when you focus on the evidence uncovered during the investigation, you will appreciate there was no serious dispute about the facts underlying the president's conduct. >> this whole fact that we're here is ridiculous. why are we here? are we having an impeachment over a phone call? you will hear the president's lawyers make the astounding claim that you can't impeach a president for abusing the powers of his office. >> abuse of power even if proved is not an impeachable offense. >> because they can't seriously contest that that is exactly, exactly what he did. >> i thought our team did a very good job, but honestly we have all the material. they don't have the material. >> if i were the president, i wouldn't cooperate with these guys at all.

>> they complain about process, but they do not seriously contest any of the allegations against the president. >> i wouldn't give them the time of day. >> and they lie, lie and lie. >> they're on a crusade to destroy this man. >> if we don't stand up to a peril today, we will right the history of our decline with our own hand. ultimately the question for you is whether the president's undisputed actions require the removal of the 45th president of the united states from office. >> for only the third time in our nation's history the senate has gavelled in an impeachment trial of the president of the united states. just about two hours from now, president trump's defense team lays out its case against removing him from office. team trump consists of a whole host of interesting characters, ranging from high ranking members of trump's white house inner circle to alan dershowitz, who is essentially famous for being alan dershowitz.

based on recent statements, trump's defense team is set to essentially argue what house manager adam schiff outlined in his remarks, that trump's actions don't amount to anything illegal, unconstitutional or impeachable. and last night one of trump's personal lawyers, jay sekulow, previewed today's proceedings. >> how do you not? how do you not bring up the steele dossier? i'm going to tell you something. look for things. look for things, the foreign intelligence, you want to talk about foreign interference? see what the fisa court had to say about that. there's no obstruction of justice here? abuse of power? you don't get penalized for exercising constitutional rights. >> and even as the house impeachment managers work to make their case on obstruction of congress, half way around the world trump appeared to brag about withholding evidence. >> we're doing very well. i got to watch enough.

i thought our team did a very good job. but honestly, we have all the material. they don't have the material. >> the president bragged that he thought things were going well because they had all the materials. well, indeed they do have the material hidden from the american people. that is nothing to brag about. >> you've probably been watching this, but for the last few days, house managers have introduced their case. this morning we are going to hear the rebuttal. these are the house managers. their arguments were perfectly encapsulated in the remarks from house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff. >> if president trump is not held to account, we send the message to future presidents, congresses, that the personal interest of the president can fairly take precedent over those of the nation. >> can you have the least bit of confidence that donald trump will stand up to them and protect our national interest

over his own personal interest? you know you can't. which makes him dangerous to this country. we can't trust this president to do what's right for this country. you can trust he will do what's right for donald trump. i believe this may be one of those moments, a moment we never thought we would see, a moment when our democracy was gravely threatened and not from without, but from within. >> several key questions remain, however. including if additional witnesses will be called and whether additional documents will be admitted. that could include an audio recording that indicted rudy giuliani associate lev parnas's attorney says he recently found in which a voice, purportedly trump's, ordered his aides to, quote, get rid of ambassador yovanovitch. nbc news has not heard the entire audio recording, also parnas's attorney played portions of it to msnbc's rachel

maddow and her producers. >> you have conveyed this tape to the house intelligence committee as of this evening? >> yes. >> do you expect that they will make it public? >> i hope they'll make it public. >> we've got all of this covered for you this morning with our reporters in washington and our panelists here in new york. i am joined by msnbc's correspondent garrett haake on capitol hill, pbs news hour white house correspondent and nbc news political analyst, former new york congresswoman and member of the house judiciary committee who voted for the impeachment of richard nixon, former special prosecutor, now msnbc leg analyst and nbc news correspondent. welcome to all of you. thank you for being with us this morning. garrett, i want to start with you because the action this morning is going to be on capitol hill. what are we expecting to happen? it should be starting in about two hours from now running for

two or three hours? garrett haake? >> reporter: the trial picks up this morning at 10:00. we'll start to hear from the -- >> we seem to be having some problem with garrett what are we anticipating in terms of the response that we're going to get, the reply, as it will, from trump's lawyers? we've heard parts of it all week, but really we've heard much of it for months. you're going to hear an echo of what donald trump has been saying, and that is not that what the president did is not impeachable, but the president actually did nothing wrong? >> that's right, the president's lawyers, jay sekulow and pat cipollone, the two lead attorneys, are expected to come before the senate and have about a three-hour display.

