tv Andrea Mitchell Reports MSNBC February 4, 2020 9:00am-10:00am PST
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hour of msnbc live. i'll see you tomorrow morning. but "andrea mitchell reports" starts right now. >> and right now on "andrea mitchell reports," state of chaos, the iowa election results remain unknown after an epic fail in the system set up to tabulate the results leaving all the candidates claiming victory in a free-for-all. >> we feel good about where we are and so it's onto new hampshire. >> we know there's delays, but we know one thing, we are punching above our weight. >> it is too close to call, so i'm going to tell you what i do know -- >> you won! [ cheers and applause ] >> when those results are announced, i have a good feeling we're going to be doing very, very well here in iowa. >> by all indications, we are going onto new hampshire victorious. >> all this as the president is
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preparing to deliver his state of the union speech tonight under the cloud of his senate impeachment trial. republicans are hoping he avoids that subject entirely. >> i think most of us are tired of impeachment. >> i think there's a lot of things that he needs to talk about. >> and before tomorrow's final vote on the president's likely acquittal, signs that both sides are looking for a way out. >> censure would allow a bipartisan statement condemning his unacceptable behavior in the strongest terms. >> the house could have pursued censure and not immediately jumped to the remedy of last resort. i cannot vote to convict. >> and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where after failing
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to get any explanations last night, the campaigns are finally being briefed at this hour by iowa's democratic party about the total failure to produce results. now it's onto new hampshire for most of the candidates where the primary is a week from today. joining me now, msnbc katy tur and vaughn hillyard in des moines, mike memoli covering the biden campaign, steve kornacki at the big board and david ploufe, campaign manager for president obama's campaign. the only fun thing that happened last night was watching you go up and down the stairs. we were all sitting in awe as you ran up and down those stairs. great interviews. but for all the fun and excitement of that caucus that -- the number of caucuses that you went to, what about the system and what it means for the democratic party going forward?
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>> reporter: yeah, yesterday was a bit of a microcosm for what happened in iowa. we saw a lot of confusion between the first alignment and the second realignment, the meticulous counting of people, the filling out of cards, the collecting those cards and putting them into plastic pins. what we did not see was anybody using any app yesterday at that caucus site. that's because they did not get to use it in time, we're told. instead they walked those results over to the iowa democratic party headquarters last night when they were done. here is the thing, a lot of these caucus chairs have been doing this for years. they were comfortable with the old way and this year a new system was introduced. only with the app, but also with reporting out three different results and we're told that the confusion came in not only in the downloading of the app, the trying to install the app, the not road testing the app with all the caucus chairs
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beforehand, but also in the new way that they were counting and tallying all of the votes. it used to be you got one result at the end. at this time they were trying to say how many people were in the popular vote, the first realignment, how many people for each candidate were in the second realignment and how many delegates you got. this seems to be an example of the more transparency the iowa democratic party gave us into how the caucuses work, the more confusing and perplexing it got for why this system is this way in the first place. there are a lot of questions not only from the campaigns but from the democratic party as a whole and a lot of voters about why iowa does it this way and why they are awarded the first to decide state every year, why so much importance is being put on these caucuses when so many people aren't able to do it, aren't able to commit three hours of their evening to
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caucus, need child care, or have to go to work or may not be comfortable saying who they support from front of their friends and neighbors. what i can tell you, though, andrea, is that every single person i have talked to from campaign sources to caucus chairs to election security officials, they say that this is a mess. they used more colorful language than that, but nobody is happy with how this played out. the good news is that there are paper ballots. they will be able to count all of the pledge cards and say who got what eventually. unclear when that will be, whether it will be today or later. the bad news, yes, there's the paper trail. the bad news is all of this confusion is creating a very prime place for the internet to go and claim that this whole system is rigged, to use misinformation to try and make it so voters are not confident
