good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. here tonight for what was going to be an hour-long impeachment special, as kacie just said. major breaking news on the impeachment front. in john bolton's upcoming book, apparently there aalready manuscript of, donald trump's former national security adviser outlined precisely the quid pro quo charged in article i of president trump's impeachment being charged in the senate. according to drafts of the book, trump told bolton he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into democrats, including the bidens. we we'll be talking much more about

that bombshell, the reporter who broke the story, elizabeth warren, but we begin with the awful news out of california. kobe bryant's sudden death earliler today. a helicopter carrying the 41-year-old laker great crashed near los angeles. just a few hours ago, police said the helicopter's flight manifest indicated nine people were on board when it went down, but a full death toll, and we should be clear about this, has not yet been confirmed. kobe's 13-year-old daughter, gianna, john altobelli, his daughter keri and wife alyssa were all killed in that crash. espn reports the helicopter was taking them to a travel basketball game. he was known to take his helicopter to avoid l.a. traffic. for hours people have been flocking to the lakers' arena,

the staples center to leave tributes. kobe was an icon. dominated an entire generation of the nba. he entered the league right out of high school. no longer able to do that largely because of folks like him in kevin garnet. he was drafted 13th overall by the charlotte hornets but traded quickly to the l.a. lakers. capping off a two-decade career with one team. which is an increasing rarity. in fact, almost never happens. packed with accolades. he won five nba championships, two final mvp awards. a league mvp. selected as an all-star 18 consecutive years. in the course of his career he scored a mons per 33,643 points good enough for fourth all-time. a week ago would have been number three. his final tweet was a celebration of the man who knocked him out of the number three spot. lebron james passed him in total points scored just last night in kobe's hometown of philadelphia. the man who sits atop that

scoring list, fellow laker kareem abdul jabbar, paid tribute this afternoon. >> it's very difficult for me to put in words how i feel about the loss of kobe bryant. he was an incredible athlete and a leader in a lot of ways. he inspired a whole generation of youth athletes. kobe, my thoughts are with you, absolutely, rest in peace, young man. >> kobe bryant's prowess extended to the international stage where he won olympic gold medals in both the 2008 beijing and 2012 london games. even the entertainment world wins best short animated film in the 2018 academy awards for "dear basketball," which he narrated. adding a sports emmy for the film's production design. for folks my age, particularly basketball fans. i'm 40 years old. kobe bryant was 41 when he died today.

bryant was inescapable. he towered over the nba sometimes as hero and sometimes as villain. self-styled, actually. he went through an entire lifetime of growing up in the public eye. coming out right out of high school. becoming a star instantly. he was a controversial character. he was a beloved figure. he had changed, i think, quite a bit in the later part of his life. as he became a father, became a mentor, as he raised the girls who are now missing a father. but he was a transformative figure for a league that was losing michael jordan as he entered it. we're going to talk a little bit about his life and times now. but first, i want to go to the latest from the scene of the crash in calabasas, california. nbc news correspondent steve patterson there. steve, we've gotten more information, but still not all of it. what's the latest now? >> reporter: well, for more of it to come, federal investigators are going to have

to take a cross-country trip. that's what they're doing right now from washington, d.c. to the scene here in calabasas. the objective, obviously, is to get to the bottom of how in the heck this happened as quickly and as carefully as possible. investigates will be focused on the hillside which is now completely dark. behind me. there are still teams up there -- i can still see flashlights in the hillsides as crews are working to secure the scene, both below and above. speaking to witnesses today, they say there was a loud explosion, a booming sound followed by a fireball, honestly. a giant fire in the sky. in fact, most of the effort, as fire crews and first responders got on scene, was to contain the fire. as we now see some police activity behind me. there is about 1/4 acre fire that was very difficult to contain because of magnesium that was very near to the scene if not on board or part of what

was contained on the helicopter. so that was the first effort. the second effort came here with the announcement of first five dead. then it was nine dead, according to that manifest, as you mentioned. and then we started to learn that, yes, in fact, it was kobe bryant on board on the plane. yes, in fact, it was his 13-year-old daughter and the pilot. as we started learning some more about the information about who was on board, the crowd that had gathered here, you can see the visible change in people that had come to the scene, i think really to confirm for themselves that this had happened. the news was so unbelievable for so long in the city of los angeles, that i think some people just had to come and see it for themselves. in fact, the only way you can really get here because police have such a tight cordoned off on the scene in so many directions is then to park and walk maybe at least a mile so you can gather here to see basically what we've been seeing all day, which is that smolders wreckage up in the hillside up there, which is now dark.

