as we approach the crown of another hour, 11:00 p.m. eastern time. >> mayor pete buttigieg is in a unique position tonight. having come into the state of the union into the state of the union address with an incredible piece of news he would like to share widely with the entire country. if knot the world. ooip doing really well in iowa and might have won. it's interesting to think about what this does in terms of the momentum. we are, we keep talking about this. the 2020 democratic presidential notary public nating process is the most interesting and unpredictable i have seen and i am old. it started -- it is starting off bananas and there was a surprise. at least for 62% of the vote. so far a surprise in terms of the result. and this young candidate who had zero name recognition a year

ago. and still in a large part of the country. has a story to tell. maybe it's a good place to tell it after the state of union. if the iowa results will be stretched out over several days rather than released once at midnight in on a monday in february. i think it's very obviously the iowa democrats screwed up and have to answer for it. the ultimate impact of what happens here will depend on the results and the if this keeps trickling out. >> he's been on 62%. buffering for five hours. it's like netflix. i have bad for mayor pete. he's in a unique position to see if what he did in iowa will work in other states. will he take it to new hampshire and south carolina. apply this method next. he's probably -- he's single

digits in all other places. where can he make the loeap basd on the momentum from iowa. >> we know the theory that senator sanders brings to organizing and voter turn out. part of the stump speech. part of the way had says had should be the nominee and attract sport. it's more of a process question than it is a demonstration. from all of the other candidates including first time national candidates like elizabeth warren and pete buttigieg. there's problems with what states go first and we have the fight about iowa being first of all. you stress test the campaigns in different types of operation. iowa caucus is different than the primary and caucus and south carolina primary. we'll see that before a giant money bomb lands on all of them less than one month from tonight

on super-tuesday. >> to the folks joining us in what is normally the 11th hour, in air quotes, this was day 1,111 in the trump administration. we are talking about dual stories, the state of the union address we just witnessed, hard to bring together in one cogent sentence, equally difficult to explain is what is still unfolding in iowa. steve kornacki is back at the board. oh, 24 hours ago we were talking about when are we going to get results from iowa. >> and we're still asking when are we going to get results from iowa? when are we going to get more results? before we get into that state of the union speech, 62% of precincts were reporting. 62% still reporting. we have heard things from the iowa democratic party about more votes coming in. those suggestions have not panned out. that has been a recurring theme these last 24 hours. so it is still at 62%. i should make very clear here the decision desk here at nbc is not characterizing anybody as the winner or any single person

as the leader here in terms of the state delegate equivalents or that popular vote, that initial preference. you have buttigieg leading sanders by 25 state delegate equivalents and of course you have sanders right now leading by three points in that initial preference. we've been talking about this tonight. why does buttigieg have that advantage in delegates when he is losing the initial preference by three points, when he's also losing the re-allocated preference? sanders is also leading that. what you see here, it looks like i sort of made a mistake here. these are all marks. i marked off in yellow here, these are counties that buttigieg has won or is leading in right now. you see there are a lot of them all throughout the state. these are all counties where their share of the delegates statewide are greater than their share of the turnout. so we keep talking about this, how there is a bit of an advantage, especially in some rural counties where you get more bang for your buck in terms

of delegates than necessarily raw votes. so you see all of these counties here. buttigieg is leading in all of them right now, and it explains how he's able to take the lead in state delegates despite trailing right now in that initial preference. so we'll continue to see -- we're not giving up hope tonight to get some more vote in on this thing. but that pattern we've been talking about, buttigieg and the delegates, sanders and the initial preference, we'll see if that continues or if we get a clear winner in this final 38%. >> steve, i mean this completely absent snark. we're talking about individual initial preference. isn't that what we call, in non-caucus states, going to vote? >> that would be the argument that the sanders campaign will make if this holds. i'll put it up right here. they'll say, hey, look, this is your clearest indication yet of what people intended to do with one choice in the iowa caucuses, and they'll probably say, hey, look, they've been doing the iowa caucuses for 50 years. it started back in 1972.

in 1972 this was a very convoluted process that only a few people took part in, and they came up with this very complicated state delegate equivalent formula. and they had conventions that played out over a period of months to get to that. i think if you look back at that, as an academic exercise, if 50 years ago you said, hey, we've got a choice here. we can do state delegate equivalents or raise your hand at the caucus, which would you rather have? i think there might have been a serious discussion about which is a better instrument of measuring support. the sanders campaign if this holds is going to say more people went out to these caucus sites and decided they wanted to support sanders than buttigieg. they also will have the talking point of saying even when given a second choice at this point, even when given a second choice, sanders still leading buttigieg. we'll see if that holds. buttigieg leads that delegate formula but the two measures there of first and second round support, sanders leads. >> thank you, steve. >> we are going to be talking with a top national surrogate for the sanders campaign. i want to tell you one quick

piece of news before we go to her. this has just been reported. we were talking about that dramatic visual we had right at the end of the president's state of the union address in which nancy pelosi pointedly -- i'll demonstrate -- pointedly took her copy of the speech and tore it. as speaker pelosi left the floor, a couple of nbc news reporters asked her what she thought of the speech, and she told them, quote, i tore it up. she was asked why she tore it up, and she said, quote, because it was the courteous thing to do considering the alternative. >> lighting it on fire? >> which makes my mind start to conjure a number of different alternatives. i want to bring in congresswoman rashida tlaib. democrat from michigan. she's supporting bernie sanders for president. she was at the capitol tonight for the state of the union

