happening. for weeks and weeks, trump's strategy to pretend it wasn't happening, desm ining dismiss i it's a hoax over and over again but in the swearing in of the chief justice, in the traditional solemn words and accesses, you knew something real and lasting was happening, and i'm sure that got through to the senator roberts, and lamar alexanders, but more to the country, that we're really going to watch this carefully now, and the senate will do itself harm if it doesn't take this seriously, because it just entered a new phase. we're not talking about it anymore. it's happening. and i think, you know, people do see themselves especially in the light of history and that light just got real bright as of yesterday and until the trial is over. >> yes, it did.

>> and these two gentlemen and other members of the senate are not going to want to be associated for the rest of their lives and in history with lindsey graham, a guy who's so desperate to avoid a primary challenge that he's completely changed his viewpoints. and we all know why he's done it, and we all know why lindsey is saying he doesn't want a fair trial. he's not going to provide a fair trial. why mitch mcconnell is not going to provide a fair trial, doesn't want a fair trial. history is going to treat these politicians very badly, and if you are retiring, you can actually, you have the luxury, or if you're mitt romromney, yo have the luxury saying i'm going to do what's right and the american people want to hear the evidence, they want to know what really went down and what john bolton called this drug deal. so i'm going to vote for transparency. >> yeah. >> i'm going to vote to let the light in. sunlight is the best

disinfectant. let's let sunlight be, play a major role in this impeachment trial. david, one other thing. we were hearing that the white house is considering, hans told us, the would us is considering sending donald trump abroad to davos to he'll look above it all, but whether you talk about donald trump at helsinki or donald trump at some of his g7 meetings or some of the nato summits, donald trump going abroad is not always good for his brand. in fact, more often than not, he embarrasses himself and hurts himself politically. >> in my memory, his foreign trips have not been his finest hours. he gets peeved at people. he'll be sort of pushy, get in fights that are unnecessary. i mean, even if it goes off great, what does he get out of it? he's surrounded by the world's

business elite in davos. that's not exactly the brand he wants for 2020. i guess he does get to look presidential. early days of the watergate scandal, tried to surround himself with kissinger and others and be the foreign policy president, and the seriousness of the case began to overwhelm these efforts at stage managing. we'll see if that begins to happen next week when the trial begins in earnest, when the evidence is put forward and senators have to just listen to it. they don't get to just, make speeches, and they don't even get to record it. they have to sit there. they can't look at their phones. they sit there and listen. we'll see, you know, after a few days of that, how that feels for the senate. >> wow. >> jonathan, as we tatalk aboute republican senators, lamar alexander did say this week we have a constitutional duty to giving a fair trial.

if that mean looking at new evidence we should look at new evidence. that could mean documents that could mean witnesses, it could mean new testimony. in other words, he's open to hearing that. the other side of that, joe's reference. senator martha mcsally of arizona asked a straightforward question whether she would be open to hearing new evidence and she said the reporter was a liberal hack and she wouldn't talk to him and went out and raised money on that. seems to me the white house is counting on their being more martha mcsallys still in the republican party than lamar alexanders, who are at least open to the possibility of hearing from john bolton or hearing from lev parnas? >> to this point, the white house has been correct in that assumption. there are more republicans who are willing to just take the president's side. and care less about the institutions. that's one of the running themes of the trump administration. how he has sort of damaged and denigrated a lot of the real institutions of washington in this country and the sna tenate here, they're on trial as well. not just donald trump. how they conduct themselves. a fair and serious hearing? is this going to be in words of

the oath yesterday impartial justice? is it going to be what the constitution demands? the president, certainly, i was told pleased with the mcsally moment yesterday. those who don't know what happened? a cnn reporter, congressional reporter, manu. >> here's the question. senator mcsally, should the senate consider new evidence in the impeachment trial? the question? >> did it in a polite way. could have walked past instead called him a liberal hack and, yes, within hours was fundraising off of the exchange. you know, the president as he suggested, as we saw yesterday in the oval office, is very upset by the proceedings, even if he gives the idea it could help him politically in the election next year. that remains to be sane. he know kwhass what a stain thin his legacy. the idea to counterprogram for the impeachment and the upcoming

democratic primarieprimaries. he doesn't want to cede this to them. rallies at home and abroad. davos is an odd fit for him. he's been once before as president. i think speculation this trip may fall apart between now and when he's supposed to depart, but they do like the idea of him on the world stage throughout all of this. in fact, next month are considering a trip to india as well with a similar idea. >> all right. coming up, we heard even more last night from lev parnas. rudy giuliani's indicted sidekick at the center of the ukraine controversy. those key takeaways are straight ahead. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. trump: those pre-existing

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29 past the hour. now to the new revelations from rudy giuliani's indicted associate lev parnas. as we've mentioned, parnas was arrested on campaign finance violations while trying to leave the country with a one-way ticket. back in october this happened. he's currently free on bail and cooperating with authorities and giving more press interviews. he's already implicated the president, vice president and attorney general in the scheme to pressure ukraine to dig up dirt on joe biden. now we're hearing the part of his story that involves the president's former energy secretary rick perry who parnas said was recruited by rudy giuliani after other attempts to pressure ukraine failed. >> perry says, i spoke with zelensky and got him to agree?

to agree to announce the investigation? >> yeah. and they did announce, but they didn't announce that. the whole key. every time somebody would meet zelensky they would, like, agree, and then they would walk it back. so they announced something of a corruption that he's going to get in on the corruption but giuliani blew his lid on that saying that's not what we discussed. that wasn't supposed to be corruption announcement. has to be about joe biden and hunter biden and burisma. >> he said the name biden needs to be spoken? >> always, always. >> parnas also described in great detail president trump's multiple attempts to fire former ukraine ambassador marie yovanovitch. >> about firing her, i spoke to the president once about that, and, or twice. once or twice. once directly at our dinner when he fired her actually at the dinner, which was the most surprising thing ever. >> tell me more. >> basically at that dinner we had a conversation, like six of

us there. an intimate denner. >> dinner. >> at the, private area, looks a little like the white house. president there, son don junior there. i don't know how the conversation came up but i remember telling the president that the ambassador was bad-mouthing him say heg would get impeached, something like that. at that point he turned around to his aide at the time and said, fire her. and we all -- there was a silence in the room, and he responded to him, said, mr. president we can't do that right now because pompeo hasn't been confirmed yet. that pompeo is not confirmed yet and we don't have, this is what tillerson said was gone and pompeo wasn't confirmed, so we'll wait. several conversations, he mentioned it again. again. i don't know how many times at that dinner, once or twice or

three times, but he fired her several times. >> reiterated she should be fired and he was oldering her to be fired. >> correct, correct. >> ken delanian, according to lev parnas the tentacles of this spread all over the white house, all the way to the top. how much can be corroborated by testimony we've already heard and what's the impact? >> i think the impact is huge, mika. because the takeaway here is that this case has gone to the senate with huge unanswered questions, and with witnesses out there who may never testify, who clearly know things. now, you know, parnas, of course, we have to take everything he's saying with a grain of salt. he is under indictment in the southern district of new york and clearly trying to save his skin, but he's implicating everybody. besides memorably calling the president a cult leader, he's implicating, as you said, energy secretary rick perry. saying that perry knew about this essentially this conspiracy to use the mechanisms of american foreign policy to extract a political favor for donald trump. and he's saying vice president

pence was in on it. pence denied that, but parnas told rachel maddow that essentially parnas went to the ukrainians and said you have to do this, announce his investigation or there will be consequences and shortly after they didn't do it, trump tells pence to cancel his visit to president zelenskys inauguration in may. >> hmm. nod. >> now pence saying he doesn't know the real reason for that but it's a question you would think the senate would want answered, mika. the other news yesterday that the general -- the government accountability office formally ruled the trump administration broke the law when it withheld that more than $200 million from ukraine, you know, that sort of answers the criticisms republicans have been saying, where's the law that was broken here. well, here's a law. the law that says the president must spent money appropriated by congress. not a criminal statute but a clear ruling yesterday by an independent non-partisan government accountability office

this was not proper and there are people who know exactly what happened there in the office of management and budget who have yet to testify as witnesses because they've resisted requests by congress to do so. >> and parnas described life in the trump orbit and why he believes the president is more powerful now than ever. >> i keep saying, it was like being in a cult. i mean, and when they say organized crime. i don't think organized crime, he's like a cult leader. right now the scary part, i keep mentioning and people don't understand, there's a lot of republicans that would go against him. the only reason, if you will take a look and you know very well because you've been following the different between why trump is so powerful now, he wasn't as powerful in '16 and '17. he became that powerful when he got william barr. >> michael steele will echo what we said yesterday and what delanian just said a moment ago. this is a man under indictment. may be saying things to clean up

his image, et cetera, et cetera, but almost everything he's saying is supported by previous testimony and documentedry evidence we've seen. this is not coming out of whole cloth. this is -- the picture he is painted is one we've seen from marie yovanovitch, seen from bill taylor, seen from lieutenant colonel vindman. we've seen from fiona hill, all the witnesses who sat before these impeachment committees. so i guess the question is, how could you, in good conscience, as a republican senate, not necessarily vote to convict, if you don't believe that this is impeachable, but at least to hear witnesses and give the appearance of a fair trial? >> that's it. that is it. which is why it's so galling when you have the lindsey grahams of the world and even mitch mcconnell before this process even begin saying, i don't want to see the evidence. i don't want anything that the house does to come across my desk. i don't care. and then stand in front of the country yesterday and put their

hand up and go i swear to faithfully execute my responsibilities as my role, in my role as a juror. well, you're lying to us. you can't have it both ways. so you either are going to take all of this new information and say to the american people we're going to have to look a little further. yes, we're going to have to call these individuals who have now been named, and named in such a way, willie, to your point, that it corroborates what others who have already testified have said. even to the point of overhearing the president on a phone. i mean, so it wasn't -- that wasn't a one-off, like, oh, gee, the president doesn't talk loud. here. parnas said, yeah. i was in a room, the president on the phone with rudy and i could hear the president talking. so all of this sort of puts in motion the pressure on republicans to take this seriously. to your point, willie. they could, after looking at all the evidence and hearing the witnesses conclude, okay. there's no reason to convict.