now you can't really see anything and still people are here looking up. there are still people -- i don't know how far you can see down here. people in kobe bryant jerseys are down there. obviously, yes, the national media is here. yes, the federal authorities and people are trying to keep the scene tight are here, but there are still so many fans and onlookers and mourners. we've been seeing them cry and sob all day. it has been a heartbreaking scene. but the overriding emotion i think i've seen is just disbelief. people with this stunned stare on their face looking up at the scene, which is incredibly surreal anywhere the city of los angeles here, chris. it's been a really heartbreaking day, i think, for folks that are anywhere next to this thing. back to you. >> all right. steve patterson, thank you so much. we will keep monitoring developments. i want to bring in nbc news correspondent gaudi schwartz outside the staples center where the los angeles lakers play.

fans have been gathering there since the news of kobe bryant's death. we're going to join him in just a second. before that, i want to bring in mike pesca, the host of the daily podcast "the gist." senior writer at espn and retired nba veteran atan thomas. mike, let me start with you here at the desk. you know, you feel -- you end up feeling like you know people that you don't know -- >> right. >> -- when they are in your life and you feel like you've watched them for as long as we've watched kobe bryant during his formative years. and i think the personal grief people are experiencing is a testament to that. >> yes, when you see them change and appreciate their growth. >> that's it, yes. >> it reflects something in you. you can see him not as a comic book villain if you're a knicks fan or anyone but a lakers fan. i didn't know exactly how people would react, people being generally decent. people will react with mourning, but i did think that there would

be a part of it, like, well, i never liked him because he wasn't on my team. i think what has surprised me a little bit is his death, it cuts through just the allegiances of fandom and he really spoke to a broader aspect of the culture, which is that we don't really have a mono culture anywhere. we're all siloed. we can take a step back and say, oh, my god, what a great player and all the other things he did off the court. i think a lot of people paying attention were really excited in a way you don't ever see with a former athlete were really excited to see what he would do in his post-playing days. it started off with an oscar and looked like it was going to get better from there. >> he was only 41 years old. he always struck me as a bit of a polymath. he's an extremely extremely smart guy. there is no question about that. he was multilingual. he had grown up abroad.

he had huge sort of -- he had incredible verbal dexterity as well. he was able to carry himself in interviews. he had a performative streak. what was your experience like playing against him, competing with him? >> well, you know, everybody knows what he accomplished on the court, but the thing i admire about him the most was seeing him as a father, you know, as a father myself, you know, and i spent the whole -- the day yesterday at my daughter's volleyball tournament. you know, shout-out to metro east. and, you know, just seeing him and the images of him with his daughter, you know, coaching them. he coaches their aau team. sitting court side and kind of breaking down everything to her, the ins and outs of the game. those are precious moments, especially for a black man, where the overprevailing narrative is that we aren't involved in our children's life. he showed the opposite, especially for a black athlete.

so there's a lot of things he has really been able to go against the grain on and really show, which is really the reason why, you know, he looked at as so much more overall outside of basketball. >> yeah, that clip we're playing right there, he's talking to his daughter and they're watching the game and they're going through some bit of x's and o's that had just happened, a moment on the court. why the decision had shook out the way that it had and this sort of moment of recognition. she is listening to getting that info from dad. i want to play this amazing clip of him talking about gianna, who was his oldest, and wanted to be a professional basketball player, like his father was before him. talking to jimmy kimmel. take a listen. >> the best thing that happens is when we go out and fans will come up to me and she'll be standing next to me. they'll be like, you got to have a boy. you and v got to have a boy, carry on the transition, the legacy. she's like, oy, i got this.