address. congresswoman, it is great to see you. thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> so i understand -- i was just told right as we were bringing you on that you were among the several democratic lawmakers who actually walked out of the president's speech before it was done tonight. tell me about that decision and what was the tipping point for you? >> i think, you know, even the mention of brett kavanaugh for me is a trigger, just as a woman in america, the fact that he, you know, rightfully was accused and having an incredibly strong woman come before the public and the world and tell her story of sexual assault by this person that was appointed to the supreme court is just -- i couldn't stand still and not do anything about it, and i needed to walk away from that. >> in terms of the president's remarks there, i'm not sure exactly the moment when you got up and when you were out of the chamber or not. the president seemed to ad lib a remark when he was talking about supreme court justices saying, we have many more in the pipeline, implying that he is intending or expecting to fill a lot more supreme court seats. that seemed to be a moment that, again, was off script in terms of the prepared remarks, but

making a major promise in terms of what his intentions are. >> yeah. i mean, look, one of the things that i know from my residents as they probably watch this -- i mean we're the third poorest congressional district in the country. and for him to, you know, flaunt and brag about taking people off of food assistance, the fact that, you know, rightfully they're very angry. i'm getting text messages from folks saying, but i thought he's in court right now trying to take away protection and health coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. >> mm-hmm. >> he's lying, rashida. do something about it. it's like what can i do? he's the president of the united states, a forever impeached president. what we need to do is remove him from office. he cannot continue to lie to the american people. he cannot continue to -- not only what i saw in lie after lie but also to mislead the public and use immigrants and use people of various different faiths to try to increase fear and do fearmongering kind of politicians. look, we're tired of the hate rhetoric. we're tired of the divisiveness in our country, right? we want actual policy and

actions. look, we have been talking about lowering prescription drugs. we've been talking about the issues around the broken immigration system but really trying to say we need a just, fair, very humane immigration system. he needs to be working with all of us and many of us that represent these vulnerable communities, these front line communities. and right now, you know, we just don't want to be -- we're not part of a reality show. we are the united states of america. we are made of people that are impacted by everything he says and everything he does and doesn't do. so for many of us standing by, it was really, you know, the kind of text message i'm getting from folks is it was bizarre. it's unreal. is he really saying this because it's untrue. those are the kinds of things that i think need to be really centered and people need to elevate. and i hope folks are fact checking because i walked out of there knowing a number of facts, a number of parts of his speech were completely false. i literally thought his nose was growing during the speech like pinocchio. it was blatant disregard of the

truth, disregard of really understanding the importance of really trying to get to a point not just like kind of making up stuff as he goes. that's exactly what it felt like. >> you raised the issue of impeachment and what you described as the necessity to remove this president from office. obviously it is a split screen in terms of major news right now with this president having a state of the union address, with the iowa 2020 caucus results still coming in and the democratic candidates moving to new hampshire, and of course the culmination of the president's impeachment trial tomorrow. you were so outspoken to the point of rhetorical exclamation points about wanting the president's impeachment and seeking the president's impeachment. now that we're on the precipice of the senate making its decision, what everybody expects to be a party line acquittal in the senate tomorrow, what's your take on whether it was a good idea, whether it went the way you wanted it to go, whether it went the way everybody should have expected it to go? now that it's at this point, how

do you feel about that having been so sure of it early on? >> look, you know, this is about doing what's right for our country and for our democracy. i have to basically move forward and, you know, i took an oath, and move forward in saying i have to uphold that oath. that means holding a president accountable to the united states constitution. i mean before i got here, residents at home were saying, look, there's this upgraded version of pay to play, rashida. you have a sitting ceo in the white house making decisions in the best interest of his companies and the fact that he hasn't divested and hasn't complied with the emoluments clause. it may not be the basis of why we move forward. but where we are now is we at least got the truth out as much as folks are pushing back against that. the one thing the american people need us to do is do the right thing, not strategically, not looking at polls, but doing the right thing to protect our democracy and making sure that we're elevating the truth no matter what, no matter how hard it is. they deserve the truth.

they deserve to know exactly what this president is doing, and it may be bribing a foreign national today, but tomorrow it's going to continue moving money away from the military and from our schools and from other programs to benefit his resorts, watching him allow folks to use the trump hotel as kind of access to the most powerful position in the world to get their way. i mean these are kinds of things that really are at the core of why we need to be pushing back against this illegal and very, very, very much un-american kind of way, i think, that as we push forward in trying to represent our people. it's just wrong. and i can't -- we can't sit back and say, oh, well, is it going to go through the senate? is it the right thing? was it the right thing to do at the moment? it was because people demanded us to hold him accountable for bribing a foreign government. they want us to hold him accountable for lying to them. they want us to hold him accountable for not upholding the united states constitution, the oath that he took.