i give you that. but at least, for heavens sakes, listen to the witnesses. take that testimony. get it cross-examined appropriately, and then make that decision. don't come into this trial acting like you already know what's up when, in fact, you don't. and otherwise, if you do think you have it all together, what's coming out right now shows and puts pressure on you to say something very different. i think this is the problem. a lot of republicans are going to face starting next week when they sit there and this evidence begins to unfold a little bit more, a little bit more. why the lamar alexanders of the world are beginning to re-assess exactly what they can do at this moment to move the needle on this. >> again, chief justice of the united states swore in the senators yesterday for the trial and they were asked to solemnly swear to do impartial justice according to the constitution and the law. they were sworn in under impartial justice yesterday. meanwhile, those republican

leaders, many of them claims lev parnas is a liar who is just trying to avoid a prison sentence. here's some of that from yesterday. >> to me, the source that the evidence is the best question of all the evidence i've seen, it's a bunch of nos, have nothing to do with the facts far as i'm concerned and the people in question are sketch y at best. >> this man lacks all credibili credibility. say pattern with cohen, with auv yach -- avenatti. this is the same man that said devin nunes was in vienna when he was not. he doesn't have any credibility. >> this is predictable, obviously. the way trump defenders always go, even rudy giuliani himself, the first night of the parnas interview with rachel said that lev parnas is a "sad situation," joe. so attack the source, that seems to be all they have. >> but again, though, that's the

same man who was talking, evan drellich mccarthy, who told the republican conference that donald trump was on the take. he was on the take from vladimir putin, that he was on putin's payroll along with dana roar bakr. what evan drellich become karnlgy sakarnlg evan drellich mccarthy. and lindsey graham the man for most of 2016 and 2017 said donald trump was not fit to be commander in chief, that he was crazy. that he was mentally unstable, that he lacked the character to be president of the united states. that's who that man is, lindsey graham. so mika, very -- very hard to listen to these two. >> i know. >> listen to these two gentlemen talking about inconsistencies when, in fact, they have been the most inconsistent. you know, they hated donald trump until he got power and then they embraced donald trump.

>> all right. joining us now state tern for palm beach county dave arenberg. and dave, how do prosecutors answer defense lawyers who try to discredit a star witness who has a sketchy past? because that's what we're looking at. >> mika, it is trial practice 101 for criminal defense lawyers to undermine the credibility of prosecution witnesses by pointing out their sketchiness. in the real world it often takes criminals to convict other criminals. serious accusations of bribery and mother teresa ain't walking through that door. you'll have guys who live on the edge like lev and igor. not going to have 50 choir boys involved with such a keep. the thing is, rudy giuliani is the one who brought them to the table. they're not a fabrication of a deep mythical state. they're a part of rudy giuliani's team. hard to deny that. notes that corroborate him, other witnesses under oath

during the house impeachment inquir inquiry. think he's lying after all that, call him as a witness at the senate trial. if you don't dot that means you don't care about the truth or you can't handle the truth. >> yeah. interesting. fascinating points, but, willie, nothing near as fascinating as t.j. putting up the nine box. it's never happened. >> that's a lot of people on this tv show. >> i don't think the bradys even had a nine box. or maybe they michael steele's sweater. >> mopping in the nine box. the standout. >> he does pop in the nine box. so dave arenberg what is -- we need to pass this around. need lightning round. everybody needs a pop. but dave arenberg, of course, the irony is so thick that you could cut it with a russian knife, combat knife, and that is, rudy giuliani himself spent his entire career using bad guys to turn on bad guys to take down

bad guys. this is how rudy giuliani lived. this is how rudy giuliani made his name. >> indeed. and the rudy giuliani of 30 years ago would likely have prosecuted the rudy giuliani of today. >> yes, he would. >> meanwhile, bill barr bashar al assad yea-- right. and bill barr, attorney general, surprised he wasn't recused himself. he's clearly part of this. the doj said, no, no, no. they're not true, but you know, where lev parnas gets corroboration from president trumps himself. told us to read the transcript. it says president zelensky follow-up with bill barr. if this continues that the senate and the house they want to do to bill barr what they did to president trump.

that is impeach him. >> hey, wanted to follow-up on the trial in the senate especially notion of executive privilege. we know john bolton has signaled he would be willing to testify if witnesses were allowed and honor his subpoena. is that something the president and the white house could try to block and then as a part two of that, say lev parnas is involved, executive privilege would not apply there. correct? >> correct. he was not part of the administration. also, all of this stuff waived. it's limited what is left over for executive privilege. john bolton can testify and give us the goods. after all he's going to release it in his book. this whole thing about executive privilege is a stall tactic. they want to say, executive privilege, take this up to the court. my hope, john bolton isn't doing a wink and nod with the administration saying, already, everyone. i'm going to testify. i'm a good guy. last minute says, oh, executive privilege. i can't. no. he can testify, and he should.

>> all right. dave arenberg, thank you so much. >> thank you, dave. that was great. >> appreciate it. >> thank you. >> willie? nbc news is reporting the office of director of national intelligence quietly asked the house and senate committees to close its annual worldwide threats hearing to the public this year. the request comes after president trump was angered last year by the assessments of intelligence chiefs that undercut his past statements on various foreign policy issues facing the country. ken delanian, your reporting on this story. how unusual would it be to close this? and is it as simple as president trump didn't like what he heard last year? >> it would be incredibly unusual, willie. we cannot remember a time when it has happened. it is an example how this president corrodes the normal feck niches of government. the worldwide threats hearing is an annual exercise sort of like a state of the union for the intelligence community. the only time these senior spy chiefs appear in public and talk

about the threats facing the nation and released a written unclassified assessment and last year got out and said a lot of things that completely undercut statements donald trump was making about north korea, trump saying no more threat from north korean nuclear weapons and about isis. trump saying we've defeated isis. of course, intel chiefs had to say, no, in fact isis remains a threat. and trump was angry about that and trump's allies said why are we eving having these hearings. this year, there are other things that would tend to embarrass donald trump if discussed at this hearing and certainly would be. for example, the question of whether there was an imminent threat when the united states decided to take out qassem soleimani. further questions about north korea and isis, and just the other day there was report that the russian military intelligence agency hacked into burisma, the company in ukraine that put joe biden's son on its board. so people are looking at that as an example how the russians, the

same russians who hacked the democrats are back at it and something donald trump doesn't want intel officials to talk about in public. yeah. made this quiet ask of the house and senate intelligence committees, let's, please, not have an open hearing, but there's no way adam schiff will stand for that are. he issued a letter yesterday. testifying publicly. the question, will they refuse? because i've talked to people in the i.c. they really don't want to do this, don't want to appear in public. afraid of getting crosswise with donald trump. the kr cia director doesn't lik testifying in public anyway. two public appearances in her entire tenure. it's looming with a confrontation with congress that could be troubling for the intelligence community and its relationship with the hill. >> all right. ken delanian, thanks so much. important report. really appreciate it. david ignatius, we certainly

could understand why chris fer wray and others would not want to go before congress and antagonize donald trump. not because they fear donald trump, but because they wanted to keep their agency and their agency's ability to protect american democracy as strong as possible. at the same time, without this testimony over the past few years, the american people would have not heard the truth about isis. that it wasn't dead. about north korean nuclear technology. that we had nothing left to fear of it, or i think most importantly, when they all testified that the greatest threat to american democracy was not a thermonuclear blast from kim jong-un but rather vladimir putin hacking in to american election systems. so how does gina haspel balance that and chris wray balance that?

>> joe, as ken said in his reporting, this annual threat assessment is a key organizing moment. it's part of regular order for our government. this testimony is prepared. the agencieshe analysts, work out consensus positions. what disturbs me the most is that this report, which is an essential kind of guidepost, isn't going to be issued this year. it's going to be delayed, because the intelligence agency chiefs are afraid of the president's reaction. this is -- this is the situation that you most fear, is that our intelligence agencies will begin to pull in their operations for fear of offending a petulant white house that may not like being told truth to power on any particular issue. then i think we really get into

a much more dangerous situation where people are pulling their punching. that's what we're talking about here is -- is a threat assessment that's an essential part of the intelligence community to do its job being pulled, because of the fears of presidential political reaction. so i hope that this, the surfacing of this will encourage gina has pelpel and the others take whatever heat there is from the white house, whatever the president doesn't like, that's his problem. they're just telling him the truth. >> all right. coming up in the wake of iran's attack on u.s. forces in iraq earlier this month, president trump said no american troops were harmed. now the pentagon is saying some troops were, in fact, injured. we're going to get to that reporting ahead on "morning joe." (whistling)

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all right. beautiful shot of new york city at 53 past the hour. heidi przybyla before you go, what are you looking at today and what is the significance of lamar alexander and what he posted especially as pertains to witnesses? >> very significant. lawmakers left town without sees

the resolution under which this impeachment would be conducted. even though mitch mcconnell said he would do that. lamar alexander cut a video saying i am so glad we've got an promise from the leader to have an up or down vote on witnesses once all of the testimony is presented. so that was lamar alexander in his own way joining democrats in putting that pressure on mcconnell saying, hey, you promised. i'm leaving town. good-bye. see ya on tuesday. >> hmm. heidi przybyla. thank you very much. >> hmm. and still ahead, republican congress' candidate robert hyde says he was only playing when he sent messages about spying on then u.s. ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch. but the fbi was not laughing when agents showed up to his home and office yesterday. we'll have the latest on that ahead on "morning joe." ♪ limu emu & doug