it's going to start at 10:00 and go until 1:00 and we're going to hear a truncated version of them talking about the fact that the president is a target of the partisan attack. they're also going to be talking about joe biden, making the case that his family was making millions of dollars off of the fact that he was vice president of the united states and his son was unqualified to be on the board at ukraine. they're also at some point going to be making the argument that the president is someone the democrats are trying to block from being reelected to the presidency. they're going to say this is about the 2016 election, this is about the ghost of the robert mueller investigation, continuing to haunt the president. and they're going to say that democrats are essentially had it out for the president from the beginning of his presidency and this is them trying to take the president out from office. >> jill, pleasure to have you by person. we enjoy talking to you so much. it's rare to have you here. let's parse that argument a little bit. it's interesting, the argument that if they succeed in this political move of removing the

president from office through impeachment, then every president from here on out is liable to be impeached by a congress that doesn't like them or is not of their political party. you worked through watergate. were people making that argument back then, that you shouldn't impeach because it's a political thing that's going to be used as a political tool? >> no, facts were considered facts. and here no one will get impeached unless they do impeachable offenses. in this case he's done impeachable offenses that are also crimes. the gao has said that he violated the empowerment act by withholding the funds. we know that he's done violations of federal election laws. the chairman of the federal election commission has said he violated those laws by taking something of value from a foreign entity. so he's violated the law, as well as the constitution. and no future president has to worry unless they do the same thing. and what i expect in the defense

is basically deny, divert. >> we've been seeing a lot of this. liz, i want to ask you something because you were a member of congress back in those days. and jill just mentioned the 1974 impoundment control act. something that was brought into place while richard nixon was being impeached because of the idea that congress wanted to underscore the constitutional responsibility afforded to congress to apportion money and the president was not allowed to redirect the money. and now the accounting office has said that in attempting to redirect the $391 million that congress had approved for ukrainian aid, that was breaking the law. >> first of all, the irony here is that president nixon abused the power of his office in many, many ways. we saw it obviously in watergate, but there were non-watergate abuses that took place that were scary to

congress and to the american people. one of the things he did, like donald trump, article 2 tells me i can have whatever power i want. i can do whatever i want. nixon basically said, oh, congress appropriated money, i'm not spending it. you want to spend money on poverty programs? you want to spend money on job creations? i don't agree. even if i signed the bill, i'm not spending the money. that was almost part of the articles of impeachment against nixon because it was an abuse of power. but instead of impeaching nixon for that, congress decided that it was going to pass a law, they thought if we pass a law that's going to send a message to future presidents that they can't do what nixon did. they can't take all the power into their hands. and guess what? because it wasn't part of the articles of impeachment, donald trump says, oh, that law, that doesn't apply to me. article 2 says i can do whatever i want to do.

and i think the other point here is very clear, that congress understood that abuses of power by the president threaten the democracy and are impeachable offenses. and the arguments you're going to hear, and they will make it over and over again, is you need a crime and the house judiciary committee decided that nixon didn't have to commit a crime, does not mention one crime in the articles of impeachment against him, and those articles of impeachment are the gold standard. nobody has ever challenged that since that time. and so we know that basically the arguments they're going to make about standards for impeachment are just nonsense. >> and actually we've not heard from a single -- correct me if i'm wrong here, but a single constitutional scholar to come out and actually agree with alan dershowitz, who is contradicting what he said back in 1999 about the need for a crime. so he will make his case. >> he said you didn't need a

crime to impeach. >> correct. and you have 500 of the nation's finest legal scholars who came out several weeks ago in the course of the house impeachment proceedings who said that the president clearly committed impeachable crimes here. so watching these republicans react last night after the case was already laid out and saying nothing new here, we haven't seen any new evidence. well, you voted against having new evidence, and that is beside the point. the question is the quality of the evidence. why don't you weigh in on that, weigh in on the quality of the evidence. and we're not seeing that. so the question today is whether the president's attorneys are really going to go line for line and rebut any of these facts, which adam schiff himself said was overwhelming and i think a lot of lawmakers agree with that. >> garrett haake, are you with me? >> reporter: i'm here. >> i'm a little sore you weren't there the first time around because you tweeted you would be