and that's all we can do. we set a dangerous precedent when we do nothing. it just was not an option for us. >> congresswoman, i also need to ask you you're an endorser of senator bernie sanders and his presidential campaign. >> yes. >> we are in a weird state where we are more than 24 hours out from the iowa caucuses. we've got 62% of results reported. senator sanders appears to be ahead in terms of the votes cast by people allocating themselves to specific supporters and then re-allocating themselves. the delegate count appears to be slightly in favor of mayor pete buttigieg. obviously we'll still get more results and we don't know what the final tally will be. but how do you and the campaign feel about what happened in iowa given both the results and the strangeness of the process? >> i mean i think with every campaign, as long as you were rooted in the community and grassroots and engaging people that haven't been engaged historically, that you did everything possible to grow this

movement of not me, but us. you know, it has been about all of us. i have seen people that said they had never participated in iowa caucuses but for the fact that bernie was running for president of the united states. that, to me, is inspiring. the one thing that i know for folks even in my district and across the country, they're tired. they're tired of folks that bow down to corporations. they want somebody that's not going to sell them out. you hear it over and over again. we don't want the same old kind of leadership that comes in and literally bows down or tries to come too much in the center where we're not transforming people's lives. we're not being able to take care of them. they're suffering. they're in so much pain for not being included on a number of things that would be able to elevate them out of poverty, being able to make sure they have health care coverage. and, you know, senator sanders, the one thing about him is he has a record, not like everybody that is running for president. he is one that has an actual record that's so consistent with

protecting the working families and protecting work is class. and that is my district, and that's why for so many of us, he speaks to us, and he engages again people that have never been engaged before. and he's bringing people together that wouldn't even be in the room but for the fact that he is the one running for president. >> congresswoman rashida tlaib, who is one of the -- we are now getting further reports -- many members of congress who walked out of tonight's state of the union address. congresswoman, thank you so much for making time. we really appreciate you having time with us tonight. >> thank you so much for having me. >> we have a ton yet to talk about, a ton yet to cover. we will do so right after this break. - i've been pretty stable with my schizophrenia for a while, and then my kids asked me why my body was rocking back and forth. my doctor said i have tardive dyskinesia, which may be related to important medications i take for my schizophrenia. i also felt my tongue darting and pushing against my cheeks.

i was worried what others would think. td can affect different parts of the body, and it may also affect people who take medications for depression and bipolar disorder. i know i shouldn't change or stop my medication so i was relieved there are treatment options for td. - if this sounds like you or someone you know, visit talkabouttd.com to sign up to receive a personalized doctor discussion guide to help start a conversation with you doctor about td. you'll also be able to access videos and a free brochure that show the different movements of td. visit talkabouttd.com or call to learn more. - i was glad to learn there are treatments for td. learn more at talkabouttd.com.

[ fast-paced drumming ]

coming up on 20 minutes after the hour. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. as we said, day 1,111 of this trump administration. what a day it was.

it leaves us with 273 days to go, alas, until the 2020 presidential election. donald trump delivered his third state of the union address on the eve of a senate vote to remove him from office or acquit him of the charges. it was a bizarre night. it started with what can only be described as a snub to the speaker, failing to shake nancy pelosi's hand when she -- when he arrived at the podium. then there was this after the speech. >> thank you very much. >> then there was the speech and everything that transpired, including but not limited to the awarding of the presidential medal of freedom to rush limbaugh by the first lady in the gallery during the speech.

here for our discussion on a boisterous tuesday night, stephanie ruhle, our nbc news senior business correspondent, the host of her own program on this very network. michael steele, former chairman of the republican national committee, former lieutenant governor of the great state of maryland. he is the host of the podcast that bears his name. doris kearns goodwin, presidential historian and author. she has written bestsellers about both roosevelts, kennedys, lincoln to name a few. her latest work is appropriately titled "leadership in turbulent times." eugene robinson, pulitzer prize-winning columnist for "the washington post." and among our political analysts and in washington, robert costa, national political reporter for "the washington post," moderator of "washington week" on pbs. robert, i'd like to begin with you because i can't help but notice the location of tonight's event over your shoulder. the reaction to what was a bizarre night to watch. >> reporter: first republicans talking to white house officials tonight, senators and

congressmen, it's clear they believe the president's remarks were the formal kickoff of this phase of the 2020 election, an economic message to the suburban voters in the country, and then the pivot toward the hardline message on immigration, the awarding of the presidential medal of freedom to rush limbaugh, speaking to voters out in different parts of the country in swing state battlegrounds as the president looks to contain his coalition for 2020. for democrats, they see challenges here. the president is boosted by approval ratings. he is going to likely be acquitted in the senate impeachment trial. but look beyond all the color tonight. you saw earlier today speaker pelosi, her emphasis in her news conference, health care, health care, health care. you saw that in the governor's speech in the democratic response. that, the democrats see, as the path to power in 2020, not necessarily combating president trump on impeachment. >> stephanie ruhle, the hour is late. i had something prepared and planned for the broadcast tonight, but we can no longer do that.

we tasked you with fact-checking on your area of expertise, the economy. i note several handwritten pages in kind of frantic sharpie, i think, is the motif. >> i wouldn't say frantic. here's the thing. >> please. >> we knew that the president was going to lead with the economy, and he has every right to. the economy is strong. we are at historic low unemployment numbers. the stock market, which is different from the economy, is soaring. he walked in tonight after a record day in the stock market, and you could say lots of people aren't investors. you're right. they're not buying apple stock, but millions of ordinary americans do have retirement accounts and own 401(k)s. and last year the s&p was up 29%. that makes a lot of americans feel good. the question is why doesn't the president leave it there? why does he start by saying, i took us out of years of economic decline. it was an economic reversal.