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no, this was not easy for parnas to reveal all this because he said he had special feelings for trump. >> you loved president trump? >> loved him. i mean, he, i mean -- when the fbi came to my house my wife felt embarrassed because they said i had a shrine to him. i had pictures all over. i mean, i idolized him. i thought he was the savior. >> yeah. i can understand that. i can understand that, because every time i look at trump i say, jesus. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it is friday, january 17th. thank god it's friday. week. still with joe, willie and me we have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. columnist and associate editor for the "washington post" david ignatius. former chair of the republican national committee michael steele, and the joining the conversation, "new york times" reporter jeremy peters and legal

analyst for nbc news and msnbc mya wiley, also with us, republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan del percio is with us and senior writer at politico and co-author of the playbook, jake sherman. an msnbc political contributor and just one more, professor at history at tulane university walter isaac. are we going to have a 12 box today? >> let's do it! >> very exciting. you know, walter, in these tribal political times that we live in, you often know what's going to happen in congress well before the vote's taken. this, though is a time -- we find ourselves in this very interesting time where there are a lot of pieces that are moving around. the board has been sort of thrown up in the air. you have 70, 75% of americans who want to hear from witnesses. want a fair, open trial. the opposite of what the senate

majority leader and the head of the judiciary committee are asking for. you have this extraordinary parnas information. interview, plus a lot of supporting documentation, and you have a few republican senators that have actually dared to say out loud that they think that perhaps learning the truth about this is the best approach. and so there are some question marks out there about what the next few weeks are going to look like. >> well, up until now it's been profiles and cowardice on every person involved on the republican side. with this, just finding ways that are kind of, make you xweem and are odious to try to suppress in the discussion or any evidence, but as these new facts come out i think there are certain republicans that are going to say, you know, if we barreled down this path, and

don't even ask questions and don't even get some of the facts right and some of the witnesses, it's going to hurt us in the short term and we're going to go down in history looking ridiculous. there are people like lamar alexander who are decent people. who have been around for a while, and who actually care that the senate does well and the nation does well. susan collins seems to be a little on the fence on that. so not everybody is kind of this craven kriseling like lindsey graham who lost all backbone and just trying to scamper along with trump. i think wyou'll have some peopl, even if i don't vote to impeach, we owe it to ourselves to do or duty and listen to the evidence. >> jake sherman, has majority leader set the tone for weeks now saying i'm coordinating strategy with the white house saying there is no chance we are going to convict this president? we ought to move along and get

this over with and that it's a sham, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? how do they come off of that position? even if they watched the lev parnas interviews with rachel maddow, even if john bolton has volunteered to testify. do you see any reason to believe that, any significant numbers, maybe mitt romney steps off, maybe susan collins, maybe lisa murkowski and a small handful of republicans, but do you see any reason to believe the dynamic has changed in light of john bolton volunteering himself or lev parnas giving his new information in the interview with rachel? >> i don't. for a few reasons. number one what you said is right. mitch mcconnell has said basically that are going to -- they're going to acquit him. not been shy about that. beginning of this week in the capitol, mitch mcconnell opening the floor i believe tuesday, could have been wednesday, he said, why should we do the house's job? the house was supposed to get the witnesses? just because they didn't do the job doesn't mean we need the job

for them. number two. number three, lamar alexander you noted a little bit ago said he supported a vote on witnesses. we need to listen to that very carefully. he's saying, he supports the opportunity to vote on whether there are witnesses. he's not saying i want to call witnesses. he's saying, i support the mechanism that would allow for that vote. so he's basically -- everyone supports that mechanism at this point, all 53 republican senators support that mechanism at this point. we're see in two or so weeks how they vote on that mechanism. susan collins said last night basically she believes she will vote for more witnesses but she's the only one that has said this. at this point, lamar alexander a very close ally of mitch mcconnell going back a few decades. i don't know how he votes. it's important to keep in mind. few people in anybody said i

will vote to call witnesses, i want a witness package and do it no matter what. we'll see after a few weeks of a trial where he they land. let be clear here. republicans most likely are going to vote to acquit him. democrats are going to vote to convict him and there's not much in the middle. additional witnesses according to a lot of people we talked to almost every day won't change those votes by and large. that's not a popular thing to say but i just -- that, to me, seems to be the political reality. >> jeremy peters, every one of the senators we're talking about took an oath yesterday from the chief justice of the supreme court to "do impartial justice according to the constitution and the laws." so what is the sincere behind-the-scenes argument for not hearing witnesses? we know what they're being told to say by mitch mcconnell and by the white house. do they really believe that john bolton, if it is impartial justice and a fair trial, do they really believe we shouldn't hear from john bolton? do we really believe we

shouldn't try to hear, at least, from rudy giuliani? do they really believe we shouldn't hear from lev parnas after everything he's told rachel maddow over the last couple days? >> i can tell you how they're going to try to get out of that, and the talk going on behind the scenes right now is one of trying to ask for two things. they want -- they will say they're open to witnesses only if there are democrats who are called. like hunter biden. right? and they're going to say, look, it's not fair. if you're only going to call the people who are around the president, people who are involved with this white house, that's, the fix is in. this is a rigged trial. so we want you to call other people. we have our own list of witnesses as republicans we want you to call. that's what they're going to say and my sense is that democrats are going to balk at that and it's going to just devolve into more in-fighting and we're going to be at another impasse. jake is exactly right when you look at somebody like lamar alexander and parse his words,

he's not saying he's going to vote for witnesses. he's saying he's open to the discussion, and i think there's a lot of misreporting and misunderstanding that has gone on around just how open republicans are to considering witnesses. i think what it boils down to, willie, there's two republican parties. this republican party that exists on op-ed pages and in the minds of democrats who are -- and republicans, for that sake, who really look at trump and horrified by what they see and think maybe some day my party, the republican party, is going to come around and see the daylight here. and break with president trump. then there's the actual republican party where i think the odds of that happening are very, very slim. >> so mya, benefit of the doubt. say we do get witnesses. talk to us about what that will look like? what kind of procedure will there be? who does questioning? how long up there? is there a possibility some will be deposed in private and americans won't sigh ee it happ?

>> yes. >> all right. give us a little more than that, though. >> the short answer is, depends how the senators want it to go, because, remember to your question, jonathan, the centers will decide how the trial proceeds, which means they'll say whether or not calling witnesses means having them deposed in private. it will, or whether we'll actually have questioning that's in public. they will decide all of those things. as we know from the clinton impeachment trial there were depositions behind closed doors that were viewed. it was not really a witness in the sense we would normally have it in a trial, in a courtroom. so that's really up to the senators, and i think to the extent there would be any witnesses, they will do their best to make it captured in a private room, because to the extent that deal gets made, and it would be a political deal, that it would be something that they would not want in the

public purviepurview. that's unfortunate. because if a john bolton who refused to participate in any way, despite no legal argument not to cooperate with congress in the investigation of these impeachment allegations, and having written a book, that he -- that the idea that -- what he knows can be kept from the american public, i think given the point about how the vote is likely to go if it stays in the dark, means the public should at least have the information to make decisions that are central to democracy which is who they want to vote for. >> well, to jeremy's point about there being two republican parties. here is senator martha mcsally of the actual republican party lashing out at a cnn reporter asked her if the senate should consider the new material provided by rudy giuliani indicted associate lev parnas during president trump's impeachment. >> senator mcsally, should the

senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial. >> man, you're a liberal hack. i'm not talking to you. >> you're not going to comment. >> you're a liberal hack. >> okay. now mcsally is trying to capitalize on his on-camera run-be in with the reporter, completely natural. not planned. he campaign send out a fund-raising email calling on supporters to help "fight back against liberal hacks." it's worth pointing out this. here is that so-called liberal hack reporter last year, questioning democratic congressman ilhan omar about president trump's comments she should step down blaming jewish political donors for republican support of israel. >> the president tried -- i'm asking you a question about your tweet. had you a tweet saying the president -- >> i -- yes, i tweeted. there's a response. you can run that. have a nice day.

>> jonathan lemire, it was -- >> yeah. >> talked about bad acting yesterday. this was, of course, not just bad acting but a bad example for everybody in arizona to see their senator acting that way. but this particular reporter has, i mean, i can name biased liberal reporters, beat reporters. he's -- he's certainly -- he's not on that list. he's, hasn't he always been respected as one of the most down the line reporters? >> absolutely. and a number of his colleagues rallied to his defense. rightly so. he's a good reporter, asks tough questions sometimes but fair questions. we saw the video. he did it in a very polite manner. this was a reasonable request in a timely manner and like he did it in a polite way. cameras running, clearly, mcsally a video up on her feed within the hour of that moment.