here to support me on my first saturday morning show. now you're back and i appreciate having you here because i'm so used to relying on you in busy, active important times like this. what i'm looking for from you as somebody who spends so much time on capitol hill, is an understanding of whether the audience today that the trump team is going to be addressing is different from the audience that we have spent the last few days listening to, the house managers have been targeting? adam schiff and his stirring speeches that are sort of appealing to our better angels, he seemed to be talking not just to the american people, but to members of congress who might be swayed. today, who will team trump be talking to? because they seem to be echoing things we have been hearing from the president's mouth since this whole debacle with ukraine began. >> reporter: i definitely think it's a different audience. they're aiming at a different audience. the best way i can describe what

i think the white house lawyers are going to do today is a football analogy. they're playing prevent defense. they know if they do not screw this up royally, the president will be acquitted. they know they have the votes. first of all, they're trying to show the president who hired them that they are here to do the job he hired them for, which is to fight on their behalf. that gets them to the secondary audience, which is all the senators in that room who want to vote to acquit the president. the most reliable republicans who are fans of this president want to have these white house managers come out and rhetorically punch the democrats in the mouth, give them something strong that they can use in their television appearances tomorrow and through the next week to lean on to defend this president publicly. then there's a separate audience -- and i don't know if we'll hit this audience today but maybe on monday when the white house lawyers get into it a little bit more and that's some of those wavering senators like lisa murkowski or susan collins's of the world. the white house lawyers will say

look, we understand what you've heard over here but you've heard enough. this doesn't rise to the level. they will try to make that constitutional argument that there is basically nothing john bolton or mick mulvaney or some unseen document could say that will push this over the line into an offense that calls for the removal of the president. try to appeal to the conservative feelings about this, the idea that it's just not worth it to take a president out of office. but by and large, you would probably rather be the white house lawyers than the impeachment managers for the house, just because they have an easier task here. they didn't need to go out and convince people. they need to keep republicans who already would like to acquit the president on the boat of acquitting this president. >> yesterday we lost jim lehrer, the founder of your remarkable show, and jim is somebody who had dedicated his career to what we journalists should be doing, bearing witness and speaking truth to power. what do we do in a time like

this? what we are going to hear today, we've seen examples earlier this week in jay sekulow and pat cipollone, saying things that are untrue. they are going to be on the floor of the noid senate under the shat oh of the chief justice of the extreme court saying things that we know to be prove aebl untrue. how do we as journalists handle covering that. >> i think we have to handle it the way we've been handling the trump presidency, which is interviewing and talking to people about what is false and pointing that out ourselves. also, when they're right and saying things that are true like the president not being saying directly i need you to bribe ukraine, we say that they are making that case. i think what we're going to hear is some of the things we've heard in the past, which is the president saying well, actually the president of ukraine did get the meeting he was seeking for.

we know that's not true. we know that the president's lawyers are going to say ukraine got this money. we can say at least in context they got that money after the congress and the press were looking into the fact that the $391 million that was already appropriated by congress was being held up. so i think there's going to be one really listening in to make sure we give context to the audience and pointing out things that are not true. i think the president's lawyers, as garrett haake said, there are going to be a lot of audiences, but the one big audience is the president of the united states. the president has already said i don't want my team to be talking extensively on a saturday morning because i think this is not the time when people are going to be tuning in. as a result, you had a defense team say we'll take three hours on saturday and then the long day on monday because that's what the president wants. so what you see is a president who is directing his defense team, and as a result we have to make sure that we're keeping them honest because the

president himself has had an interesting relationship, we'll say, with the truth. >> and that is why we have you here and we have garrett, and we've got jill and liz and heidi and many others this hour, and all day today, because we are going to be bringing you the truth. thank you to all of you, msnbc correspondent garrett haake there on capitol hill, pbs white house correspondent. still ahead, what exactly would a democratic win look like in the senate trial? what is the end game? we'll speak to senate juror and former prosecutor in his own right, senator richard blumenthal of connecticut when we come back. oral-b's gentle rounded brush head removes more plaque along the gumline... for cleaner teeth and healthier gums. oral-b. brush like a pro. hurricanes. tornadoes. donald trump is making it worse. trump:"all of this with the global warming. a lot of it's a hoax."