i unwound failed economic policies. what in the world is he talking about? we are in the tenth year of an economic expansion, which was obviously started in the obama administration. the president has seen 6.7 million jobs created in the last three years. you know who created more? obama in the last three years of his administration. the unemployment fell faster under obama, and gdp, when the president says it's the greatest economy ever, he ranks seventh among his 11 predecessors as far as growth goes. and you can't forget what's goosed that growth? record tax cuts for corporate america. so the question is why on earth wouldn't the president leave well enough alone? he's got a strong economy. because to what we just heard in the last segment when rashida tlaib said she was triggered, that's exactly what the republicans want to do. they know what the facts are, and they know what framing it incorrectly is. and by framing it incorrectly, you're right. people are frantically fact-checking and twitter is

aflutter. but the state of the union isn't a debate. it's a presentation. and the president got to paint a picture, not take a snapshot. and painting that picture works for a lot of americans. >> michael steele, we're old enough to remember proper civics education. we're old enough to remember bipartisanship. so it's with some sadness that we greet mistruths from the lectern, and it's with some sadness that we look at the picture of two very distinct chambers tonight. >> very much so. in fact, what i noted was how the president addressed the house. he addressed republicans. he didn't address democrats. and so the answer to your question, stephanie, is the base. this whole thing on the economy was to -- you know, it plays for them. they don't believe obama had any good cut related to the economy. they don't believe obama had any good related to foreign policy.

they don't believe any of that. so you have to keep that narrative going, and the president did a very effective job playing that out, creating that snapshot, actually bringing up some old photos and putting it back in front of his house. this was as much a thank you, guys, for what you did for me over here as it was a conversation to the base, saying, remember what i said i was going to do for you? not only have i done it, i'm doing it in spades. they have nothing to do with it. in fact, they've stopped me and blocked me. and that's what's going to feed this election cycle going forward. >> doris kearns goodwin, thanks to your writing, we know that this is the same chamber where the old lion fdr finally came as close as he would ever come to talking about his paralysis. he was just back from yalta, i believe, and said, you'll forgive me for not standing but ten pounds of steel around my legs makes it difficult to get around.

same chamber. talk about the oratorical history or lack of it that was made tonight. >> well, i keep thinking that i wish i were listening to fdr in 1941. that's a traditional state of the union. he had a goal. usually a president in the old days before the lenny skutniks have taken over the theatrics, which were very effective, but a lot of time goes into that rather than the governing. you're trying to get laws passed. your state of the union is meant to mobilize people to action. in 1941, the main goal that fdr had when he talked about the four freedoms, we're going to create a whole new world based on something that now norman rockwell has written about. more importantly, he needed to get lend-lease passed. we were still an isolationist country. that speech helped to get lend-lease passed. without lend-lease, the war might not have been won. our allies were given our tanks and our weapons and our planes. think about 1965 when lbj gave his state of the union and he outlines all the things he wants the congress to pass, voting rights, medicare, aid to education, npr, pbs, immigration reform.

those are the old state of the unions, and now they've become, even though it was effective and maybe you could argue what he did tonight was to mobilize his people to vote for him, and that's a different kind. and the campaign is there, and we're in the middle of the election, and he's got impeachment tomorrow. and he at least didn't choose the route that mr. nixon chose when he was giving his state of the union, when he was already under hearings for watergate, and he did bring up the watergate investigation. then he made this incredible faux pas. he meant to say, we intend to replace the present discredited welfare system, and by mistake he said, we intend to display the discredited president. i mean that's one of the great moments in state of the union history. but i want to be in those old days when it was really something that mobilized a country to bipartisan action. >> eugene, i know you as the possessor of a restless mind. i am guessing you have recorded the first tappings of a column based on what we just witnessed tonight. where are we as a country?

>> well, the first and last tap. i had to file the copy before i came out here. so where are we as a country? well, you know, that speech was -- it was a triumphalist speech in a setting that is traditionally stage managed really to display the promise of congress. he's there at the invitation of the speaker of the house. so presidents are there on the invitation of congress, and they're asking congress. they're laying out their program to congress, but it's a sign that they need congress to effect their policies. and donald trump didn't give that kind of speech. it was -- it was me, me, me. it was i did this and i did that, a lot of stuff that he didn't do. he apparently made the u.s. number one in producing oil and gas when that happened under the obama administration. and, you know, i could give more

examples of that. >> nafta is the worst ever, but the usmca is the best, when usmca is the new and improved nafta. >> is basically nafta with a little pixie dust on it. so that was all about stoking the base, and it was done in the manner of reality television, at which donald trump is a master. you know, so not only does he have rush limbaugh there but on the spot he has the first lady put the medal around his neck. >> yeah. >> not only does he have the wife of the serviceman there, but he brings the serviceman home for the reunion. and it is effective. people watch reality television. >> stories about human beings. >> exactly. >> what's so significant about what gene is saying right now, it is something that it still

stuns me that the vast majority of people both in politics and the media still have not gotten what donald trump did tonight, donald trump has been doing for 20 years. and america has been watching donald trump do it on "the apprentice," on the beauty pageants. page six of "the new york post"." they have followed this man's story and for the first time in 2016, he actually made them much more a part of that story. and now he's like, hey, you thought that was good. how about this? rush limbaugh. >> yep. >> medal of freedom. first lady, put it on his neck. come on. and then, oh, no, no. i got something more for you. here's one of our men and women -- one of our servicemen. >> bring him down. >> bring him down. welcome home. in fact, you don't have to go back to fight. you get to stay home. and i watched on twitter, republican, democrat, independent response to that,

boom. and so whoever comes up against donald trump had better bring their "a" game, and i don't mean "a" as in the traditional sense of it, their asymmetrical game. >> exactly. >> you cannot play this game against him. this fight between now and november, baby, you better come ready because this is a warm-up to what's going to come. >> we're going to take a break in our conversation. our friends will stay here with us. our conversation continues right after this. can my side be firm? and my side super soft? yes. with the sleep number 360 smart bed, on sale now, you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. can it help me fall asleep faster? yes, by gently warming your feet. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. so, you can really promise better sleep? not promise... prove. and now, during the ultimate sleep number event save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed.