fund-raising off of it, the president approved. the person in our box who knows him best is jake sherman's what did you make of this? simply an attempt to score political points? behavior we usually see from this senator? >> i can speak about manu raju. it's laughable that he's a liberal hack. he has been accused by rand paul at times being mitch mcconnell's press secretary. the hardest-hitting capitol hill reporter probably in the press corps. incredibly fair. maybe she was talking about his golf game, which is quite bad. he is a hack as a golfer. >> shots fired. >> but he chases everybody. i've written a million stories with him in my career, and there's literally no better reporter and it's weird, because first of all her predecessor john mccain and manu had a very good and tough relationship at

times, and this is not the kind of behavior any reporter's used to on capitol hill. clearly mcsally is feeling pressure from a tough re-election campaign on an opponent raising millions of dollars to unseat her, because this kind of behavior is bizarre. we don't really see this too much, because on capitol hill we kind of co-exist with members of congress. very strange behavior. >> you know, it is strange, susan del percio and it's strange coming from her. she served this country proudly. when she lost a very close race, she conceded, and was very dignified about it. i remember noting how what a nice break that was from just sort of the cantankerous tankt approa approach most take. she set a terrible example,

embarrassed herself, because the question was a very straightforward question. do you want more information? do you want to know the truth? and it was so clearly calculated. it was like the bad acting of ted cruz we were talking about. i'm surprised she demeaned herself, immediately put it in a fund-raising pitch, and, yes. john mccain was very tough with reporters and news hosts. myself being one of those. but he and -- like, alan simpson, for instance, when aye firaye -- i first got to congress, they're tough, going to be all over you, but joe, return a reporter's phone call. they got a job to do, and -- and treat them with respect and dignity. that was alan simpson, who, by the way, was very tough with reporters, too. this was just a cheap attack, a cheap shot, just for, to have some cheap copy at a

fund-raising note. seems to be beneath contempt for a united states senator to do this. >> she just snapped. seems now that is the republicans' go-to line when they want to maybe president trump happy, just attack the press. especially cnn and other news outlets. and it was really disgraceful. i was shocked to see it, frankly, but this is the narrative she has chosen. i mean, at some point she probably realized she was appointed to this position. she needs the party's support, and she's now decided to fall in line, which is a shame, because that was not the way she ran her campaign even though she lost and like you said, she did a great concession. the other thing i think now that we're moving into a new phase, joe, is, you know, these senators are going to go home to their districts, going to spend time out there. then when they come back tuesday, they're going to be together for a very long time. they're going to be together six day as week, eight hours a day. they will not have all the

outside influence that they typically are used to in a day, in their day-to-day business. i think that this may have an interesting effect on some of them as they have to look at their colleagues and be almost accountable to each other in what they're listening to and being honest about what, how they should vote and seeking witnesses, et cetera. >> so michael steele, you know this business well. that's a transparent game that martha mcsally was playing yesterday. she heard a straightforward question, barked about the reporter being a liberal hack. two hours later, twitter account for president trump's 2020 election campaign, literally said three cheers for martha mcsal pip fund-raising letter goes out after that and takes on her opponent with perhaps a little more strength. served in the united states air force, went to the harvard school of government. a pretty down the middle national security republican. not like a talk radio host who got elected to congress. but this is what donald trump has done to republicans, and this is what he's done to

somebody who's got a tough re-election campaign coming up. >> it's like watching a rose sort of wither right there in front of your face. you know? the corruption, the poison, the ugliness. you know, knock the hell out of them. the ugly rallies. all of that. that is feeding into the veins of the party, in such a way that, you know, an air force vet like mcsally sounds like a political hack. and acts like one. and responds to a legitimate question. she could have just kept on to her office. she could have just said, well, you know, quick answer and move on, but, no. let me do the smackdown and then we utilize that to our advantage. the rub here is that she's in a tough re-election. and mark kelly is giving her what for right now. so those pressures are going to

manifest themselves even more over the next few months. so for her the challenge is going to be, how does she walk that line? because the problem when you're in trump world is you only see what's two feet in front of you. what republicans need to get in their heads, this is a long game. their day will come when he will not be there. you will have no cover and you will be fully exposed to the rest of the electorate, the rest of the country, and what do you do then? when they call up your record, when they show video clips of your behavior. you don't think mark kelly's going to run that add this fall? the rest of the state gets to see their senator, their poignant senator act like a political hack on behalf of the president? so you've got to think long term here. you've got to be smarter than the man in front of you who's telling you to show your behind, as my mama used to say and recognize your role as a united states senator and act accordingly. you know, we get it in the house. we know what's over there. but in the senate, the

expectation is a little bit greater. a little bit more. and the responsibility in front of you right now is to adjudge this president's behavior, objectively. on behalf of the country. and this is how you're going to do it? long game, baby. long game. you've got to be smart, and they're not. they're thinking right now, let me make trump happy, that will make my day. i'll raise a half a million dollars. i'm good. no, you're not. in the fall voters are going to vote on your behavior, and your leadership. >> the thing is, willie, if she raises half a million dollars off of that, her opponent raises $1 million off of that. arizona's a swing state. it's as -- no. it doesn't work! her opponent is going to do just as well, or better, fund-raising off of that moment and the only thing she's done is hurt herself in the eyes of independent and swing voters that are trying to

figure out which the way to go. >> voters are pretty smart. aren't they? they can see through something as transparent as a short-term fund-raising pop like we saw yesterday. meanwhile, introduced to all kinds of new seedy characters in the ukraine story. a senior law enforcement official tells nbc news fbi agents visited home and business of congressional candidate robert hyde yesterday. one of hyde's neighbors toll nbc news and agent parked out his home before dawn but did not enter. visit comes days after the house intelligence committee released texting associate lev parnas over whatsapp suggesting hyde had then u.s. ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch under surveillance. hyde claiming he had been drinking and was not serious when he sent the texts. a spokesperson in new haven declined to comment on the vitass. hyde did not immediately respond to nbc news request for

comments. mya, we know ukraine, the government of ukraine is actually the one looking into whether or not ambassador yovanovitch was in fact surveilled, physically surveilled. lev parnas told rachel a couple nights ago he didn't take these whatsapp messages seriously from robert hyde because hyde said himself, he was "always drunk." how do you as this person robert hyde thrust into our lives unwelcomely? >> very unwelcomely. number one is, i would as it as whatever robert hyde is, he is someone who is willing to make very threatening statements about at the time a sitting united states ambassador to a country in a hot war. so that is extremely concerning and must be taken seriously by law enforcement. i think it was matt miller who said yesterday on twitter, what took them so long? because law enforcement has had these messages for months. >> yeah. >> and, again, even though marie

yovanovitch was no longer in the ukraine potentially at the time, there's the question of timing is important here, but it doesn't matter, and what was interesting is that the ukrainians have now asked the fbi for support in their investigation of surveillance of marie yovanovitch and one of the reasons that's so interesting is not just because it's important to understand if there were any real threats, and whether robert hyde in fact knew or had the ability to engage in any real threatening behavior, it's because this is how it's done. so when donald trump says, i was just concerned about corruption, and, therefore, was using my personal attorney, and people like lev parnas to go and find out what was going on with the bidens and burisma, that the actual way that do you that if you're concerned is you ask law enforcement to the go through proper channels to reach out to a foreign government. and ukraine is just demonstrated

to the united states how it's supposed to be done while we're watching historic process unfold on whether donald trump is in fact corrupt. >> mya, have you seen evidence the justice department, not the ukrainian government, the justice department or state department more importantly is looking into these accusation, and into these reports that marie yovanovitch was under physical threat? by the way, she got a phone call telling her to get out of the country and catch the next plane. so clearly she felt physically threatened. >> i was just going to mike that point. one clear and specific piece of evidence we have is the fact there's nothing normal about that kind of late-night phone call. remember, on an evening where marie yovanovitch is remembering the vicious murder of an anti-corruption activist in the ukraine, who's getting a posthumous award and then she's getting this call saying you've got to get out of there, from -- from the government. so that is very powerful

evidence. so when you see robert hyde's exchanges, notwithstanding we don't know. right? but when you see exchanges that suggest that he's saying, well, with enough money, i mean, literally in his exchanges he's suggesting you could pay someone to do harm. we don't know that that's in fact what he could do or what he meant and obviously lev parnas who has every reason to be forthcoming if he thought, if he took that seriously, does have some weight, but you can't take that kind of threat and not investigate it seriously. >> you know, walter isaacson, you obviously remember watergate well. i'm wondering as we move towards this trial how things line up? you have a president who extorted a foreign leader of a democratic country to try to dig up dirt on a domestic political rival. held up nearly $400 million in aid. military aid to protect this democratic country against the

russians. he broke the law, the gao tells us yesterday in so doing. you have a vice president up to his neck in his scandal now, it appears. was there at the very beginning trying to actually push this "drug deal" through. you have the president's personal attorney running surveillance on a highly respected diplomat, and basically doing a political hit job on her. while indicted co-conspirators were running around doing the business of the president's attorney, who reached out and said, i am doing the business of the president of the united states. in trying to run this so-called drug deal. you have a secretary of state who remains mute, as ambassador yovanovitch's reputation is not only soiled but also she is threatened physically and told

to flee the country that she represented for the united states of america, as quickly as possible. and mike pompeo, the secretary of state says absolutely nothing. you have the majority leader of the united states senate saying there were not be a fair trial, and conspiring with the defendant in an impeachment trial, to see how the defendant wants it run. and then you've got the guy running the judiciary committee for the united states senate saying, we are not going to have a fair trial. i do not want to hear any new evidence. i don't want to the know the facts. i'm going to try to rig this and get rid of it as quickly as possible. all of those facts lined up, how does that compare to nixon, watergate and all the president's men in 1973 and 1974? >> and i'm going to add two

more. like nixon, there's just a group around him of criminals, thugs and odious people, in this case led by rudy giuliani, that are even worse than the plumbers unit in g. gordon liddy and that crowd. secondly, weirdly, you have an attorney general of the united states, somebody that had a respectable career even worse than john mitchell now in sort of just becoming craven. willie said something earlier today, which is that every republican that donald trump touches turns embarrassing,turn s craven and somebody that's going to out-trumpian everybody else. that's where you have a difference with watergate. because back then the conservatives in the senate, people like barry goldwater, had had a certain type of independence that john mccain would have had. all of john mccain's prose shte

now, he must be deeply embarrassed in a lindsey graham or a mcsally who replaced, took his seat in the senate, because none of them have the backbone that we began to see in watergate. i think in the end, having a sham trial, calling no witnesses, actually hurts the republicans, because then we're going to have week after week, month after month. >> it does. >> of more evidence that they seem to want to dodge. >> it does hurt the republicans far more than it's going to hurt the democrats. nobody thinks the president's going to be convicted at the end, but they -- but at the same time, their seeing, if they're seeing following lindsey graham and mitch mcconnell's path, people like martha mcsally and caulked about it before, gardner, collins, tillerson, they're in for a world of hurt politically, and they'll find that out seven to ten days before their re-election