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i'm not going to reveal what individual senators said, but they're still listening and i think the whole focus right now is not necessarily how they're going to vote in the end on impeachment, but are they going to allow all the president's men to testify, that we've seen in other cases like in nixon's

case, where actually they let the gate keepers of information testify. this would be the first trial in history where we had no witnesses and it's just wrong and they know it. >> senator amy klobuchar and 2020 presidential candidate, she has left the trail and she is now in washington, as are the other senators who are running for office. our coverage continues on another historic morning in washington as president trump's impeachment defense team, headed by white house counsel pat cipollone and president trump's personal attorney jay sekulow, are set to begin laying out their case for the first time in the sit against his removal from office. but the president's lawyers have been in front of the cameras this week making the argument that trump did nothing wrong. not that his crimes didn't rise to the level of removal from office, but that he did nothing wrong and that his alleged abuse of power is not impeachable. >> we believe that once you hear

those initial presentations, the only conclusion will be that the president has done absolutely nothing wrong and that these articles of impeachment do not begin to approach the standard required by the constitution, and in fact they, themselves, will establish nothing beyond those articles. you look at those articles alone and you will determine that there is absolutely no case. >> absolutely no case, not a weak case, not a case to be argued. absolutely no case. joining me now, senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. he's on capitol hill right now, a former prosecutor in his own right. good to see you again. thank you for joining me. i want to show our viewers, earlier in the week there was a photograph, there was a moment in which senator lindsey graham went up to adam schiff, shook his hand and said good job, you're very well spoken. graham himself, like you, a

former prosecutor. i guess it made me think when i saw that, are people like senator graham or maybe other senators in the house, are they truly immoveable in any sense, and not just bringing witnesses and documents in, but do you believe that the stirring comments by adam schiff this week and other house managers have any influence on the outcome of this trial? >> first, ali, congratulations and thanks for hosting this first show. i'm honored to be on it. >> thank you, sir. >> second, i do believe that the evidence, the facts that have been presented in such graphic and dramatic ways, the visuals and the recollection of those profoundly courageous public servants who came forward, risking everything, taylor, yovanovitch, cooper, all of them

on those screens had an effect on many of my colleagues, including on the republican side. it gave them pause, certainly. on the other hand, i am by no means optimistic that they are going to vote for witnesses and documents, more evidence at the trial, which is necessary for a full fair proceeding, simply because they had an opportunity to vote as opposed to talk, and they voted the wrong way earlier this week. >> senator, even as the house managers finish their arguments, there was reporting from abc news that they have a recording of what sounds like donald trump ordering the removal of marie yovanovitch. rachel maddow and her team have heard some of this recording. we have had this discussion just a few days ago that there is more evidence that has emerged since the house's impeachment hearings. is there a way, regardless of whether your fellow senators

vote to allow documents or witnesses into this trial, is there a way that this evidence can be brought into this trial, say, through questioning by u.s. senators? >> that's a very profoundly important point, ali. and the reason it's important is that as adam schiff has said and as we have said, even before this trial, the truth will come out. when the history of this darker ra is written, i believe the heros are going to be our independent judiciary, such as the court that ordered disclosure of some of the lev parnas evidence, and our free press, which is continuing to do its job. and so the uncovering of this truth is going to continue during this trial and it will haunt my republican colleagues who fail to permit it to come forward in witnesses and documents. if they deny a fair trial to the american people, i believe that

history will judge them harshly and so will the american people, and we're going to see continuing disclosures. lev parnas, the recording that you just mentioned, and even during the trial the disclosure that the united states department of justice rejected the possible investigation of joe biden or was never consulted about it, and instead the president of the united states went to a foreign leader to investigate a u.s. citizen, in fact sought an announcement of an investigation to smear a political rival rather than going to the department of justice. that fact i think is profoundly important. so there are a variety of ways the truth can come out and i think we can help in our questions to elicit it as well and ultimately, if witnesses and documents are permitted, there will be a lot more truth telling to the american people. >> senator blumenthal, thank you

for joining me, sir. i appreciate having you here on our maiden show. senator richard blum enthal is juror in the impeachment trial of president trump. that impeachment trial may not -- likely won't result in the removal of the president from office, but it could weaken an institution that is a cornerstone of our democracy. the united states congress. the fight for a fair trial and the lying liar standing in its way. make sure to keep it right here for msnbc special coverage, an all-star lineup all day as the arguments from the president's defense team start in just moments. we'll be right back. ♪ limu emu & doug [ siren ]