>> you know, dave, he was a larger than life figure throughout the period of time in the nba. partly, i think, because he came into the league so young and also at the tail end of the jordan years. and clearly aspired to -- i mean, he studied jordan. he talked about jordon all the time. he talked about jordan's work ethic. there was a sense he saw himself as sort of destined to take this role. >> this is how focused kobe bryant was at the natural age of 17. he was asked to be in the monica/brandi video "the boy is mine," which for any 17-year-old would have been a dream come true. he said no because he was entering the nba draft and didn't want to look like he was distracted to nba executives. that was kobe from day one. you have to have that kind of focus if not only your idol but aspiration is michael jordan. i keep thinking about another story that another player told me playing with kobe on the

lakers and kobe showing up to practice two hours early without a ball. and just doing his moves on the court without a ball and practicing his footwork over and over again. just playing against his own shadow. and he told me he had never seen anything like that. when it came to psych, to focus, kobe was in a league of his own and it just added to his legend. he was a polarizing figure. there is the expression, the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. nobody was indifferent to kobe bryant. i know on my son's basketball team, which i coach, sixth grade team, shout-out tacoma park dragons. when they shoot turnaround shots, they all yell kobe in the air. they go, kobe. that's what they say when they shoot the ball. these kids were born in 2008/2009, but that's what happens when a polarizing player solidifies into legend. >> howard, briyant had become a kind of, like, father of the nba

in retirement in a way that i thought was very interesting, and a role that he clearly relished. like, being in the front seats with his daughters at lakers' games and coming and getting a pound from lebron in between plays. like, he -- there was a kind of -- the guy was only 41 years old, right? but because he had come in the league so young had sort of achieved this elder statesman already. >> well, he certainly had. on top of so many other things that makes this so sad, he had been growing into this role where he had sort of become very different from michael jordan and the other players. he was a godfather to some of the new generation. you don't see that closeness that other players to -- as kobe had with them, for example. you look at the jayson tatums and the kyrie irvings and all these players who were going in the off-season to work with kobe. and there's a connection to him, and i think that because the nba is such a relatively young league, you think about these guys -- bill russell is still

with us. you think about all these years that we would have that kobe bryant into that mix for the next 30, 40 years. it's an incredibly sad story. >> you know, i feel compelled to note that when we talk about the sort of villain that he could be in public perception, both i think as a player and as a person, you know, the churning point for that, the invention of the nickname black mamba when he was arrested in 2003 and accused of rape of a 19-year-old woman. those charges would later be dropped. he settled a civil suit. he issued a statement saying we had a sexual relationship. a remarkable and upsetting statement in many ways. that was the moment of the peak infamy in the life of kobe bryant, and also he had 17 more years in the league after that -- or 17 more years in the public eye after that. >> yeah. he -- this statement was made

about 15 years ago now, maybe 17 years ago, and i'm going to credit dave zirin here. i didn't realize this. dave, you can fill me in. he interviewed an activist men can stop rape. and the man who ran that organization credited kobe bryant with writing the best apology of a man accused of sexual assault. again, the accusation was the accusation. it didn't lead to any criminal charges, but he did acknowledge that at least in the victim's eyes there was not consent. and i think we have to allow for growth, and maybe we don't want our villains to grow, we want them to just stay and wear the black hat all their lives. and we can do that from the basketball perspective, but if you take -- if you took any measure of the man and what he became, and we say hard work -- i just want to point this out. it is true. he didn't come into the league as this guy was not going to be zion williamson or lebron james necessarily. he was the 13th overall pick.