campaigns come to an end. and their careers come to an end if they sit back and blindly vote to follow this failed reality tv host over the cliff, and into political oblivion. david ignatius, i forgot to add, of course, donald trump's cohen to my list of democratic horrors that surround donald trump. how do you compare was going on now to '73 and '74? >> i think the biggest difference is that in the watergate scandal you had had republicans especially in the senate who took their responsibility seriously. you had real profiles in courage. senator baker, senator sam iv , irvin, spoke to the center of the country, from the center of the country, who carried this

growing conviction that the public had that something really wrong had happened here. those voices of moral authority just seem to be missing here. look at this morning with martha mcsally, distinguished person before coming to the senate, asked a question, what about the new evidence from lev parnas? seems to be central to the case that you swore to be, give impartial justice on and she snaps, said the reporter asked the question, you're a liberal hack. i wish that didn't play well with republican voters, but it does. attacks on the press are the only thing they've got going, but i think the question is whether there will be a kind of rebellion on the part of the public against that kind of dismissal. when people are asked questions they say, hoax. they say, there's nothing here. you know? they don't answer the questions. they just respond with a sneer. if that doesn't change, we're

going to have a political bonfire and this process will just, you know, further worsen our divisions as we head towards the 2020 election. there is just a chance the republicans will get their balance, see their responsibility, and this won't be as politicized a process. they've sworn an oath to do impartial justice and want to look like they're doing that. if we dough that course trump will be acquitted but not the political crackup we fear. >> well, and mika, again, we talk about this all the time. all the republicans have to do is look to last year. end of 2018. to see that this approach led to the largest landslide defeat for republicans in the history of congressional elections. when it came to voting. it was an absolute disaster. all the lying about the caravans and people bringing leprosy to the united states. all the lies about, you know,

the troops needing to be sent down to the boarder over the holidays to stop this invasion. all of those lies backfired a republicans lost in a historic manner. you just wonder if they can't even look in their rearview mirror and see what they're about to crash into politically, or whether they're going to continue to follow this guy straight over the cliff into oblivion. >> mya wiley and jake sherman, thank you both for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," is it 1856 all over again? the host of. r's "american edition" steve our guest, explaining what was so significant about the election of 1856, and what it tells us about this year's race. also ahead, a republican member of the house intel committee congressman mike turner of the battleground state of ohio joins the conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. searching for a way to help stop your cold sore?

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joe." joining us now co-host of npr's "morning ed addition, steve inskeep. mapping the west, invented celebrity and helped cause the civil war, author of this book. hell of a byline. mapped the west, invented celebrity and helped cause the civil war. >> yeah. >> so tell us, or perhaps remind some people, who this power company is? >> yeah. the story of a man who explored the american west in the 1840s and '50s. didn't actually discover that much that was new, but came back and wrote best-selling books about his add veventures and hi

wife jesse helped him with this. and john fremont, the first-ever republican nominee for president. this new party trying to take advantage of the way the country was changing to push against slavery in ways that relate to the way the country is changing now. >> jon meacham would be happy we're talking about the president's election of 1886 this morning. >> yeah. >> why was that significant and gave us president james buchanan who ran against fremont? >> talk about that's happened then and what's happening now. the baaingdrop for everything discussing this morning is a divided nation where there is a big demographic change that makes people anxious. makes republicans in particular anxious they could be out of power forever. the a the same time you have democrats concerned about republicans shoving them out of power forever. 1856 was such a time, country divided then between north and south. free states and slave states. and the northern states had grown massively in population.

and it got to the point where some people in the north realized they could elect a president with northern votes alone, and close out the south. the only way you could have an anti-slavery party. the south found that profoundly threatening, and said if this new party, the republicans, ever won the white house they would secede from the union. fremont was the first person to try that. he did fail. got defeated by james buchanan, widely considered the worst president ever. something to have on your tombstone. i was beaten by the worst president ever, but he made a path for abraham lincoln the next guy to try it in 1860. >> what was the argument fremont was making and what was he saying? do you see parallels today? >> fremont nos actually arguing to abolish slavery. a deeply racist time in america, but he argued to stop the spread of it into newly settled, newly organized territories in the

american west. that was something that the south found intolerable. they wanted to be able to expand sla slavery. because of the broader anxiety who was in power and would permanently be in power it became an incredibly -- john fremont the illegitimate son of a french immigrant, his father along with a virginia aristocrat. so the opposition press revealed he was an illegitimate son. then they changed him from being the son of an immigrant to an immigrant himself, suggesting he'd been born overseas and wasn't eligible for the presidency. there were birthers in 1856 and that was the beginning of the viciousness, so so to speak. accused him also of being a member of the alien religion catholicism, which was a charge he had great difficulty refuting. he didn't want to refute it

because he felt if you denied that you were catholic while running for president you would be saying a catholic should not be president. he didn't want to go there. >> stephen, another pretty good historian. walter isaacson has a question for you. >> oh, he's great. >> you know, i found, steve, this book -- thank you. i find the book particularly interest and the topic, because it's really the last time you have a major re-alignment of parties. things fractured so badly. they don't even renominate pierce. they get buchanan, and it seems to me that there could be a relevance to today that this could happen at a certain point in america today in which the democratic party might go for a bernie sanders, not even technically a democrat. the republican party has been hijacked by donald trump, who's not really a republican. somebody who's been a pro-clinton democrat through the '80s and '90s and leaves some

room for a third party to come up the middle. i've always had a fantasy that even a michael bloomberg could do it asking a condi rice to be a running mate. bloomberg ruled that out totally. bloomberg is not going ta rouha route. is there a way to disrupt the dysfunction two-party system the way they did in 1856? >> as you observe, the system is already somewhat disrupted. isn't it? one of the things that happened in the 1850s, a major political party went away, collapsed, the wiigs. one of the things they tried to do go from being a anti-immigrant party to a pro-immigrant party. wanted to be more supportive of immigrants, appeal for immigrant votes and lost their anti-immigrant voters. not that. people opposed to immigration. there are parallels to draw. not exactly the same to what's happened to the republican party. whose elites attempted to

embrace particularly latinos in recent years and discovered their electorate wasn't there. electorate concerned about the border, border security and issues president trump has taken advantage of. i don't know how a third party gets into the system that we have, simply because there's been another more than a century for these two major parties to be entrenched, and codified, but in a way you have had a president who has very different views than republicans have in the past on certain issues, who has profoundly changed the party, and even lawmakers who maybe had different views in the past have gone silent. >> james buchanan largely considered worst president but not impeached. moving to a president who has been impeached. donald trump. you interviewed john bolton national security adviser not done much in the way of press since leaving office and certainly since the impeachment inquiry began. your sense of him, do you think

he is willing to testify in the impeachment trial or an effort to sell a book? >> when i spoke with him he said he had a lot to say about impeachment and he wanted to say it later. it's become clear that the forum he really wants to say that is a book. that cynic or not, i'll leave somebody else to judge but that seems to be the way he wants to do it. since that interview on npr put out a statement saying he is willing to testify before the senate. it's hard to know what to make of that. he wasn't willing to testify before the house, which wanted to hear him. now he's willing to testify before the senate? which doesn't want to hear from him, but we are seeing this process play out where it remains plausible. i don't think we'd say likely, that somebody might call him on that, and then we'll find out if he would truly resist or not but he's put himself on the record he feels obliged to testify. bolton is a lawyer. bolton is a guy of procedure. he's also a guy of extremely strong views, but it's tempting

to think that having said he would testify if asked that he actually means that. >> remains to be seen after even witnesses in the trial. the book "imperfect younion." steve inskeep, thanks for being here. coming up on "morning joe," president trump claims his call with the president of ukraine was perfect. our next guest is a republican on the committee that led the impeachment investigation. he says the call was not okay. congressman mike turner of ohio is standing by. we'll talk to him about impeachment, iran and more next on "morning joe." we're reporters from the new york times.

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that 11 americans service members are being treated for concussions.

following iran's missile strikes against u.s. troops in iraq. s u.s. central command released a statement saying in part -- all personnel in the vicinity of the blast are screened for traumatic brain brain injury an deemed appropriate are transported to a higher level of case. the pentagon said that the service members are expected to return to iraq following their screenings. willie. >> and joining us here in new york, a member of the house armed services and intelligence committees, republican congressman mike turner of ohio. congressman, good morning. good to see you. what is your assessment now two weeks after the killing of soleimani, now that you've seen what's happened in the two weeks since? >> i think what this illustrates how serious this attack was. so many times, people saw this attack as no loss of life and therefore diminished the fact that this was a serious attack. iran clearly intended to have --

to cause casualties and to injure americans. and i think certainly all of america had a pause as they saw these missiles flying into an area that were occupied by americans, concerned for american lives and certainly of those family members that knew that they had loved ones there. >> i don't think there's a lot of weeping for the death of general soleimani who has killed americans in the field. but the white house's explanation of an imminent threat and saying no, it was the reaction to a killing of a contractor in kirkuk and some other incidents inside of iraq, are you concerned that the whose couldn't explain why exactly in that moment it was imperative to go after soleimani? >> well, i think the first discussion is that there needed to be a response. and i think everyone knows from seeing the flames coming out of the american embassy in baghdad that this was a level to which the united states needed to respond. it was a clear understanding that this was being directed by iran and the response would be to iran. then there's the issue of to

what extent is the response and i think that's when the factors came in with soleimani. i can tell you on the intelligence committee, when we had the briefing of all the things that soleimani was planning and all the things that were risks, it was clear there was was not a member of the intelligence committee, republican or democrat, that challenged the severity of what soleimani was planning and what its impact would be. >> and was it that he was planning attacks on four united states embassies? did you hear that specifically? >> i can't say that, even if the president does decide to release classified information, we're still bound by what classified information is. i can tell you this. that it was incredibly expensive and there was no one at the time of the hearing that thought it did not rise on tt level of understanding that there was an imminent threat. >> even the defense secretary said in an interview a couple of days later, well, the president didn't say necessarily there were specific threats. he said he thought there were probably threats against embassies. >> what esper said is i didn't see that.