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i think that this is not going particularly well so far, and why is tom perez still the chairman of the democratic national committee? i have no idea. this party needs to wake up. there's only one moral imperative in this country right now, and that is to beat donald trump. that's the only moral imperative. it's the only thing i want to hear. and until we understand that, we win every argument, brian. we win the argument on anything. we don't win the elections because we talk about stuff that is not relevant. >> before we come back to our friends here in the studio, let's go right to robert costa in washington. robert, that happened in the 5:00 hour today. james carville, self-described old warrior, now 75 years old.

we should mention he's an lsu fan and a former member of the u.s. marine corps. you're never a former member of the u.s. marine corps. you're always a marine. but he's charged up. he is very concerned at the kind of purity testing he's seeing, at the distractions he sees getting thrown out. moral imperative is replacement, defeat and replacement of donald trump, and he's worried about what he sees in the party. >> reporter: he's not a lone voice. mr. carville's message was echoed tonight on capitol hill, speaking to democratic lawmakers and aides, they too are frustrated with the lack of clarity coming out of the iowa caucuses. all eyes now turn to the new hampshire primary, but senator sanders and senator warren well positioned there near their home states. and all eyes also on south carolina. vice president biden, a bastion of support in that state among african-american voters, can he win in south carolina and power through until super tuesday, or will mayor buttigieg, with what

so far we see as solid results in iowa, will we see him try to consolidate the center of the democratic party? a lot of uncertainty tonight as they listened to president trump in that chamber about where this party is going? will it move in the sanders direction or more toward the center? >> thank you. we greatly appreciate it. stephanie ruhle, the intersection of politics and the economy is democrats learning to speak american, something that in recent years hasn't always come naturally. >> and it's what the president nails. he was up there tonight talking about a blue collar boom. i could go blue in the face giving you all the facts around where there is no blue collar boom, but the president has won those voters. in iowa, we know farm bankruptcies were up. we know more and more farmers are struggling after $28 billion in farm aid that they got because of the president's trade war. but many are standing with him because they say he's the first person to see me. tonight literally speaking about them.

that actually matters. and to james carville's point, democrats need to stop winning arguments and start winning elections. take a page from his book. he is staying connected to those base voters while at the same time look at that stock market. he is hooking up investors. >> here you are -- well, it was going to be another thought. another break for us. no one's going anywhere. thank you very much to stephanie ruhle. thank you to robert costa. our coverage continues right after this. - when i noticed

my sister moving differently, i didn't know what was happening. she said it was like someone else was controlling her mouth. her doctor said she has tardive dyskinesia, which may be related to important medication she takes for her depression. her ankles would also roll and her toes would stretch out. i noticed she was avoiding her friends and family. td can affect different parts of the body. it may also affect people who take medications for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. she knows she shouldn't stop or change her medication, so we were relieved to learn there are treatment options for td. - if this sounds like you or someone you know, visit talkabouttd.com to sign up to receive a personalized doctor discussion guide to help start a conversation with your doctor about td. you'll also be able to access videos and a free brochure that show the different movements of td. visit talkabouttd.com or call to learn more. - we were so relieved to learn there are treatments for td. - learn more at talkabouttd.com.

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>> four more years, four more years, four more years. >> that was the stuff of a trump rally, and that was a first in our memory on the floor of the house chamber at the start of a state of the union. with us here at the table, cody keenan.

he rose through the ranks from campaign intern in chicago to become the director of speechwriting in what became the obama white house, writing backyard stump speeches and state of the union addresses, everything in between. he remains the former president's chief speechwriter to this day. it's a bucket list speech. it's not your favorite undertaking was the state of the union. >> no. >> because elements of government line up to have their arguments made. as construction, how was tonight? >> oh, tonight's was -- it basically started out as a fact sheet that was bereft of facts. went to all the gifts he wants for voters this year. and then they have a tendency to google a bunch of historical things that happened in america and try to string them together. as a speechwriter, i'm in mourning for -- >> amelia earhart got a shout-out. >> so did harriet tubman, but this is also the president that kept her off the $20 bill. they need to be careful with who they're choosing here.