>> it's crazy to me he was the 13th overall pick. >> and charlotte apparently said, well, we can't really use you right now. or though he might just have been using that for motivation against charlotte. but the point is a lot of guys work hard. how he thought about working hardin colluded a creativity that very few have. and he even defined working hard as working on his writing in the off-season during his off time. not going to clubs, but being a creative person. so, he was ready to become an artist, entrepreneur, youth basketball coach, in a really exciting way. >> one thing i think about all the time with lebron james, as we watch him, who is now i think, you know, probably the most famous athlete in the world and kobe bryant is world famous and was probably one of the first sort of global folks after michael jordan, global kind of brand icons, players. is just the human struggle of being that young with that much pressure and to grow up the

entirety of essentially your post-adolescent life in the league in the public eye, which is something that kobe did before lebron, but lebron has done it and kevin garnett and others. >> well, it's interesting because, you know, you're hearing a lot of different athletes now, you know, talk about and tweet about different personal experiences they had with kobe and the way that he touched their lives. i, myself, tweeted about it because after my heart surgery, i ran into him at the verizon center right before we were about to play the lashkers. he gave me a hug and said, i've been praying for you ever since i heard about your surgery. that meant a lot to me. seeing different people on social media kind of pour out and bring up the things about his past or talk about the things that they didn't like about him. because you see a little bit of that, too. that's the part that's a little bit troubling for me. it's been hours. sometimes it's okay to be human, you know what i mean? just give his family the chance to be able to grieve. and, you know, it's just interesting seeing that part.

then you're seeing other people on social media that are actually, you know, kind of clowning other people for grieving for somebody who they didn't know. and i find that very interesting as well. i just posted it, you know, right before i came out here that, you know, for -- to those people who are clowning the people, you know, keep that same energy when you have a loved one that's passed away and you ask for, you know, social media to tray for you or pray for your family, who they don't know as well. you know, it's just interesting watching social media, seeing the different people's reactions. you know, kobe touched a lot of people's lives. was he perfect? no. but it's okay to be human. allow the family to grieve. it's just been hours. >> dave, the incomprehensible part of this, of course, is the suddenness and of course the loss of his daughter. >> yeah. >> who he was traveling with, his second oldest daughter. not his oldest. his oldest is natalia. 13-year-old gianna, who he just

talked about all the time as this kind of bond he had with her over the sport that he loved so much. >> in membmmm-hmm. >> and just the incomprehensible grief of that family as etan just mentioned. >> yeah, and i think that's something that people should keep well in mind. kobe bryant is a person who was building a second life for himself. qui there are a lot of players in their 20s and 30s, and lebron james is one of those players right now who looked to kobe to being a trailblazer. to being a mogul/activist type. like, somebody who could actually leverage the power of being an nba player and leverage the incredible money that they're able to make and do something different than be a coach or even be a general manager. heck, even being an nba owner. actually being a mogul in a different kind of way. a creator, somebody who can create things and have a whole second life as opposed to, you know, just doing commentary about the game you once played.

so from lebron on, people were looking to kobe to blaze that trail. and i think that's one of the holes that people are reckoning with right now, is the idea that there was this future, that people could almost see and taste for kobe bryant that now all of a sudden is not there. >> yeah, howard, you've written about this. you and i just talked about this very issue on my podcast last week about, you know, no matter how highly paid you are, no matter how celebrated you are as a professional athlete, you are labor. you are not management. there is as boss above you. and here was kobe bryant, who clearly had aspirations, huge aspirations to stretch out, to sort of control his own destiny post-retirement. >> sure. and he was not just a creator, as dave said, but also a creative. he won an oscar. he was doing things with his brain that athletes don't usually get credit for. you could see that there was an enormous potential there, and i think that etan brought up a great point as well. there was a great scope to kobe bryant.

you could see that he was not limiting himself in terms of what he believed he was capable of. >> yeah. >> and also in terms of how much he did touch the culture, and i think there's that, and also when you're thinking about the splitting of the family and the grieving process of the family. also don't forget the altobelli family as well. >> yeah. >> and the entire scope of what took place today. you're talking about losing siblings, losing parents, losing everything, and i think that the hard part of all of this is that what makes it difficult to reconcile is this belief that we have that they have it all because they can afford the helicopters and they have the money and they have great life. and it's all just very, very fragile for everybody. >> i think that's so important. professional athletes are on the receiving end, etan, you can tell anyone, of a lot of emotions from people that get projected on to them. but life is precious and life is short, and it's just an unimaginable, unfathomable tragedy, what happened today.