quite frankly, there are a number of components of intelligence. there's intelligence we receive from our foreign partners. there's intelligence that we generate ourselves. and the president's briefings and who he gets briefed from, how it comes together and rises to the level of choosing soleimani has a number of components. he said he had not seen that. >> so you take the president at his words that there were threats for united states embassies and soleimani had to be killed in that moment on that day. >>. >> that was the imminent threat. >> there were a number of components of threats to american lives and american service members and i can tell you in the intelligence committee, it was incredibly expensive and incredibly specific of the number of things that soleimani was planning that were directed as americans. >> how do you explain the

frustration from senate republicans, the briefing they came out of? they were furious in a way i haven't seen them be furious about this president that they didn't see enough evidence, that they couldn't ask questions, that they didn't see any justification of an imminent threat. >> i'm not in the senate. i don't know what their briefing was. i participated in a number of briefing including the full house briefing. i don't know about that particular briefing, but certainly the senator has available to him additional information that is of the level of information that we received and i can tell from you that information it was very clear that soleimani had full and complete intention to harm americans and our men and women in uniform. >> congressman, david ignatius has a question for you in washington. david. >> congressman, there's a report this morning that the director of national intelligence has asked the house and senate intelligence committees not to have their regular threat assessment briefing currently because of fear that as happened last year president trump might

be upset by some of the information. and i want to ask you, as a key member of the house committee, what is your feeling about this idea of delaying or postponing the threat assessment which is traditionally a key part of what the ic does? >> david, good to talk to you. as you know, there's the written portion of republic world threats assessment that is released and then there's the classified portion. we always receive a classified discussion concerning the classified document that's delivered to us. i think there certainly is great utility in having a public discussion. the public discussion needs to be about world threats and not certainly the president of the united states. it's about those who intend to do us harm. now, i don't know anything about the -- those claiming that they don't want to do it for fear of angering the president. i think if you look at the actual news reports, it's unnamed sources or even just one says unnamed source. so i wouldn't go as far to say

that we understand the president's intent on this, but i do think that looking clearly at the world threats that we have, identifying them, having a public discussion about them and the classified briefings allow us to formulate policy it's important to keep america safe. >> congressman, switching to impeachment, you were critical of the president's phone call with the iranian leader, but we have in the headlines today the independent the watchdog accountability office says what the trump administration did with ukraine was illegal. does that change your mind at all about impeachment? secondly, should witnesses be part of the senate proceedings? >> the jao doesn't determine what is legal and what is illegal. it's just their assertion in looking at what they reviewed. that was the allegation made by adam schiff throughout the process. even though, he didn't allege that a crime had been committed. we have a crimeless impeachment

that was sent over. but i disagree with the jao. let's say zelensky had been elected in ukraine and they declared war on russia. is the president bound to send aid over to ukraine that would aid in a war against russia in a war we don't intend to be in? i think the president has the ability to pause and go back to congress -- >> but that's not what happened there. >> the aid was paused and the aid was released. >> only after the whistle-blowerer's complaint was made public. and that's your assertion as to whether or not that was a motivation. but clearly, i believe that the jao is inaccurate in saying that the president does not have an ability to take a pause and take a review. >> and witnesses to the trial, sir, do you think they should be part of this? >> i think it's up to the senate. i think we should have had more open witnesses in the house, the fact that we had these dungeon depositions that adam schiff used as a dress rehearsal to determine who -- >> but aren't the dungeon depositions simply where the secure room in the capital room

is located, the basement? >> yes, but it is a great illustration that instead of having an open process -- i mean, you should have heard the first time that each of these witnesses were presented with these questions, not the second time that they were presented with them and you should have heard all the witnesses, not just the ones that were selected by adam schiff to be brought forward. there should have been a complete and open process in the house. the senate gets to determine their own process and they're doing that. >> so you think the about the did nothing wrong with regard to ukraine or just that he didn't do anything impeachable? >> i've said before i do not believe the president of the united states should have been on the phone having that type of discussion with the president of ukraine. i don't think it rises to the level of impeachment. and i think the evidence of that is the fact that the democrats' articles of impeachment does not rise to the article of alleging a crime. they allege abuse of power. this is a terrible precedent. if you go to the level of impeaching a president on abuse of power, certainly obama could have been im peerched going into

libya and removing and killing gadhafi without any action by congress and to the extent that you have a president doing a regime change. >> president obama didn't -- they didn't go in and kill gadhafi. the libyan people did, right? >> actually, they went in with the full intent -- i interviewed the admiral for regime change and that was not congressionally approved. that goes to abuse of power. and you're setting a dangerous precedent. every president could be open to impeachment on abuse of power if you're not following the constitutional parameters of a criminal act. >> we've opened an entirely new track to this conversation. please come back because we have a million more questions for you on this specifically. thank you. we're back in one minute. s specy thank you. we're back in one minute your disease hold you back. you inspired us to make your humira experience even better with humira citrate-free. it has the same effectiveness you know and trust, but we removed the citrate buffers,

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i know more about drones than anybody. i think i know more about the environment than most people. nobody knows more about trade than me. >> i know windmills very much. i've studied it better than anybody. >> wow. as conservative -- >> better than anybody. >> when trump says he knows everything, he knows nothing. when trump says he knows nothing, he knows something and that something is bad. >> you don't have to visit a maharishi to learn this insight. >> it's the bottom line. >> how beautiful is that, willie? somebody suggested last night after reading this that people should just put together a book of rules by donald trump. that's a great one. when he says he knows everything about something, he knows nothing at all. windmills, i bet i know more

about cows' left hooves than anybody in america. but then when he says he knows nothing, doesn't know somebody, ees lying. >> his speech about wind, you'll see bald eagles on the ground everywhere because the wind is killing -- the turbines are killing bald eagles. more significantly to what we're talking about here is the idea that the minute somebody says something that crosses him or makes somebody look bad or gets him impeached or gets him into legal jeopardy, he distances them immediately. >> a great -- another great lesson from windsor man that speaks well to so many people around this table, the worse trump treats you, the better history will treat you. considering the things that he's tweeted about us, we're in pretty good shape. willie, i'm very excited. i'm not so happy about how it

slipped out. some pictures from a couple of years ago, but i'm very excited to find out that you and alex have adopted a buzzer system. >> yeah. >> sayre derendipitously. you have a buzzer hidden. one buzz means smile and amuse joe. two buzzes mean cut joe off before he blows the entire show up. that gives me a bit more confidence. like the seven-second delay in the houston astros buzzer system. >> yeah. i learned everything i know from the houston astros. you're referring to the speculation that jose altuve has denied and major league baseball says it has no evidence yet of twitter that the astros were using a buzzer system with patches on his shoulder. a buzz would come from the dugout with which pitch is coming.

say again, it hasn't been proven, but there are photographs circulating, altuve wouldn't take his jersey off as he crossed home plate on the walk off. so we're going on live in this for a little while as yankee and red sox fans. we have. we've reached that point akin to the various scandals of the new england patriots where it is rampant speculation and people assuming if a is true, then b must be true. again, mlb has not said there's any evidence of wearables here, that they used that. but the houston astros are subjects of a huge sign stealing scandal. we've had alex cora from the red sox as well as carlos beltran, the mets manager who never even managed a game, but because he was a houston astro during this time, he had to step quay yesterday. so that's now three managers and a full 10% of the league's managers have stepped away. and i will say this a buzzer system.

you also did it in every show and you won't let us take off your shirt. >> never have. >> i most days ask you to remove your shirt at the he end of every show and you won't. >> and that's also weird. we will talk about that. carlos beltran losing his job as the mets manager. that's terrible. >> yeah. but jonathan makes a great point. the first three years of every friday, if we had a great show, you would tear off your t-shirt. >> yeah. >> and there would be you in, you know, your white t-shirt, sleeveless, of course, with jeff zucker's face on it. we don't see that any more. it's because zucker put the buzzer right there when he was around. why do you think they moved him over to cnn? they knew about it. >> and now i've got the steve burke t-shirt under here and i'm proud of that. it's just i don't want you to see the buzzer is all. >> okay. you know -- >> but i will say, you look at the picture of altuve coming home, grabbing his shirt, like

tonight tear it off. don't tear it off. come on, that's pretty bad. as you said, chapman just sat there kind of smirking at him when he hit that home run. you were right, he was smirking for a reason. he knows that 100-mile-per-hour slider sign was stolen. he knows it. and he just couldn't figure out exactly how. it's the buzzer. and alex, you know what alex is telling me? he says his buzzer obviously is not working on you right now because we're still talking about baseball. >> oh, my lord. with us now, columnist and associate editor for "the washington post" david ignatius. nbc news correspondent highly prisbella, msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele and nbc news correspondent covering national security and intelligence ken delaney joins us. good to have you all on board this morning. the senate impeachment trial of president trump has officially

gotten under way. preliminary proceedings kicked off yesterday as the senate officially received the two articles of impeachment and heard them read allowed by the lead democratic prosecutor, congressman adam schiff. after that, chief justice john roberts was sworn in as the presiding judge for the trial. he asked the nation's senators to solemnly swear to do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws. the senators replied, i do, in unison, and then signed the impeachment oath. the trial will start on tuesday at 1:00 p.m. before that, the house must deliver trial briefs laying out arguments to the senate by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow. white house counsel must deliver their trial briefs by noon on monday. if the house wishes to file a rebuttal brief, it must be handed over by noon on tuesday. at the white house yesterday, president trump was asked about the upcoming impeachment trial and, once again, described his

phone call with the president of ukraine, an issue at the center of his impeachment, was perfect. >> i think it should go very quickly. it's a hoax. it's a hoax. everybody knows that. it's a complete hoax. the whole thing with ukraine. >> according to the "new york times," president trump capped his day by meeting with several campaign aids and grilling them on how voters were receiving impeachment. while speak, advisers yesterday, trump once again repeated that he couldn't believe he was facing such a predicament as impeachment. the times notes that trump said he wanted people to be prepared for a motion to dismiss and has hoped for one even though majority leader mitch mcconnell has signaled that it won't happen. willie. >> let's bring in nbc news correspondent hans nichols. he is at the white house. so we hear the public posture of the president that this is all a hoax, that the phone call was perfect, he's not concerned.