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truth will ultimately prevail, where there are pains taken to bring it to light. george washington is believed to have said that. and one of the pains our society takes to bring truth to light is trial. a trial is literally a test of the truth. a trial is held to prove the truth of the matter. and while we've heard much about how the senate trial is not a trial in the legal sense of the word, the term trial is used in article 1, section 3, clause 6

of the constitution. quote, the senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments, end quote. let's assume the founding fathers meant to get to the truth behind these impeachments. the same as any other trial in the united states. it's notable that that same article 1 of the constitution names the congress. it does that, even before it enumerates the responsibilities of the president. the constitution apparently holds congress to be the most critical of the bodies that it created. so one can deduce that a test of the truth in such an important part of our government might be the most important test of truth our democracy can perform. and yet there may be millions of americans who aren't hearing the adversarial process by which we understand trials to get to the truth. the idea that every assertion can be tested. that's why it's important that witnesses are invited. if they are not to be believed, they can be cross examined.

or documents are subpoenaed so they can be challenged. it is by these methods that we can jointly agree that the truth has been tried by one of our most important institutions, because the truth, not the president, the truth is on trial here. whether you believe the president should or shouldn't be impeached is dependent on what you believe the truth of the underlying facts are. and about that, we have heard many lies this week. jay sekulow, trump's other tv lawyer, said while standing feet from the chief justice of the supreme court, he said that republican members of congress were not allowed into the sensitive compartmentalized area, where the documents were reviewed by members of congress. that was a lie. they were allowed in. several of them went in and reviewed the documents. a lie that is yet more to the point was issued by the white

house counsel, pat cipollone who said trump's legal team was denied the right to cross-examine witnesses. it took house judiciary committee jerry nadler, who is an impeachment manager, just seconds to lie that waste, pointing out a fact that we all know that he sent a letter to cipollone in november inviting trump or his representative to participate in the proceedings. an invitation that was formally declined in writing by cipollone himself. the same cipollone who uttered that lie in the congress. we heard the lies from the liars who told them this week in the trial. hopefully you heard all of this in the trial. but so many of your fellow americans didn't. because they weren't watching the trial. they were getting their analysis of it from social media or other networks that gave those lies space and sunlight and water to flourish. where schiff and nadler's

callouts of the lies were never seen. by people who would presume that lies would be punished by a judge as they would number the court of law. yet in this case the chief justice seems unwilling or unable to play that role. if you only see the liar and you only hear the lie, you have no ability to discern the truth. and so this most important test of truth in our government, in this most important trial may not make it to most people. and so the lies take on new importance. so many of history's tragedies have been born of lies. will the greatness and the importance of congress become one of those? this trial may have started being about the president, but now it is about the truth. so how do we flow, how does this flow of disinformation stop? well perhaps that lies with the chief justice roberts, during his own confirmation hearing he actually spoke about the role that he could play. he described his role as the

justice of the supreme court as ann an umpire, stepping in when necessary. >> i will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat. >> but so far the chief justice has not stepped in despite addressing the growth of disinformation in his new year's message in which he said, quote, in our able when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public's need to understand our government and the protections it provides is ever more vital, end quote. with me now, richard stengel, former under secretary of state for diplomacy and the author for information wars, our panel remains with me, elizabeth, jill and heidi. thank you to all of you. rick, you have said that you're worried about calling these things lies. that there are certainly lies out there, but you're worried

about how we address this. >> i know the trend in journalism now is not to call things falsehoods but lies. and the idea of lying shows a certain intentionality. if someone is mistaken it's not necessarily a lie even though it's false. and one of the things i write about in my book is disinformation is industrial strength lying. that is deliberately false content used to deceive people. i call donald trump the disinformationist in chief. he is lying and using it on an industrial scale. but when people repeat it it's not necessarily a lie because they often believe it. >> if i retweet donald trump, that's misinformation but i'm not necessarily lying, i'm just spreading his lie. >> you're deceived. part of the problem in your very good introduction, this idea that the founders had was an enlightenment idea that there's a marketplace of ideas, that somehow in the free play of the marketplace of ideas, falsehood will become a victim to truth.