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with the results and that was the biggest concern, the confidence with the results, the biggest concern for officials going into 2020, is that voters would not be able to trust the system and we're seeing -- we're seeing it play out right now in realtime here in iowa. >> it's so fortunate, especially against the backdrop of the russian interference in 2016. this is the third straight election in iowa where there have been difficulties in results. hillary clinton and bernie sanders, there was a disputed outcome, he was still claiming and still is claiming that he won the popular vote and she got the delegates that were assigne republicans had rick santorum not winning until the day after. the process itself even before they made it more complicated was always subject to flaws. vaughn, you've been talking to the democratic party there. you were rooted in iowa for many
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months and certainly for several years before that -- >> we're still here. >> yes. your third year in iowa. let's talk about what the campaign is telling the candidates. because they still have not produced the results that have been promised. >> there's a call between the campaigns and the iowa democratic party that is slated to take place any minute. this would be the third such call between the iowa democratic party and these campaigns. the question is, what sort of information is iowa democratic party able to offer up to these campaigns. the first two calls insighted frustration. it was not unlike that that the one press call that has taken place, lasted a little over a minute yesterday. so we're waiting to hear the details that come from the iowa democratic party. we should note they intended to release results today, but i had conversations with democratic party officials and these votes are not only still coming in, the paper trail as well as
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initial -- those initial phone calls, but the issue -- the underlying issue is with the data coming in. thank goodness that this was a caucus system here in iowa because if it were not for that paper trail, i think there would be much more up in the air. because the way that the information was coming into the system did not match up with the data that was being sent. you're looking at an iowa caucus system here that has had two particularly close caucuses and, you know, for the amount of money, i was talking to one precinct chair, he's also the chair of a local democratic county about three hours west of here, he said why would any democratic candidate want to come back to iowa and spend the resources that these campaigns spent over the last year, not only time, money, but also those field organizers, when they could go elsewhere, all for the realization that come caucus
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night, you're not going to have a result. the pete buttigieg campaign, over the course of this year built up an operation in which they had nearly 200 staff on the ground. they had captains in all 1,700 -- at 1,700 caucus locations. ultimately what do they get out of it? it looks like they're going to get a few delegates and they had an 11:30 p.m. local speech, 12:30 p.m. if you're in new hampshire, and they're still waiting for the chance to perhaps call themselves caucus victors. >> and i watched buttigieg last night. i watched all of the speeches as we were still on the air and the buttigieg speech was one of the best speeches i ever seen him give. he was pumped up by what they were claiming to be a victory. i guess anyone can claim a victory, certainly the entrance polls were good for him. but what about joe biden? this almost gave him a get out of jail card because he -- if
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these results were reported last night before they might be overshadowed by the state of the union and the impeachment trial tomorrow and other events, a debate on friday. the joe biden results unofficially looked pretty gloomy. instead, he could be, you know, legally challenging the party and claiming that things were not tabulated correctly. mike memoli is with biden in new hampshire. what are they saying? >> reporter: well, andrea, first of all, separate and apart from the biden campaign, it's a good thing we're in new hampshire. every single ballot that will be cast here will be cast on paper. there are some smaller towns here that still use ballot boxes that were issued in the 1800s. we will not have any app crashes. in 104 years, there's never been a recount and so we should not have those kinds of issues. to your point about the biden
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campaign, it was clear in the days leading up to the iowa caucuses that they were very much feeling the pressure, worried about that kind of disappointing outcome. my indication of how things were definitely turning south for him last night was when we were seeing precinct after precinct in which biden was not viable. they expected to be viable in 90% of the precincts across the state. and so the biden campaign, using terms like acute flaws to describe the results here, they're very much emphasizing at the same time -- >> mike memoli, i'm sorry -- thanks for powering through that. i think -- a very enthusiastic biden adviser is behind you.