>> oratorically, this guy couldn't be more different from the guy who has been the voice in your head for so many years. >> one of the other things about this speech is there was no story to it, no narrative. president trump really is all about him, you know? it's me first. everybody else second. there's no sense of where we are in the broader sweep of american history, no sense of continuum to our story. it's just what's good for us right now. >> as i said in the moments afterwards, when it went dark, it was dark for a state of the union. this is a presidency that started out on american carnage. >> right. and then you have a massive comeback and a half hour later we're back in the darkness. i think he sees that as a way to turn out his base, you know, along with what i think was actually a really good case for barack obama's economy in the first ten minutes. >> doris, this is your area as well because you've covered the best and the worst delivered from that same wooden lectern. >> yeah, but on the other hand, i mean i agree that there was no

arc of a story that you would want for the country as a whole. but i'll go back to what you said earlier. he provided a dozen little stories that had a human notion to them. i mean i wouldn't take the limbaugh one, but i think the tuskegee airmen and that kid and the grandfather, and then he stands up. that one sort of got to me. so i don't know. i mean the question is what are you judging the president on? and if you're judging him on did he create a campaign state of the union for his base? i think you'd have to say he was very effective. i mean the interesting thing is when he gave that carnage, the inaugural address, he came back a few weeks later with what was the first unofficial state of the union, and it was very measured. it talked about civil rights, and it talked about justice and the anti-semitism. and then three days later, four days later, he talks about being wiretapped by obama. so the question we'll see now, he didn't go down the path of getting off -- he hardly ad-libbed tonight. he did what people wanted him to. he didn't talk about impeachment.

what will happen with his tweets in the next days ahead. >> cody, let me ask you this. there were identifiable mistruths in the text of that speech tonight. that is still a new notion for all of us here at this table. it has to be a startling idea to you. >> yeah, i mean my wife was a fact checker in the white house, so it was tough the first -- >> what's that? >> but trump has figured out how to game the system. if he gets everybody talking about the showmanship in tonight's speech, avoiding fact checking, you know, avoiding any substance whatsoever, and even the really nice moments -- and i was listening to what you were saying before, michael. i choke up every time i see a commercial with a reunited soldier and their family. they work. they really do. but what all of us as a country have to do in this election is look at what matters behind that. this is a person who dismissed 60 soldiers with traumatic brain injury as having headaches. we can't get lost in these heartwarming stories without thinking about the real policies at stake.

you bring a soldier home. but negotiating to keep troops in iran. >> eugene, this is a tough one. the reuniting the soldier with the family. i'm noticing people on social media tonight tiptoeing into a criticism of that action on behalf of -- >> no. it was a beautiful moment, and you can't escape that. i agree with doris that there were moments that were incredibly effective. they did not string together into a larger narrative. they did not -- you know, he did not do what obama would always do, which is, you know, he'd start at the beginning, and he'd sort of, you know, build it up, and there was a narrative arc to his speeches, thank you for that. but it was disconnected in the way that life is now, you know?

in the way -- we don't have the long attention spans that we used to. you know, it was like twitter. >> we do have the emotion. we do have the emotion. when you see that image, to your point, cody, when you see that image, you get the well up -- >> i watch those videos on youtube. they're -- >> yeah. so that's what the president plays to because that's his space. that's the space he operates in. he wants you to be emotional about what he just said or what he just did because in that emotion you will react. and he saw his base tonight react when they responded "this is my president. i'm so proud of him. i love donald trump." so that feeds into that. and to your point, brian, on the left, they're muted. their response is like, well -- >> i don't want to be anti -- >> so he sort of puts them in a box with that emotion.

>> cody, is emotion hard or easy to write? >> well, it depends on what it is. we had to do plenty of eulogies after mass shootings. that is very, very hard. try to make people feel good. one of my favorites was we had this young couple in the box and we basically made the entire economic section of the speech about them rather than choosing a bunch of different stories. and the president said they were young and in love in america and that it doesn't get much better than that. it doesn't matter what your party is, you can feel that, the first time you fell in love with somebody. >> our thanks to everybody. what a night. what a day. what a time they're having in the state of iowa, for example. our thanks. our coverage continues right after this.

we're back in the studio covering the final vote in impeachment in the senate. what we've missed in our coverage of iowa and the state of the union has been some of the closing arguments including what has gotten a lot of attention, the closing remarks of congressman schiff of california. >> now you have seen what we promised, overwhelming evidence of the president's guilt. donald john trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars to an ally at war and a coveted white house meeting with their president to coerce or extort that nation to help to cheat in our elections. and when he was found out, he engaged in the most

comprehensive effort to cover up his conduct in the history of presidential impeachment, fighting all subpoenas for documents and witnesses and using his own obstruction as a sword and a shield. if abuse of power is not impeachable, even though it is clear the founders considered it the highest of all high crimes and misdemeanors, but if it were not impeachable, then a whole range of utterly unacceptable conduct in a president would now be beyond reach. trump could offer alaska to the russians in exchange for support in the next election or decide to move to mar-a-lago permanently and let jared kushner run the country, delegating to him the decision whether to go to war. because those things are not necessarily criminal, this argument would allow that he could not be impeached for such abuses of power. of course this would be absurd. more than absurd, it would be dangerous. it must have come as a shock, a pleasant shock to this president, that our norms and

institutions would prove to be so weak. the independence of the justice department and its formerly proud office of legal counsel now mere legal tools at the president's disposal to investigate enemies or churn out helpful opinions not worth the paper they are written on. the fbi painted by a president as corrupt and disloyal. the intelligence community not to be trusted against the good counsel of vladimir putin. the press portrayed as enemies of the people. the daily attacks on the guardrails of our democracy so relentless assailed have made us numb and blind to the consequences. does none of that matter anymore if he's the president of our party? every single vote, even a single vote by a single member can change the course of history.