but that's a kind of a mist cool idea, almost. it's not very scientific. they were men of the enlightenment. jefferson said lies will be rebutted where truth is free to play it out. but because of social media and the repetition of lies at an industrial scale, it's not a fair marketplace anymore. >> when you think about the lies that i mentioned, pat cipollone saying the president was not invited to participate in the hearings. pat cipollone was the recipient of the letter from jerry nadler saying you are invited to participate in the hearings. the president or his representatives. you've got until this date to let me know. two days later he wrote back to jerry nadler saying we decline to participate in this. so that would be a lie because cipollone was the recipient of the request. he was the denier of the request. this isn't secondhand, this is first hand. >> what i would say is the first time it said it is a falsehood, it's misinformation, it perhaps is a mistake. the second time it's said after

it's been corrected, it is a lie because that shows deliberateness. >> they clarify when you ask them and they say, well, we meant that the president's attorney was not allowed to cross-examine witnesses that came to the intelligence committee because the judiciary committee didn't have witnesses. so when you pin them down they kind of narrow the argument like that, which makes it hard. and my question to you is, the second big problem here for the chief justice is not just straight-up lies like that, but lies by o mission because that's what we're going to see here, we're going to see things that are true like joe biden called for the firing of the ukrainian prosecutor. true. joe biden's son sat on the board of burisma, true. but joe biden did not pressure that ukrainian prosecutor to step down because his son sat on the board of burisma. in fact, the investigation was dormant. so how do democrats protest a lie like that by omission? >> very good question.

the problem -- and i've been criticized for this. the problem is the first amendment protects lies. it protects lies as well as truth. the notion is that the first amendment is not for the speech that we love but the speech that we hate. we hate lies. so to me you have to abut it in real time. one of the problems in the media since 2016 going back to the debates is people did not rebut false statements as they were being made all the time. that needs to happen all the time. but in the senate trial, which is not like a trial anywhere else, the senators are not supposed to speak and the chief justice, again, is meant to be a kind of a referee here. it's not like he's conducting a supreme court. this is a court that is a kind of artificial creation of the constitution that can do whatever it wants. so i would love the chief justice to step in and say that's a falsehood. >> and i think there's an interesting discussion here, because we have all come to accept, sadly, that sometimes in the cesspool that social media

can become. i thought when it was first create, no one will ever be able to lie again. but it feels different to me in the united states senate. it feels like a lie feels worse, made by the president's lawyers in that setting. am i just delusional? >> i don't think so. i think a lawyer faced with the chief justice of the supreme court saying a lie, that's a scary thing. but at the same time, remember the chief justice, it doesn't necessarily do anything in this circumstance. sal monday chase, which is the chief justice who presided over the andrew johnson trial tried to make some rulings and he was overruled by the senate. the senate could vote that basically everybody has to speak in french or the witnesses have to wear funny hats. that is the way that it works. so the chief justice here is a little bit kind of -- he's an umpire without much power. >> rich, as an economic

journalist, you get $5 on venmo for invoking chase. >> he's the secretary of state for public diplomacy and the author of a remarkable book on this very topic "information wars", the distinction that he makes about disinformation, industrial scale lying that is meant to deceive and the fact that some of us retweet bad information is one that is very important to us. we're about an hour away from the start of another huge day on capitol hill. it's the first chance for the president's legal team to officially mount a defense. but as democratic house managers conclude their plea for trump's removal, will republicans put country over partisanship? >> the constitution is not a suicide pact. it does not leave us stuck with presidents who abuse their power. [ sirens ]

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this. and their quote, final moral decent is to protect trump himself. this week leading house manager and intel committee chairman adam schiff asked all members of congress to put the country ahead of partisanship as the men and women who testified about the house did. take a listen. >> the truth is going to come out, indeed the truth has already come out. the only question is, do you want to hear it now? do you want to know the full truth now? do you want to know just who was in the loop? it sounds like everyone was in the loop. this ambassador that was so ruthlessly smeared is now a hero for her courage. this is justice in that. but what would really vindicate that leap of faith that she took is if we show the same courage.

they risked everything, their careers. and yes, i know what you're asked to decide may risk yours, too. but if they could show the courage, so can we. >> that brings us to the question of what if. what if at the end of the trial republicans sided with their country over their party? and for that i want to turn to my great set of panelists. former republican congressman from florida and pulitzer prize winning journalist and correspondent for "the new york times" who made some serious accommodations to be on this show with me this morning. i'm appreciate of it. back with me, elizabeth holtzman who in addition to being a former member of congress during the watergate era was a prosecutor. jill winebanks as well, a prosecut prosecutor during watergate.