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there are those who did better than expected. others, amy klobuchar, who might have had more momentum if she had gotten out of the senate trial sooner. but where do you see the fact that -- the field has not been winnowed as you would have expected. >> when we get these results, let's see. the entrance poll was indicating as you said a good night for buttigieg. also a good night for sanders. and i think we had talked about this in the run-up to iowa, the possibility with these multiple counts that multiple candidates might be in position to claim victory and certainly one of the things we know about the way this formula works in iowa, the state delegates, which is how they end up deciding the winner in terms of national convention delegates, college towns in iowa pay a price in that formula. places where sanders was strong in '16 and strong last night, places around iowa city, iowa
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state university here in ames, places where sanders probably ran up the score, i think would put him in contention, potentially, to win that statewide popular vote, raw vote, whatever you want to call it. perhaps for buttigieg, just looking at that entrance poll, we will see if that bears out. but maybe more of an opportunity to be competing in the state delegate category. that's one thing i'm going to be looking for when we start to see those results. were those entrance polls correct? that's always something you don't know for sure. and if they were correct, if they were capturing the essence of the race, is that dynamic there where one candidate is doing better in this metric and another in that metric. why do we have all of these metrics? it bears remembering where this came from. it came from this, four years ago at this time you mentioned this, the 2016 iowa democratic caucuses, the closest in history. the margin was four state delegates. clinton beat sanders by four
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state delegates. in the wake of that, the sanders campaign said, hey, those college areas, iowa city, ames, we think we ran up the score there and if there was a raw vote, a popular vote, we think we would have won that and the dnc after the 2016 campaign said, iowa, next time, you got to do that. you have to have the state delegates and you have to have the raw vote and that's why we're in the situation we're in right now. >> that's called a know iowa is new hampshire's first primary in the country. if they're going to do both, it's no longer a caucus and that's what made it so complicated. david ploufe, you've been through this on both sides of the fence. from your experience, is it over for iowa? >> certainly as we know the iowa caucuses. i think -- i think it's likely iowa won't be first again.
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if they are, they're going to have to change their whole approach. as you mention, new hampshire has been the first primary. i think there are a lot of questions building about the caucuses. obviously i have a personal experience with the caucuses. i think there's a lot of positives to them. it's hard to argue now because we've had cycle after cycle where there are issues. we're going to have to wait seven days for the winnowing. so someone like pete who needs to win and win and win to overcome the advantages of bernie sanders or biden may get is not going to probably get the full measure of his performance last night if it comes to pass. some of the people underperformed, you mentioned joe biden, amy klobuchar, get to stave off seven days of brutality where you're in new hampshire and the coverage is all about how poorly you did. i don't know how materially it changes the race. i think those who did well in iowa aren't going to get the
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full measure of the momentum bounce. iowa is much more about momentum than delegates. and those who did poorly are not going to pay the price. if we have a democratic president, which i hope we do, maybe we won't have a contested primary in 2024. we're going to have to look at the rules. the next time we have a race, i think the calendar is going to be much different. it's hard to argue when you look at the last three cycles that something fundamentally is not going to need to change. >> how vulnerable is joe biden now with -- mike bloomberg just waiting and also campaigning and pouring money into a campaign and looking for vulnerabilities there. >> first, i would say bloomberg has moved in national polls if they're accurate. he's moved to 10 or 12 which is better than not moving. to really be a threat to be the nominee, you've got to get into the high 30s or 40s. he has a long way to go. for bloomberg, a lot will depend on things he doesn't have control of, coming out of the south carolina primary, what
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does the field look like? who has the most momentum? if a joe biden and/or pete buttigieg are coming out of south carolina with momentum, it's more challenging. if bernie sanders is able to run the table, there may be more of an opening for bloomberg. this is a chess match and the nature of the race changes dramatically. even new hampshire is a lot different than iowa, then you go to nevada, south carolina, then it's a national primary where bloomberg has the money, but i think we should not overstate, he's made progress. but to become the nominee, you've got to get into the high 30s or 40s. whether it's bloomberg or bernie sanders or joe biden or mayor pete or elizabeth warren, that's the test we have -- who is showing the capability or the potential to grow from 15, 20, 22 to 38, 40, 42, and that person will become the nominee. >> david ploufe, thank you so much. thanks to all and you guys in
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iowa call us the minute you get some word from the iowa democratic party. presumably, sometime today. the final vote, president trump's fate in his impeachment trial to be decided tomorrow. will he be cleared or could he still face some sort of punishment. chris murphy of connecticut will be joining me next. be joining me next it took plenty of work to get here. but it's still important to be prepared for what's next. at fidelity, we can help you build a clear plan for retirement without the unnecessary fees you might expect from so many financial firms. we'll make sure you can cover the essentials, as well as all the things you want to do. because when you have a retirement partner who gives you clarity at every step, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.
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finally drawing to a close tomorrow with a scheduled vote at 4:00 p.m. eastern that is almost certainly going to acquit the president. although, a few moderate senators have been looking for a way to signal that what the president did was not okay with them. short of removing him from office, which a conviction would require. joining me now is chris murphy who serves on the foreign relations committee and has been deeply involved, invested in the future of ukraine, traveling back and forth and as this whole scandal erupted. senator, first of all, what about joe manchin's proposal for censure, how would that work, could it get to the floor without unanimous consent prior to the scheduled resumption of trial tomorrow or is this something that would have to happen after he's acquitted? >> i don't think that it can make it to the floor before the trial is over.