mike pesca, thank you all so much. we'll be right back. u all so much we'll be right back. ( ♪ ) hey there! i'm lonnie from lonnie's lumber. if you need lumber wood, lonnie's is better than good. we got oak, cherry, walnut, and more. and we also have the best selection of plywood (clattering) in the state... hey! (high-pitched laughter) man: dang woodchucks! (wood clattering) stop chuckin' that wood! with geico, the savings keep on going. just like this sequel. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

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tonight on the eve of the president's lawyers' first full day of defense arguments we have yet more evidence that undercuts donald trump's defense in the impeachment trial. it comes from former national security adviser joel, who is one of the central foreign policy figures in the administration until his abrupt departure in september last year. here's the lead of this story from "new york times" tonight. quote, president trump told his national security adviser in august that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into democrats, including the bidens. according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser

john r. bolton. that is obviously an enormous, enormous deal. probably the single big piece of evidence since the president's call notes were leaked. the news is based on a draft which according to "the times" has been reviewed by multiple sources, not by nbc news. joining me now on the phone is one of the people who broke that explosive story, michael schmitt, washington correspondent for "the new york times" and also an msnbc contributor. michael, i've read this story several times and each sentence is crazier than the last. what have you learned? >> well, the big question here was, what did bolton know and what was he going to testify to if he was subpoenaed and had to answer questions before congress? bolton had said he was willing to testify, but we never knew what he was -- what he had, what was behind that door. and what this story does is it gives us a peek at some of that stuff. he's coming out with a book later this year. he for to publish it had to give

it to the white house so they could review it for classified information. that happened several weeks ago. that gave the white house an idea of what he may say. look, as we've seen before that and certainly since that, you know, in the more heightened version since that, the white house does not want him to testify. they do not want him to be laying this out publicly. and as we see tonight, it has pushed democrats eerven further for what they've been calling for all along, for him to testify. >> in terms of the content of the manuscript as far as you were able to ascertain, bolton apparently had a -- bolton pressed the president a dozen time times i believe is the line with pompeo and esper about releasing that aid and then has a one-on-one, i mean, recounts a one-on-one meeting with trump in

which trump tells him he doesn't want to release the aid until ukraine does the investigations essentially. >> correct. that's an august meeting that bolton recounts in which he's talking to trump about the aid. it's one of these attempts that bolton made to try and engage the president on the issue. as you pointed out, this was something that pompeo and esper were working on as well. and it's in that conversation in august of last year that the president says that he wants to continue the freeze until he sees whether the ukrainians are cooperating with these investigations related to the clintons and the bidens. and obviously that, the tie between the aid and the investigations and the fruits of them or the announcements of them, all these different things sort of get moved into this mumble jumble is this central question of impeachment, should the president be removed for those conversations and efforts? >> yes. we should also say one of the

chief defenses has been without the exception of gordon sondland that none of the testimony is coming directly from people who had direct contact with the president. here we're saying john bolton has written a book in which he says the president told him i don't want to release the aid until they do the thing -- they do the investigations, which is what he's being impeached for. this manuscript is in the hands of the white house for sort of security review. i want to read this statement from the bolton aide sarah tinsley who says several weeks ago the ambassador sent a hard copy of his manuscript to the white house for prepublication review by the national security council. the ambassador has not passed that manuscript to anyone else for review, period. what do you make of that statement? >> well, bolton's lawyer, chuck cooper, put out a similar statement tonight. he put out a letter that he sent to the white house on december 30th, and that was a letter that accompanied the manuscript that was saying to the white house, look, we don't think there is classified information in here,

but we know that under the typical protocols we have to provide it to you so you can look through it and examine it. and we hope that you go through and do that in a timely manner. now, that was on december 30th. so that gives you an idea of when the white house learned about these contents. and, you know, when they had a better sense -- >> wow. >> -- of what he was going to testify to. >> michael schmitt, incredible reporting. i think this is going to -- well, we'll see what it does tomorrow, but it certainly has landed with a bang this evening. thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. >> all right. coming up, presidential candidate elizabeth warren joins me to respond to this breaking story and what it could mean for the impeachment trial, next. the hitch? like you, your cells get hungry. feed them... with centrum® micronutrients. restoring your awesome... daily. feed your cells with centrum® micronutrients today.