thank you to all of you for joining me. congressman, you said to one of my producers, quote, our founders expected a certain honor among our leaders. in this moment, that honor seems lost. talk to me lost. talk to me about the larger danger beyond the impeachment of donald trump or the removal of donald trump of the way this is going on in the senate. >> yes, i think richard in the previous segment hit it that the founders expected truth as a currency would somehow always win out. but we are not living in that era. to your question about the republican party, are we watching the death of it? i really believe we are. it is an interesting place as the nation watches the impeachment hearing to be a life long republican recently having left the party watching this. this is a solemnness to watching a party you once knew now be completely devoid of honor. there is no honor in today's republican party.

we have a corrupt president. we know it by his own confessions no. just in the matter of ukraine, in trying to obstruct justice with mueller. but in his life, we have a corrupt president. and where the party has veered is that they celebrate the corrupt president. it is not that they merely support him. they are celebrating him almost with a vengeance. what we are watching is gop leadership in the nation advancing essentially the second article of kbeechl that the rest is accused of in obstructing the process of holding this president accountability. there is no honor of obstructing accountability of someone who has committed wrongdoing. it is what we are seeing in the republican party. perhaps the place we should look is to our left and to our right and in the mirror. we do hold the power to change things if washington. >> elizabeth holtzman, you and i

talked about this a lot. in the beginning of watergate some of the same pressures existed around the press. you always note that at some juncture republicans decided to do the right thing at that time. at least most did. >> the main thin is yes, there was huge pushback amongst republicans but it started to crack when republicans looked at the facts. first howard baker, from texas who came up with the questions, what did the president know? when did he know it. he worked with the white house, he was an ally of the white house and he was going to show that the senate watergate hearings were a complete witch hunt and the president was going to be completely innocent. when he started asking those questions and got the answers that showed the president was involved he said let's follow the facts. house judiciary committee, no republican -- not one republican came out in favor of impeachment until just days before we had a

debate on the articles themselves. what happened? people looked at the facts. and they saw that the facts were clear that nixon engaged in this abuse of power. again, republicans, they will lie, and this is really a lie when they say that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. the whole second article of impeachment against richard nixon was abuse of power. it is a lie to say there is no basis to say abuse of power is not impeachable. >> isn't that the difference from watergate that we have had so many smoking guns that there is a poof of dust in the air and the republicans are saying this is not moving them. in fact, they just voted against learning more facts that could tell them the truth. >> let me and this of charlie. one of these things that i think is interesting having heard from these two members of congress is

we are seeing the effects of the weakening representation of congress, something that nancy pelosi likes to point out is named to the constitution before the president's responsibilities article one of the constitution. a point you made in your book and you have made with me over time, people support the president who they support. and where we need congress to stand in the way of a president who is corrupt and dishonest, we do not have a congress that is -- that appears today to be strong enough to do so. >> well, ali, i think in looking at all this and listening to this conversation imstruck by something that was written by alexander-walker hamilton in the main federalist paper that he wrote about the impeachment clause. he warned there is something inevitably political about this process and it may not be the

truth that decides the outcome of this but the relative strength of the president's faction and the faction against the president. a comment earlier of the founders thought we would get to the truth. i think each during that founding era they recognized there was something political about this process. i was struck yesterday by an interesting interview of senator micron of my home state of indiana on another network. he talked about how the question they are facing now -- he's a republican, of course -- is w h whether they will be held accountable by their own constituents for either not get og the truth of the matter or for belaboring a partisan process. they are facing their own voters. they were worried about trump supporters, whether they will support a primary challenger or not come out in the general election. that's really the bottom line here. >> charlie as i say to people all the time they need to read

your book to understand the shift toward greater executive power in america and why that is such an interesting move and why what we are seeing today may be some effect of it. charlie thank you for joining us. former congressman david jolly. charlie savage. elizabeth holtzman, jill wine-banks, and heidi pryzbyla. we await the president's impeachment defense. keep it here for msnbc's special coverage, an all-star line up all day here on msnbc as arguments from the president's defense team start in just moments. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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good morning. i'm ari melber picking up msnbc's special coverage of president trump's impeachment trial which gets back under way within the hour. we know today is a turning point because after a punishing three days from democratic house managers lawyers for donald trump now begin their case against impeachment even as the president ints complains the democrats nabbed their speaking time from wednesday through friday. donald trump's lawyers say they will begin with a sneak preview a trailer of sorts. they have also publicly revealed some of their strategy for the trial and today's proceedings. >> abuse of power, even if proved not an impeachable offense. >> i mean think about why we're here? are we having impeachment over a phone