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the rules of the trial require us to get to a verdict and senator mcconnell has made it clear that he wants to move on as soon as this trial is done. i haven't heard him be sympathetic to any consequences for the president of the united states and that would include a censu censure motion. republicans have an opportunity to say something about the scheme that the president was involved in. if we have no republicans that support conviction and removal this week, then i think it's a clear sign to the president that he can continue to try to manipulate ukraine and china or whomever else may be interested in doing him a favor by trying to help destroy his political opponents and so i'm still hopeful that we can keep pressure on republicans to join us, at least a small handful of them. >> what about pressure on democrats? mark short, the vice president's chief of staff told hallie jackson that he think that is
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the president thinks they will have at least one democrat and they will be able to claim it is a bipartisan acquittal. >> i don't know how all of my colleagues are going to vote. ultimately this is not a party position. everybody has no make up their mind on removal, according to how their conscious guides them. but i do know the president is going to be much more interested in listening to members of his own party. that's why i think there's a special burden on members of the president's party to declare the conduct of the president impeachable and removable. i'm sure he might, you know, crow if there's a democrat or two who votes against the impeachment. >> as he did when the house had a handful of votes of democrats voting against impeachment. what about doug jones in alabama, up for re-election in a deep red state.
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does he get a pass from the party? do you expect? what about joe manchin who is talking about censure. he's struggling with whether or not this -- what the president did merits removing him from office in an election year. >> well, like i said, for each of us, this is maybe the most important vote we're going to cast. and, you know, we have had a half a dozen of democratic caucus meetings and at none of those is senator schumer trying to pressure every democrat to have a consistent position on removal. i would say that they were amongst the loudest voices both publicly and privately for a fair trial. i think both of them are just as angry as the rest of us that this president and his republican accomplices have managed to keep john bolton's testimony hidden from the american public. that is a travesty of justice and that is something that every democratic senator was united
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on. >> and what will be the atmosphere in the chamber tonight with the president still on trial, technically? >> the atmosphere in the senate chamber has been very, very s.avy, as you would expect, i think we're all girding for the worst from this president. that she's going to be as bombastic as normal and, you know, i hope he understands that republicans and democrats have joined together in some measure in the senate to make clear that his conduct is sunacceptable. this is no time for the president to be chest thumping. he might avoid removal from office, but what he's done in the judgment of both republicans and democrats in the senate is to violate his oath of office and frankly downgrade the status of the executive branch in the eyes of the world and that's --
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that does damage to the country, not to one party or one president. >> senator chris murphy, thank you very much. thanks for being with us on a big day. >> thanks. >> and vaughn hillyard with an update from des moines. what do we know about when we will get the results, vaughn? >> reporter: there's a call taking place right now as we speak between the candidates -- the candidates' campaigns and the iowa democratic party and the news out of this call is that the initial results from the iowa democratic party will be released at 5:00 p.m. eastern tonight. that is 4:00 p.m. iowa time. again, this is a -- this is a call between the iowa democratic party and these presidential campaigns. as they're putting it, the majority of the results will be released at 5:00 p.m. we should say this call is ongoing as these particular campaigns have pushed back against iowa democratic party frustrated. the iowa democratic party
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insists that they are reaching out to precincts that they have yet to get results from. they are making those calls to get those results. but they are also sending staff out across the state to go and pick up the actual paper trail of the results. again, what time do we have? 12:30. in 4 1/2 hours, the iowa democratic party has a lot of work to do to put out those results, andrea. >> first of all, why a majority? i know that -- you're saying that two precincts aren't in yet. doesn't it further confuse it if it's not all of them. i know you have more reporting to do, but -- >> that was the plan all along last night was to release all of the results at once here. and as we've said, there's 1700 precinct locations around the state and i got off the phone with one who said he text messaged his results in and was not aware of any effort to get paper verification here this morning. so based off of our anecdotes
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from our colleagues here that are across the state of iowa and on the phone, it still seems like there's a lot of work to do and i think that's where the biden campaign jumped into that call and expressed a lot of questions saying what does majority mean? where are these coming from? and i think there's a lot of questions that this iowa democratic party has still yet to answer. >> vaughn hillyard, thank you so much on the beat. and this week might be all about iowa and new hampshire for most 2020 democrats, but not mike bloomberg. bloomberg is skipping those states all together, campaigning in detroit at this hour and philadelphia tonight. both democratic strongholds in battleground states. what does the muddled iowa results mean for the bloomberg strategy going forward. joining me now, kevin sheekey. are you having second thoughts about skipping iowa, does that seem like a bad decision now?