it is said that a single man or woman of courage makes a majority. is there one among you who will say enough? america believes in a thing called truth. she does not believe we are entitled to our own alternate facts. she recoils at those who spread pernicious falsehoods. to her truth matters. there is nothing more corrosive to a democracy than the idea that there is no truth. >> adam schiff from yesterday in the senate. just tonight there's a new development in iowa. lawrence o'donnell will begin the next hour's broadcast with that as we say good night and thank you for being with us from our nbc news headquarters here in new york.

we begin this hour with breaking news from iowa. we have new results. let's go to steve kornacki. steve, what do we have? >> we were sitting all night at 62% here. we can show you we've got a jump here up to 71% tabulated. the counties that are coming in a little bit more. we said keeping a close eye on polk county. this is des moines, the biggest, most densely populated county in the state. des moines and some immediate suburbs. 63% in. again, you see this is the initial preference. this is folks showing up at the caucus site, how they lined up on that first initial vote. again you see bernie sanders, he continues to lead here.

a couple other big counties where we've gotten some more vote in, you go north from there. story county, this is a big college county. this is the home of iowa state university. again, this was sanders country in 2016. it is again tonight. this is one of his stronger areas. you go up to this part of state here, dubuque. this is interesting. a little bit of a change here from what we saw earlier. sanders slightly ahead of buttigieg in the early tabulation here. so these are initial preferences that are coming in. sanders continuing to hold a narrow advantage in the initial preference. but at the same time, in the state delegate equivalents, and that is the category that's used to determine ultimately national convention delegates, i actually don't have that graphic. i can write these out for you, though. the gap here -- let me get the dark colored pen. the gap here on state delegate give equivalents, if that thing would ever select itself. buttigieg right now has 418 of those.

bernie sanders has 393. there is a gap here of 25, 25 state delegate equivalents. that's about 1%. there are about 600 state delegate equivalents yet to be assigned. again, the gap is 25. it was 25 at the last update. so, sanders so far has not been able to cut into that while continuing to lead in that initial preference. >> steve, do you have any sense of what's going to happen to that gap as more returns come in? >> yeah. well, i think one thing that sanders was hoping for in polk county here, in des moines where, again, he does lead by a few points, there are just so many state delegate equivalents there. there's 392 that are assigned to polk, so i think his hope there was as more vote came in, he might be able to pick up some there. i think the fact that we just got 10% more from polk, he's maintaining that lead on the initial preference, and he has not been able to cut into that, that might be a little discouraging for him. again, there still is more than one quarter out there statewide. it depends a lot on specific precincts within counties, which we're still trying to figure out which specific precincts are outstanding.

so, you know, 25, it's not a ton. sanders actually lost by four state delegate equivalents to hillary clinton in 2016. 25 would be, you know, pretty close too. i think that would make it the second closest iowa caucuses in history after 2016's first. and again that advantage on that initial preference is three points for him now. >> steve, it's been a shockingly long time between updates for you. as soon as any more comes in, let us know. >> you got it. >> back to steve when that happens. the trump state of the union address became too much for some democratic members of congress in attendance, who simply couldn't take it anymore and walked out. the first member of the house to tweet about walking out of the state of the union address tonight will join us in just a moment. no one could really be surprised that donald trump broke with tradition and politeness and refused to shake the hand of the speaker of the house, but he did shake the hands of the nation's military commanders, the joint chiefs of staff. the very same people who donald trump called losers and dopes

and babies to their faces in a meeting at the pentagon reported in the new book "a very stable genius." the meeting was about military deployments and strategies in the middle east. the president did not mention any of that in his state of the union address tonight. he did not mention that he has violated his promise to get troops out of iraq and out of afghanistan and has actually increased the number of troops in the region. but he did use one of those brave members of the military currently serving in afghanistan to create the image that the president is actually bringing troops home from the region. in classic reality show style, the president had army sergeant townsend williams emerge from behind a closed door to be reunited with his wife and children. the president went after one of the front-runners for the democratic presidential nomination, socialist candidate senator bernie sanders. the president did not mention

senator sanders by name, but since senator sanders is a self-proclaimed socialist in favor of medicare for all, the president went after him this way. >> we will never let socialism destroy american health care. >> by which of course he means medicare for all. medicare is a socialist program, but every single republican senator like mitch mcconnell, who is currently on medicare, cheered for the president's implicit suggestion that no one who is not currently old enough for medicare should ever be able to get medicare, never mind the sanders version of medicare for all. our first guest tonight was the first member of congress to tweet about walking out of the state of the union address. his tweet announcing his walkout came at 7:57 p.m., saying, "i just walked out of the state of the union. i've had enough. it's like watching professional wrestling. it's all fake."

joining us now is democratic congressman tim ryan of ohio. you will remember tim ryan as one of the presidential candidates who was running last year. congressman ryan, thank you very much for joining us tonight. what was the breaking point for you? >> well, you know, i really wasn't trying to make a big deal about it. i just kind of snuck out, and the press found out, and so i sent the tweet out just explaining. but the lies just started to add up. i mean, it started out with disgracefully not shaking nancy pelosi's hand. then the blue collar boom when i represent a district that lost 4,000 general motors jobs. you can go to the fox com deal in wisconsin. you can go to carrier in indiana. you can go to harley-davidson in that area. so he was lying, lawrence, and just the lies started to add up. you know, he's talking about the glorification of god. this is a guy who paid off porn stars because he was having sex with them when his wife was pregnant. i mean give me a break.