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so, we learned tonight, thanks to "the new york times" and in a draft of his new book former national security adviser john bolton wrote that the president explicitly told him that he would not released nearly $400 million in security aid to ukraine unless ukraine

helped manufacture dirt into his political rivals. remember, back in december, john bolton came out and said he is willing to testify in trump's senate impeachment trial. senate republicans have already voted once not to call him for testimony. they will have another chance to vote on calling john bolton and other witnesses after initial arguments wrap up, likely this week. this news comes the day after the president's lawyers briefly previewed their defense ahead of their first full day of arguments which will be tomorrow. i'm joined now by one of the senators who will be deciding the president's fate, senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. she is also running for president, which she does on the weekends when she can get away from that senate chamber. she joins us from iowa where just yesterday she won the coveted endorsement of "the des moines register." senator, how are you doing tonight? >> i'm doing great. >> what do you make of this news? it's bizarre in many ways. i'm not quite sure what john bolton's up to, quite frankly,

but in terms of the question before your body, which is whether to call witnesses for this trial, what does this news do to the trial that you are certainly currently sitting as a juror in? >> so, look, we start out saying this is a trial, the constitution says it is the senate that tries an impeachment case. and that means witnesses and documents. i mean, do you know anybody who thinks you do trials without witnesses? you know, if you've got some to produce. and the republicans were all saying no, no, no. so then on saturday, they kind of put out their basic argument, and, man, now does bolton really put it to the republicans. because a big part of their argument was, hey, this is all just hearsay and supposition and people speculating. there's nobody who really has any direct evidence that the president was doing a quid pro quo. saying, i will only release the aid if we can get ukraine to dig

up dirt on some of my -- on my political rival. well, now we know. john bolton says, uh, he wants people to look at him because he's waving his hand pretty aggressively. >> yes. >> saying, i have that information. so, how are you going to play this one, republicans? ? you can't say nobody has direct evidence when there is somebody out there saying i have the direct evidence. sounds to me like we're going to have witness. >> well, i imagine -- do i understand this correctly that after the -- there's two more stages to get to under the organizing resolution of mitch mcconnell before you would have a vote on whether there could be witnesses, which is the president's lawyers make their arguments. they have 24 total hours. they've only used about two. and then there's 16 hours of questions from the senators and then a vote, is that how this works? >> that's exactly right. and then after everyone has spent all of those hours talking about the case and putting forward the evidence that was produced in the house, then only

then will there actually be a vote on whether or not to produce the witnesses. in other words, once the trial has pretty much been argued and they hope it is over -- >> right. >> -- then they will address the question of whether or not there ought to be witnesses. this is -- this is not what a trial is about. look, for people wherever you are on the political spectrum, what the constitution requires is a trial in the senate. and that means a fair trial in the senate, and that means you bring in the evidence. >> yeah. >> if any president, not just trump, but any president can say, hey, i'm just drawing a circle here and nobody gets to go and testify and no documents are produced, what does it mean then to have accountability for a president? however would a senate be able to have an impeachment trial? this is the constitution they're starting to pull apart here. >> you are in iowa tonight. you got "the des moines

register" endorsement. >> yes, i did. >> which is a very big deal in the iowa primary. you've been using this phrase sort of unfurled -- a version in the last debate talked about you and amy klobuchar having never lost an election and the losses of the men on stage. you've been using this phrase "women win ". i wonder whether you feel, the data in your campaign that says there is some group of voters out there that like you but essentially there is a gender tax that female candidates pay, right? there is a lot of patriarchy and sexism in america and it hurts women candidates. is that how you're thinking when you're thinking about this? >> well, people are asking the question. if they're asking the question, the right way to address it is head-on. let's not try to do it around the fringes, through proxy, let's just take it straight on.