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>> maybe mike bloomberg should have come to run the campaign not participate in the campaign. he built a campaign based on data and results. he wrote an op-ed a month or two ago that said we should change the primary process to the benefit of democrats. and the caucus makes no sense. we had no idea that it would be this bad. it's a disaster for the party. it's important that we run a national campaign against this president, particularly in battleground states where he's so strong and we have to get to that point, and that's what we're trying to do. >> there's a lot of uncertainty about the results, obviously, but it seems clear from the entrance polls, if that holds up, that biden did not as well as he had hoped. less than expected. what is biden's potential weakness going forward mean for mike bloomberg? >> i think mike got into advertise campaign because his view was that the primary process may not produce a
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candidate that's strong enough to run against a formidable president who has built a very strong campaign. i think if you're in the early state process and you lose iowa and new hampshire, history says you don't get to go forward. there are maybe two tickets out of iowa, but you have to then win new hampshire if you were not one of those two tickets. whether it's biden or any other candidate, i think if you haven't won at least one of those states, i think it's disqualifying. >> is it -- is it damaging the party that the field is not winnowed down, that everybody is moving on to new hampshire and will still -- you're going to have another debate friday night and there are no clear front-runners right now. >> listen, i think we have a process. those results will come out. it's really as a party talking about how effective we can hold our elections and how we can get our message out. i don't think it speaks well to us as a party. we'll get the result and is we'll know who did well and
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we'll know it in time for new hampshire. >> i want to show you something that bernie sanders' campaign co-chair said about mike bloomberg, buying his way into the nomination last night on msnbc. >> i bet that mike bloomberg makes enough on a daily basis to finance this campaign. how do you beat >> we should be ashamed of this, that the oligarchs can buy -- >> you think mike bloomberg is an oligarch? >> he is. >> there was a lot of pushback from the anchors and corresponde correspondents on the set. >> i think it's depressing. i hear a lot of talk about russia from the trump campaign and from the campaigns, why they're so focused on russia makes no sense to me. mike bloomberg is a man whose father never made more than
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$6,000 a year who paid his way to go through college, who built his own business and has made billions of dollars and pledged to bounce the check to the undertaken. i'm not quite sure what measure of a man is better than that. he's deciding to devote this year to removing donald trump from office and has decided to run a positive campaign around the country and try to bring democrats together to effect that result. i think people who go out within the party and try to tear us down are doing nothing more than helping the president. >> when is he going to prove himself as a retail politician? he's not been doing nearly as much hand-to-hand campaigning -- >> i'm going to take a question with that. andrea, you know, you've been following iowa more and more, i think people will follow mike bloomberg around the country.
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we had 1,400 people in neeks. he's getting the endorsement of the mayor of flint but said that mike bloomberg is the type of person who will figure out how we can make investment that is can clean the water in flint and around this country where it's unclean. and so i think mike is getting bigger crowds this week and that will become evident as people start following a national campaign and we get out of these early state primaries. >> thank you so much. thanks for being with us today. >> thank you. and coming up, state of play, director of the cia, secretary of defense, he's done it all, leon panetta talking about the state of the union, the state of impeachment and the state of democratic politics. stay with us, you're watching mand "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. rts" on msnbc
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it really gives you a sense of connection to... something that's bigger than yourself. greater details. richer stories. and now with health insights. get your dna kit at ancestry.com. tonight president trump delivers his state of the union address to a joint session of congress while technically still on trial in the senate, at least until tomorrow. his situation is not unique. president bill clinton was in a similar position when he delivered his state of the union speech in january 1999. >> i stand before you tonight to report that the state of our union is strong. [ applause ] >> joining me now is leon panetta who served as defense secretary, cia director and
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white house chief of staff for bill clinton. good to see you. i know you weren't technically chief of staff when that was delivered, but you certainly underwent a lot of the agony of the investigation that led up to the impeachment of bill clinton. how does a president juggle the imperatives tonight, the president of the united states arriving in the chambers of the house, the house that has impeached him? >> well, you know, the state of the union address has become almost an example of show time where a president will walk in, there will be a lot of cheering from his side of the aisle and the president will present a very optimistic view of the state of the nation. we'll have people in the gallery that he will point to who will get applause. i'm not sure that we've seen in
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recent times a state of the union that really presents an accurate view of justice exactly what the state of our country is all about. >> when bill clinton was giving the state of the union and facing impeachment, we know how that divided. it seems as mean and bitter as it was. it was not as partisan, not as evenly divided with the republicans and democrats taking absolutely opposing points of view. >> i think, andrea, that what we've been through with this impeachment process is in very -- in a very real way a reflection of the problems in washington. we have a president who doesn't recognize any boundaries that he has to abide by.