but what is he reading right now and what is he really thinking as he sees the chief justice of the united states supreme court being sworn in to oversee a historic impeachment trial? i note that the president was praising senator lamar alexander on twitter yesterday. >> yeah. >> one of the republicans who has been viewed as perhaps one who might swing over to at least vote to include witnesses in this trial if not to convict the president. >> look, the white house, the president, they're making last minute adjustments. for all the talk and the prelude we've had to impeachment, it doesn't seem like they've settled on their strategy. that's really on two fronts. number one, it's not really clear what the full suite of the defense team is going to look like, right? the plan had always been as soon as the house announces managers, the white house would put forward their team. they haven't done that in a definitive way. guys, when there's a delay, there's typically a dispute. and the other big question that the president is pondering this morning is should he get on air force one and go to davos on

monday. yesterday when you listened to him, he was clearly hedging. and later on he seemed to be saying i've got all these meetings. the reason why that is important is because there's a conversation inside the white house on whether or not you want the president in the country, close to his twitter feed, close to his phone, or do you want him abroad trying -- and the stress on trying -- trying to look presidential. and the one challenge they're having is it's one thing if he had a nato summit in brussels or he's meeting with a foreign leader in asia, but davos has a different tenor. this is where the global elites get together. that's what they're weighing at the white house this morning, what to do with the defense team and whether or not the president should get on the train. as always, i suspect we'll get an audible from the president. and i didn't say audible because we have the lsu tigers coming here later today, but we have a little college football sports here. guys. >> all right. hans nichols, thank you so much. it was great seeing you the other day in the office. we hope to see you again very

soon. have a great weekend. so michael steele, you hear donald trump and he really -- he's talking to himself when he talks about a perfect phone call. really. and he says it's a hoax. what he's facing now isn't even what he was facing with mueller. there was more of a split when it came to what the american public believed. but he said it's a hoax and nobody can believe this is happening and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. yet over 70% of americans want a full and fair trial. they don't want moscow mitch and lindsey graham to shut things down. over 70% want to hear from witnesses. over 70 -- that's 7 in 10 americans. they want to know the truth. that's all they want to know. he they want to know the truth. >> that's it. and -- >> and -- but also, think about this. over 50%, a majority of

americans think he deserved to be impeached. again, he says it's a hoax. nobody can believe this. no, he's talking to himself. a majority believes he should be impeached. we remember that fox poll and some others believe he should be removed from office for that phone call and the things that he did around that, as well. so this is a problem with the republicans not being able to put together a defense of donald trump. he lives in a separate universe from the rest of them infectally and he's he disconnected from the reality of this political crisis. >> well, i think that's an essential part of this narrative that a lot of folks certainly in republican circles talk about in rather hushed tones because, of course, the president is the grand master planner here. after all, this is his strategy. what you're seeing is his strategy. he didn't want a war room during

the house impeachment trial. he did not want to set up the internal structure that would reinforce messaging, that would design a message, and then reinforce it to the public. so what happened was particularly when nancy pelosi decided, you know what? i'm just going to sit on these impeachment articles. we'll put them on the table for a little bit. it drew the whole game to another level. and it allowed a number of things that happened despite the nashing of teeth around it, that strategy proved to be smart because it solidified the interest and the desire among americans to want to know more and hear more, particularly as more information was coming out. without a counter narrative outside of this is a hoax put forward by the president. there was no effort, really, to put in place what you would need to have going into this trial next week. and that's why they're sitting at the white house right now and do we go to davos, do we stay

here, what do we say, what do we do, because there's no internal structure. this is the president's strategy from the gut and the politics of this does not necessarily work out well with him, particularly with the revelations from parnas and others. still ahead on "morning joe," heidi pris bella is taking the temperature in the senate when it comes to the potential of calling witnesses during the president's impeachment trial. she has the details, next. but first, a check of the forecast with bill karins. >> we're finally welcoming winter. it's plenty cold enough. the midwest is the problem spot this morning. schools canceled in kansas city, the driving in missouri has been treacherous. and we have -- these numbers keep changing. now we're up to about 75 million people impacted, either winter weather alerts or advisories or warnings. and the one that really jumps out is the blizzard warnings that cover the high plains.

this is not a blockbuster huge storm, but a lot of people are going to have to deal with 2 to 4 inches, some areas, maybe 6 inches of snow. everywhere in blue is 2 to 4 inches. the purple is 6 inches. chicago, 2 to 4 from you. notice from washington to philadelphia to new york, maybe an inch. that will be saturday. then it changes over to sleet and freezing rain. as far as airports go, the worst today, st. louis to minneapolis late in the day. we'll take those airport conditions into chicago. that snow moves in after about 5:00 p.m. the snow in areas like new york will be as we head towards noon on saturday. if you're driving on saturday, that pennsylvania turnpike going northwards on 95 from baltimore to boston will be some of the trouble spots. the morning commute, no problemses at all in chicago. if you can leave work early today do so. managing type 2 diabetes?

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welcome back so "morning joe." heidi, what are you hearing about the big question of whether or not witnesses will be called? >> i was trying to speak with some of these senators and calling around to their offices yesterday. i was instructed to look at a video tweeted out by lamar alexander. you mentioned him earlier, retiring senator who has great bipartisan respect and who is taking a very close look at this himself. he said he's potentially open to witnesses. you mentioned how the president was tweeting. i'm looking at the president's

twitter feed not once, but twice, suggesting he might give a gold medal to a tennessee service member. this is the group that we should be watching perhaps even more so than these vulnerable republicans, mika and joe. some of the dynamics in the chamber i think were instructive yesterday about who they're targeting yesterday. i was sitting up watching as this was all taking place as the articles were read and the senators took their oaths. what you saw was two groups, really. first it wasendispersed, senato mcconnell's floor managers made a bee line for them and were consulting for them. then you saw senator mcconnell talking up pat roberts. that's a name you haven't heard very much about, but this is fitting into that group of retiring gop senators who are truly, unlike some of these house members who voted against all of this, really may be instructive here because they are leaving congress. they actually are retiring. and i think that they are going to be watching all of this very

closely and there's a lot to happen yet over the next two weeks. yesterday, they were saying they hadn't actually read the lev parnas materials. they're going to have several days to look over that now, come back and think about it. even if these vulnerable republicans don't vote for witnesses because they're worried about their primaries, those retiring republicans have a lot to think about right now. >> and david ignatius, you know, we've known pat roberts and lamar alexander, both of us, for a long time. and as they come to the end of their career, i would think mitch mcconnell would be concerned that these gentlemen would vote their conscience and not just blindly follow donald trump and would vote to have a fair, open hearing and trial and get this new evidence that's coming in, that's come in since the house impeached, i don't -- i don't know what the motivation for either pat roberts or lamar

alexander would be to have at the end of their senate career a line about them blindly following an impeached president. and basically sacrificing their dignity and their integrity to suppress evidence, suppress the truth when 7 out of 10 americans want an open and fair trial and want to hear from these new witnesses. >> as we discussed often, joe, trump's insurgency in the republican party just burning the house down depended on the fear of republicans who didn't defend their party, didn't defend its values, essentially have fled. but as you say, someone who is retiring from the senate, who is thinking about his legacy, her legacy, is in a different place. the fear factor doesn't work in the same way.

and what i felt yesterday, many viewers did, watching what we could of these proceedings is this is real. it's really happening. for weeks and weeks, trump's strategy was to pretend it wasn't happening. just dismiss it, sneer, you know, it's a hoax, over and over again. but in that swearing in of the chief justice in the traditional solemn words and actions, you knew something real and lasting was happening. and i'm sure that got through to the senator roberts and lamar alexanders. but more to the country that were really going to watch this carefully now. and the senate will do itself harm if it doesn't take this seriously. because it just entered a new phase. we're not talking about it any more. it's happening. coming up on "morning joe," from helsinki to nato to the g7, president trump's appearances on the world stage haven't always

been his finest moments. david ignatius sizes up the white house strategy to send the president overseas during the height of the impeachment trial. that conversation is next on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ don't get mad. get e*trade, dawg.