and look at the data. the world changed when donald trump got elected. this is not 2016. when donald trump got elected, what's happened since then is that women candidates have outperformed men candidates in competitive races. and look at 2018. we took back the house. we took back statehouses around the country. state legislatures. how? women candidates and women who said, i am in this fight all the way. women who came in and helped make this happen. now, don't get me wrong, lots of good men in it, too, but lots of women who gave this lift. so, look at the data. you know, look, i'm the only person who is running who has beaten an incumbent republican any time in the last 30 years. and we got a lot of evidence women can make this happen. so, women win.

let's keep that in mind and let's level that playing field, and now let's talk about some of the issues. how we get people excited. how we get them out there. how we pull our party together. and how we pull in some republicans. that's how it is we're going to win. >> i want to ask that question. you said how to pull our party together. do you worry -- >> uh-huh. >> i mean, look, i think sometimes people make a little too much of the natural conflict and friction that happens in a primary. it's an election. that's what conflict's about. but do you worry about that? is that something that's in the back of your mind, that, like, the divisions here or the things happening between different candidates or different camps will make it harder to unify? >> look, what i care about is we got to win. we got to beat donald trump. i'm just going to be flat about this. whoever our democratic nominee is, i'm all in. i'm going to help make this happen. but the best way for us to win is we got to pull our party together. you know how we best do that? let's not have the same old arguments we've had for a lon r

time. let's look at what's really broken in this country. we've got an america right now that works great for rich folks. it works great for giant corporations. it works great for lobbyists. it works great for big drug companies and big oil companies that want to drill everywhere. it's working great for them, it's just not working for the rest of america. we kneeled to drneed to draw th contrast with donald trump. he is running the most corrupt administration in history. what i want to do is i want to get there and make that fight over corruption. i want to show how it is that we as democrats are going to be in this fight and we are willing to take on the corruption head on. that's something our whole party can get behind. >> you're going to be -- >> 2 cent wealth tax. our whole party. expanding social security, our whole party. >> you're going to be on a flight for the corruption trial.

i'm going to let you go, senator. >> you know, you're exactly right, though. keep in mind, the ambassador at the heart of this. how did he get his ambassadorship? he paid $1 million to donald trump's inauguration campaign. it's corruption. we need to call it out. that's how i'm going to beat donald trump. >> senator elizabeth warren, democratic candidate for president, thanks for making some time tonight. >> you bet. good to see you. >> good to see you, too. coming up, the trump defense team is set to begin their first full day of arguments tomorrow. how these new allegations from john bolton change the landscape of the impeachment trial after this. chment trial after this [sneezing]

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to talk more on the rungs of the impeachment trial tomorrow, i'm joined by neal katyal, the former acting solicitor general in the obama administration. also the author of "impeach: the case against donald trump." and lawrence tribe. the co-author of "to end a presidency: the power of impeachment." the sukt bject of his interviews changed a lot in the last 24 hours thanks "the new york times" story. the most significant piece of evidence since basically the call notes were released, neal, what do you think about the import of this bolton manuscript? >> it's hugely devastating for the president. so, article i of the impeachment against president trump is abuse of power and the allegation is that he tried to cheat in the 2020 election and pressure the ukrainian government to get dirt

on joe biden. and the bolton revelations, if true, and, of course, we haven't seen the book, but if true corroborate that whole story and say that trump did pressure the ukrainians and withheld the aid in order to get dirt on biden. and then the second allegation is -- the second article of impeachment is obstruction of congress. and, again, here now we have the president -- it looks like people in the white house knew these were bolton's views, and yet they went on television as early as i think yesterday denying that there was anyone with any firsthand knowledge that corroborated this ukrainian pressure account. and coming on top of, of course, the lev parnas revolutions. this isn't the biggest bombshell in the last three days. so altogether, i think the trajectory of this is incredibly bad for the president. his story has fallen apart. >> professor tribe, what do you think? >> well, i certainly agree with that, the president's story has fallen apart. there is an avalanche of news.