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so it was almost inevitable that at some point he was going to face charges with regards to abuse of power. we also have a washington that is very polarized between the parties, more polarized than i've ever seen it and the problem was that republicans and democrats were not going to find any way to work together to really look at the impeachment issues themselves. they both, in some ways, gathered their party together so the house with the democrats passed the impeachment, the senate with the republicans is going to acquit the president and very frankly i think the country is frustrated that both parties did not get together to really determine how we were going to hold the president accountable. >> was it a mistake for the democrats in the house to impeach the president knowing that it was impossible to get
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the 67 votes, 20 republicans, to convict him and remove him from office? >> well, as we know, speaker pelosi was very concerned about going ahead with impeachment, if it wasn't in some way bipartisan. on the other hand, when the facts came out about what the president did in asking a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent and then withholding the military aid, i think it was very difficult for the democrats not to face up to an investigation as to what the president did. so it's hard at this point to say that the democrats should not have proceeded because the facts here demanded an investigation. the problem was that the party, the republicans, never even moved to try to seriously
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consider the facts here. i think because the parties are polarized and the polarization is based more on identity than on policy. parties are not paying attention to the facts. they're basically reacting to how they can maintain power and i think the republicans reflect that in the way they handled the trial and in the vote that they're going to cast tomorrow to acquit the president. >> finally, do you think the president should acknowledge -- it would be out of character, but should acknowledge some wrongdoing and apologize? >> i thought the president should have done that a long time ago. frankly, i think he could have avoided impeachment if he had said i did something wrong and i'm not going to do it again and apologized to the country. but that -- that isn't who this president is. this president said he had a perfect call and i'm sure he
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will never acknowledge having done the wrong thing. which raises the whole issue of how is the congress -- and there are senators now who acknowledge that this president did something wrong. how is the congress and particularly the senate going to hold this president in some way accountable so that he knows that he did wrong and that the congress is not going to let him do it again? that is an important issue that i think the senators need to seriously think about. >> leon panetta, once a member of the house and the father of a current member of the house. thank you very much. it's very good to see you. thanks for being with us. coming up, end of an era. in last night's catastrophe, is that a sign of things to come? stay with us. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. nyquil severe gives you powerful relief
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wow. but here's what we know. it's a tight, three-way race at the top. we know that the three of us will be dividing upmost of the delegates coming out of iowa. i'm feeling good. we had a bumpy start to the democratic process yesterday in. after last night's debacle in iowa, it's off to the races in nonstop ahead of the next debate coming up this friday and the election tuesday n. iowa overnight pete buttigieg claimed victory. he was pressed on that on morning joe today. >> we were looking at the internal numbers that we had and beginning to realize that something extraordinary had happened last night. here you have a campaign that was really questioned when we first got in for whether we ought to be here, whether we belonged in this case, and to not only establish that, but to reach the position that we did
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was a clear victory for this campaign. >> let's bring in our contributor msnbc's contributor, and david jog ee, former republican congressman. is this the end of iowa? >> i have been talking to a lot of democratic sources asking that same question. i think it is too early to say. >> this was an unmitigated disaster. i have been fielding calls from sources asking where do they go from here. of course, we know the results, the majority of results will be out by 5:00 p.m. eastern standard time, that's 50% of results. a lot of campaigns are saying what does that mean if i am the other half of the 50% results, what does it mean if i'm joe
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biden and want to hold onto an idea that i have momentum still, and not able to say that because i'm not getting the other 50% of results. i think there are a lot of questions to be asked. nevada is saying they're not using the same app iowa has. you're already seeing some effects of what happened last night. >> and arguably the big winner is president trump, david jolly, who has been tweeting what a disaster it was, saying things like if they can't run a caucus, how can they fix health care. i mean, he is having a field day with this. >> i would say to my democratic friends, don't feed into donald trump's narrative. i have a contrarian take on the iowa news stories, andrea, don't worry about it. what's important is integrity of results, not the timing of results, and in the end, we will have a winner. delegates will be assigned, runners up will have to come under scrutiny for the fact they didn't prevail in iowa. if democrats let this deflate