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welcome back. with the impeachment trial closing in, the white house is considering sending the president abroad to project leadership. but david ignatius, as we've seen several times now, donald trump's appearances on the world stage don't always leave him in the best light. >> in my memory, his foreign trips have not been his finest hours. he gets peeved at people. he'll be pushy, get in fights that are unnecessary. what does he get out of it? he's surrounded by the world's business elite in davos. that is not exactly the brand he wants for 2020. i guess he does get to look

presidential. that didn't really work for richard nixon. that was his strategy in the early days of the watergate scandal and trying to surround himself with kissinger and the others. we'll see if that begins to happen next week when the trial begins in earnest, when the evidence is put forward and senators have to just listen to it. they don't get to make speeches and they don't get to record it. they can't look at their phones. they sit there and listen. and we'll see after a few days of that how that feels for the senate. >> as we talk about these republican senators, lamar alexander did say this week we have a constitutional duty to giving a fair trial. if that means looking at new evidence, that means looking at new evidence. that could mean documents, it could mean witnesses, it could mean new testimony. in other words, he's open to

hearing that. on the other side, you had senator martha mcsally being asked a very straightforward question about whether she would be open to hearing new evidence and she said the reporter was a liberal hack and wouldn't talk to him and went out and raised money on that. it seems to me the white house is counting on there being more martha mcsallys than there are lamar alexanders who are opening to the possibility of hearing from others. >> to this point, there are more willing to take the president's side and care less about the institutions. that is one of the running themes. and the senate here is, indeed, on trial, as well. it's not just donald trump. it's how they conduct themselves here. is this going to be in the words of the oath yesterday, impartial justice. is this going to be what the constitution demands? the president, he was certainly

pleased with the mcsally moment. it was a cnn reporter, manu who is terrific and asked a very fair and polite question. >> senator mcsally, should the senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial. that was the question. >> and he did it in the hallways, and he did it in a polite way. instead, she called him a liberal hack and, yes, within hours was fund-raising off of the exchange. the president, as we saw yesterday in the oval office, he is obviously very upset to the proceedings. the white house has been, to hans' point and to what david was saying, the idea of trying to counter the program. he doesn't want to just cede the spotlight to them. part of their plan is to have him on the road both rallies here at home, but also abroad. davos is sort of an odd fit for

him. he has been, once before as president. i think there is speculation this trip may fall apart between now and when he's supposed to depart, but they like the idea of him on the world stage throughout all of this. next month, they're considering a trip to india, as well, with a similar idea. coming up on "morning joe," with so many people involved in the ukraine story, you might forget rick perry's name was in there, too. lev parnas says the former energy secretary was recruited by rudy giuliani to get involved. that is next. volved that is next (whistling)

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now to the new revelations from rudy giuliani's indicted so he want associate lev parnas. parnas was arrested on campaign finance violations while trying to leave the country with a one-way ticket back in october. he is currently free on bail and

is cooperating with authorities and giving more press interviews. he's already implicated the president, vice president and attorney general in the scheme to pressure ukraine to dig up dirt on joe biden. now we're hearing the part of his story that involves the former energy secretary, rick perry, who parnas said was recruited by rudy giuliani after other attempts to pressure ukraine failed. >> perry says i spoke with zelensky and i got him to agree. i got him to agree to announce the investigation. >> and they did an announcement that they didn't announce that. every time somebody would meet zelensky, they would agree and then they would walk it back. so they announced something about corruption, that he's going to be under corruption but that giuliani blew his lid on that saying that's not what we discussed. it wasn't supposed to be a corruption announcement. it has to be about joe biden and

hunter biden and burisma. >> parnas described in great detail president trump's multiple attempts to fire former ukraine ambassador marie ya van vic yovanovitch. >> he fired her actually at the dinner, which was the most surprising thing ever. >> tell me more. >> basically, at that dinner, we had a conversation. there was like six of there. it was an intimate dinner. >> at the white house? >> no, at the trump hotel. but it was at the private, like, area there. looks like a little white house. >> and the president was there? >> absolutely. the t the president was there. his son, don jr., was there. i don't remember how the conversation came up, but i remember me telling the president that the ambassador was bad mouthing him saying that he was going to get impeached, something to that effect. at that point, he turned around to john desteffano, who was his

aide at the time, and said fire her. and we all -- there was a silence in the room and we responded to him and said, mr. president, we can't do that right now because pompeo hasn't been -- oh, confirmed yet, that pompeo is not confirmed yet and we don't have -- this is when tillerson was gone but pompeo wasn't confirmed. they said wait. so several conversations, he mentioned it again. i don't know how many times at that dinner, once or twice or three times, but he fired her several times. >> he reiterated that she should be fired and he was ordering her to be fired? >> correct. >> the tentacles of this spread all over the white house, all the way to the top. how much of this can be corroborated by testimony we've already heard and what's the impact? >> i think the impact is huge, mika. the take away here is that this case has gone to the senate with huge unanswered questions and with witnesses out there who may

never testify who clearly know things. now, you know, parnas, of course, we have to take everything he's saying with a grain of salt. he is under indictment in the southern district of new york and he's clearly trying to save his skin. but he's implicating everybody. but besides memorably calling the president a cult leader, he's implicating, as you said, energy secretary rick perry. he's saying perry knew about this, this conspiracy to use the mechanisms of american foreign policy to extract a political favor for donald trump and he's saying that vice president pence was in on it. pence has denied that, but parnas told rachel maddow that essentially parnas went to the ukrainances and said you have to do this, you have to announce the investigation or there will be consequences. shortly after, they didn't do it. trump tells pence to cancel his visit to president zelensky's inauguration in may. pence is saying he didn't know the real reason for that, but that is a question that you would think the senate would want answered, mika. the other news yesterday that

the general -- the government accountability office formally ruled that the trump administration broke the law when it went that more than $2 million million from ukraine, that sort of answers the criticism that republicans have been saying where is the law that was broken here? here is the law, the law that says that the president must spend money appropriated by congress. it's notice a criminal statute, but there was a clear ruling yesterday by an independent nonpartisan government accountability office that this was not proper and people that know exactly what happened who have yet to testify as witnesses because they've resisted requests by congress to do so. coming up from the u.s. mca to the china trade deal, there is plenty happening on the economic front. we're going to check in with cnbc for business before the bell, next on "morning joe." ."

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news producer. executive transport manager. and a beverage distribution supervisor. now i'm a director at a security software firm. wow, you've been at it a long time. the thing is, i like working. what if my retirement plan is i don't want to retire? then let's not create a retirement plan. let's create a plan for what's next. i like that. get a plan that's right for you. td ameritrade. a look at the 30 rock plaza and the spot where the christmas tree stands is now home to a giant 15,000 pound lit up peacock display made up of 15,000 feet of garland. it's part of the build up to nbc

universal's upcoming streaming service peacock. that is launching later this year. for more information, visit www.peacocktv.com. that's exciting. in some other business and economic news, president trump secured his second big trade win of the week. after the senate passed the usmca with an overwhelming majority yesterday. the united states, mechanics ka-canada agreement passed the senate 89-10 and will replace the previous agreement between the three nations known as nafta. president trump is expected to sign the revised deal next week. this agreement comes as the president signed a phase one trade deal with china on wednesday. which yesterday he served to as the biggest deal ever done in the history of our country in terms of trade. trump initially signed the usmca a year ago, but house democrats worked to negotiate stronger labor enforcement

provisions before getting on board. now the usmca needs approval from canada's house of commons which reconvenes in late january to go into full effect. house speak egg nancy pelosi slammed facebook for putting money over the well being of its users in a scathing announcement. >> the facebook business model is strictly to make money. they don't care about the impact on children. they don't care about truths. they don't care about where this is all coming from. and they have said, even if they know it's not true, they will print it. i think they have been very abusive of the great opportunity that technology has given them. my thought about them is they don't want -- all they want are their tax cuts and no anti-trust action against them. and they schmooze this administration in that regard because so far that's what they have received. but i think that they're -- what

they have said, very blatantly, very clearly, that they intend to be accomplices for misleading the american people with money from god knows where. >> wow. pelosi's comments came in response to a question on whether ceo mark zuckerberg and other tech executives have too much power. her comments come a week after facebook announced it's standing by its policies that allow politicians to spread falsehoods and target users with political ads. what are you doing? the downtown of homeland security sent the pentagon a new request to build hundreds of miles of border wall along the u.s.-mexico border. a senior defense official tells nbc news the request asks the defense department to use money designated for counter narcotic toes build about 270 miles of wall across several states. it is unknown how much the construction would cost. last year, the pentagon set

aside 2 $.4 billion of narcotics funds for 129 miles of wall. homeland security didn't get enough money in this budget to cover border construction this year, prompting the request to the pentagon. the official told nbc news so far 104 miles of wall have been built to date, and that the goal is to finish 4 to 500 miles by the end of the year. finally, i am usually the one asks questions of guests. recently joe, willie, mike turned tables on me for a conversation about the third installment in my know your value book series. he co-wrote this book with my sister-in-law. it is out this week, entitled "come back careers." rethink, refresh, re-invent your success at 40, 50, and beyond. >> i heard you talk about this

book, women that are coming back. obviously there are a lot of men that for some reason decide to stop working, raise families. come back career applies to them, applies to women, applies to everybody. >> yes. but women in this space, i have seen across the country traveling for know your value, women get excited about the tips we give them how to know their value and communicate it. but women this age have a continuibit of fear in their eyes. making a come back in this stage of life, sometimes they come into working after taking a break feeling that everyone is judging them, or maybe they judge themselves, maybe they're nervous about their age. >> you talk about how women have to get out of their own way, get out of their own head, and just go for it. >> it was a revelation for me.

we had come back from a great know your value event, and my phone lights up with an all caps text from jenny who said what? >> i said know your value needs to address women like me who zig zagged careers, took time off to raise kids and who are in our 50s or beyond, maybe late 40s, that we have value, too. i felt like know your value could help us. >> we created a whole space for this along with the book, stories, women exchanging advice about exactly this challenge for them. >> one of the challenges is ageism, isn't it? >> absolutely. and you're right, joe, ageism is found by men and women. women feel it earlier. ageism is out there. no question. we talked to so many women that didn't get an interview because of their age. we talk to women that found out later on somebody had written to on a resume for too old.

that needs to stop. the first thing we can do is stop the ageism narrative in our own heads. i was sitting there when i texted mika thinking here i am, 50 something, i don't know what i can do. how do you change careers at my age? how do you start something new? we all need to realize that we have more to offer at this age. >> and there's so much time. you can actually own that, say listen, my kids are behind me, i have gotten through the drama. i have all the time in the world to work for you. >> mike, you and i can confirm it is never behind. the drama is never behind you with kids, but at least they might be out of the house and you can go to work. >> except it is different for guys. it is different for guys. ageism, it is understandable, it is a huge barrier, huge hurdle. what do you do in terms of something other than ageism maybe before you get to the

concept of ageism. you're 45, 48, had a couple of children, you raised the children, they're off now sort of in late high school years. what do you do about installation, rebuilding of confidence, the confidence to go out into the market. >> get out of your own way. >> i think that one