i'm sure there'll be still more. and when adam schiff made the point that america deserves a fair trial, she's worth it, now we know exactly what that means. a fair trial requires that all of this new evidence be vetted at the senate itself, not simply in books that will come out after the trial is over. and one more basic point. the real significance of all of this news is that it puts even more pressure on the bizarro argument that i think we're going to hear tomorrow from some of the president's lawyers, that even if everything that is charged in these articles of impeachment is true, even if it is true that the president solicited help from a foreign power, pressured that power, withheld $400 million of federally-appropriated money to

leverage that power in order to give him dirt on his opponents, that even if all of that is true, it isn't impeachable. and you have to really listen hard to that crazy argument, because it may take the form that it says, well, abuse of power isn't impeachable because it's such a vague open-ended phrase. but what you have to do is look under the book cover and see what abuse of power is really being charged here. what's being charged is not just abstract abuse of power, not just abstract obstruction of congress, but a series of concrete actions, and if these lawyers tell us that even if the president did all of that, it's just fine. he can't be impeached for it, then that sends a terrible signal to every future president. >> right. >> it says every future president can use the power of his office in order to get re-elected. that's a disaster for a democracy. >> neal, i keep wondering -- i

mean, lawrence talked about the pressure this puts on both the republicans for witnesses and also the pressure on that argument, right? that once the facts have been essentially conceded. the thing that i can't get over is, like, what is john bolton doing here? this is not a legal question, but is there any way -- it just seems insane to me to be in a situation where i guess if we don't get enough votes in the senate, well, we'll just wait until the book comes out and see if the president did what he's accused of. >> yeah, no, i think that bolton is really trying to signal that he wants to testify. he said that. and now the leaks from the book really underscore why i think he has to testify. there is no serious, real argument on the other side. and so i expect the senators at this point to want witnesses, and even if they don't, as i'll argue in tomorrow's "new york times," the chief justice can easily subpoena these folks on his own and it can't even be

overruled by the republicans in the senate. this is a chief justice who believes in fairness. understand what a trial is. he's never seen a trial without witnesses in america, nobody s has. i think it's the true and right thing to do, as professor tribe just said. >> professor tribe, it seems sort of untenable as a political matter. maybe not. they all think they should hang together, surely hang separately. but keep getting evidence spooling out. all of this is going to come out. adam schiff keeps saying this in arguments, right? this is all going to come out one way or the other. >> that's right. >> do you want to be part of the cover-up? >> i'm afraid some of the republicans are actually in a position where they would have it come out afterwards. >> yes. >> because if it comes out before, they're going to have a hell of a time voting to acquit. i do agree with neal, that the chief justice can play a crucial role here. whether it's true that the senate can't overrule him is a different and more difficult question, but certainly if the

president tries to gag john bolton and tries to invoke some phony privilege that doesn't apply, there isn't going to be a beeline to the district court down the street because the chief justice of the united states is sitting right behind them and he can make a ruling. and even if a majority of the senators could overall him, they're going to be under a lot of pressure to pay attention to somebody like the chief justice of the united states. so i think the whole landscape is dramatically different right now. we really are going to have an extraordinary week ahead of us. >> briefly, neal, do you think you'll see the white house lawyers tomorrow lean on the so what if he did argument? >> yeah, i think they will. i think that as lawrence says, there's very little credence to that argument. it falls apart. we can't have presidents going and trying to cheat in elections, particularly with the help of foreign governments and

giving that foreign government blackmail over the president. it's justify an insane proposition, but i expect we'll hear it tomorrow along with a rush to try to get this thing over with. >> yes. >> because these lawyers are so afraid. >> yes. >> new information's going to come out tomorrow, the next day or the like, so they're trying to rush this thing through to stop. >> the clock is ticking in the background. bolton's going to be outside the white house with a bullhorn before the week's over. neal katyal and lawrence tribe, thank you gentlemen both. appreciate it. that does it for me tonight. i'm chris hayes. much more coverage live on msnbc coming up next. stick around. ♪ as the day begins ♪ time for reflectin' on family and friends ♪ ♪ and hey, we got somethin' ♪ ♪ just for you (sniffing) ♪ it's a cup of your favori-i-i-ite... ♪ (loud splashing) (high-pitched laughter) dang woodchucks! with geico, the savings keep on going. just like this sequel. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more

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a very good evening to you. breaking news. nba superstar kobe bryant killed in a helicopter crash in calabasas, california. the nba champion died in the fatal accident. it is believed eig