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them, if you will, they're taking their eye off the ball which is to ensure they have a candidate to beat donald trump. what was lost, andrea, was the timing desperately wanted by candidates' campaigns. candidates don't always get to control the news cycle, they all went into last night with a strategy, a media strategy. you saw pete buttigieg try to reach for that strategy, suggesting he won, to try to create momentum. but the context of all of this has always been does iowa have an out sized influence in the democratic primary. perhaps it does. and what this now does, it pushes results into an environment where the democratic candidates are already on the ground in new hampshire. democrats, don't worry, focus. donald trump, that's your candidate you have to beat. >> let me ask you both quickly to respond to the fact that the turnout was comparable to 2016. where's the anger against trump, enthusiasm, motivation for democrats to turn out?
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david, first to you. >> i think that's a legitimate point. as i believe one of my colleagues here on set said, it may be because of the demographics of iowa are not energized, motivated the way more urban communities of color may be. that's a legitimate question for democrats to assess going into the next election. >> is that a problem for democrats? >> it could possibly be a problem if obviously democrats are trying to run up numbers in all of the critical states like wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. if this becomes a trend, they're looking at an issue, but again, donald trump wasn't on the ballot yet. in some ways, i wonder if democrats are wondering i don't know who the candidate is, i don't know whether or not i think this field is too big and as a result, may sit this out. i think too early to tell whether democrats are in trouble. >> thanks to both of you. coming up, the latest details. what can we expect from the state of the union speech tonight? a live report from the white
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house tonight. kristin welker will be here. you're watching andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. reports on msnbc ill going for m, even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin... i want that too. eliquis. eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis is fda-approved and has both. what's next? reeling in a nice one. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. eliquis, the number one cardiologist-prescribed blood thinner.
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people on the list, andrea, includes a family the white house will say was helped by the president's tax credits, also includes a border patrol agent and chief of police. each guest aimed at amplifying part of the president's policies and agenda. what do we expect tonight, andrea? based on conversations with a number of administration officials, the key question is how is the president going to address the issue that's going to be looming large, the issue of impeachment with the final senate vote slated for wednesday, a day after his address. based on my conversations, we don't expect him to use the word impeachment. instead, he may talk about bridging partisan divides, for example. i want to caveat that, andrea, the speech is still a work in progress, as is so often the case on the day of the state of the union for this president or
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any other president. so there are drafts still being worked on and circulated. so it is possible that that could change. take a look at last year's state of the union address, when he delivered that in the wake of the longest government shutdown in u.s. history, in that speech he talked about bridging partisan divides, warned democrats not to investigate him. didn't get specific about investigations, instead spoke more broadly. we're told this speech will be forward looking, he is going to layout his agenda for 2020, he is about to hit the campaign trail, and he is going to talk about what he sees as his biggest accomplishments when it comes to the economy and trade. again, andrea, the theme of the speech, the great american come back, but again, remarkable optics as he is going to deliver it against the backdrop of that big vote that's looming for tomorrow, whether to convict or acquit him, he is all but certain to be acquitted, but
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thorny optics, andrea. >> a lot of high drama. thank you so much. we'll all be watching. that does it for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. follow us on facebook and twitter. here is stephanie ruhle. >> thanks so much, andrea. a busy day. following, breaking unprecedented news this hour, this country still waits to find out who won the iowa caucuses. moments ago, the iowa democratic party told the presidential campaigns to expect results by 5:00 p.m. eastern today, according to a source familiar with the call that just took place between the state party and the individual campaigns. the party now blaming the delay in caucus results on a coding issue in a new app. the app was meant to help officials report results from caucus sites. the entire
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