i mean how much can a guy take sitting there listening to this stuff? and i just, you know, snuck out and went to facetime my 5-year-old son before he went to bed. >> i think many members would agree with you on the democratic side that that was a better use of your time. i want to read you seth moulton's tweet. your tweet was 9:57 p.m. i think i misspoke and said 7:57. so that's about 50 minutes into the speech you'd had enough of it. seth moulton tweeted, "i left the state of the union after trump, a draft dodger who mocked senator john mccain, gold-star families and soldiers with trauma brain injury -- started talking about the good he has done for our military." as you know, of course, seth moulton, combat veteran, multiple tours of duty in combat and like yourself, a former presidential candidate. so you may have started a little bit of a stampede. >> well, you know, we could go through, you know, and i heard stephanie ruhle on earlier talking about the economics. obama had more job creation in

the last three years than trump did in his first three years. we can go through the prescription drug deal. we can go through him talking about pre-existing conditions and helping people on health care, which is absolutely ridiculous. but i think for me, he's a divider, you know? i mean the country wants to heal. the country wants to come together, democrats and republicans, and he's just dividing. there was that beautiful moment with the tuskegee airmen and the grandson. beautiful moment, right? 30 seconds later he's going after immigrants. i mean, like, stop. just stop. the country wants to come together. we're tired of the fear. we're tired of the division. we want to heal. and he's throwing gasoline on all these cultural rifts and trying to benefit politically from them, which i think could be his undoing as we move into the fall. >> congressman, i was going to ask you and you sort of alluded to it there, what you thought were the best moments of the approximately 50 minutes of

speech that you saw? and i think you're citing the tuskegee airmen element of it, and that of course has absolutely nothing to do with any governing policy of donald trump's. it was just a little moment he was able to talk about. >> and it's fine. the veteran coming in, the military officer coming in, that's a beautiful moment. i mean just like i'm not going to sit here and deny that. that was a beautiful moment. we've seen those videos, those commercials of men and women coming back and surprising their kid at school, and if you don't get teared up and shed tears over that, you're not a human being. of course that's a beautiful moment. but lie after lie after lie, you know, trying to pontificate on things that just blatantly aren't true. like, look, like i said, i wasn't trying to make a big deal about it. i was just done listening to it, and so i walked out. i had better things to do. >> before you go, congressman, just the point that if you're

going to reunite that sergeant with his family, it's great that he did. but it's kind of surprising that there wasn't any policy statement about the future of any -- >> right. >> -- any other person, any other military personnel stationed in the middle east. >> right. >> not one word about them. >> well, and the veteran suicide rate is still super high. you know, what's the new innovative policies trying to solve that problem? we have deaths of despair that are super high. we still have huge issues around mental health. i'm all for you pumping yourself up at the state of the union, but we still have all of these challenges. what did he offer to bring us together to compete with china and all they're doing economically, one belt/one road, pushing into africa, blowing the doors off of artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing. all of these other things, like, i won't run the whole laundry

list, but what's our strategy? this was truly run like a game show. yes, there were some beautiful moments, you know, that were special, but the reality is the guy lied about everything. the guy's trying to act like he's some saint, and he's paying off porn stars, and he's talking about a blue collar boom and factories are closing in ohio. like, i'm done. i can only take so much. >> congressman tim ryan, thank you for sticking around and joining us tonight. really appreciate it. >> thanks, lawrence. joining our discussion now, yamiche alcindor, the white house correspondent for the pbs news hour. rick stengel is with us, former undersecretary of state in the obama administration. maria teresa kumar. president and ceo of voto latino. jonathan alter. and former republican congressman david jolly of florida, who has left the republican party. they are all msnbc analysts. and yamiche, let me start with you. was there any part of the speech that you think we should be concentrating on? >> i think that the part of the speech that you should be concentrating on is probably when he gave that presidential medal of freedom to rush

limbaugh because i think in that moment, it encapsulated both the cultural issues and the issues of president trump kind of turning this into a reality tv show. so it was a made for tv moment. rush limbaugh was acting like he was surprised when of course rush limbaugh was the main person or one of the main voices who was saying that barack obama wasn't born in this country, which was really a racist conspiracy theory. so i think you have the president bestowing this award that rosa parks has won, that so many other great americans have won, that is really a polarizing thing. of course republicans were cheering. rush limbaugh recently said he has lung cancer. there are a lot of people in the republican party who love rush limbaugh. but for democrats and a lot of people, independents and african-americans, he's just seen as someone who is the face of racism, frankly. so i think that that was a moment that encapsulated this speech. it was a polarizing speech. i also think of course there are so many fact checks to get to. the one that i'll say is that the president continued to say that immigrants are criminals when we know study after study has shown that undocumented immigrants commit less crimes than u.s. citizens.

that's just been proven over and over again, and the president continues to make it seem as though these are stereotypical immigrants who are coming in and pillaging the country, which is just not true. >> and, david jolly, rush limbaugh gets the best supporting actor award because the first tweet that i saw saying he was going to get the medal of freedom was at 2:45 p.m. today. it leaked. >> he was sequestered. >> it leaked from the lunch the president had with some people in the news business, so it was public information for six hours before rush limbaugh pretended to be discovering it when the president said it in the speech. >> "who, me?" was his look, right? a couple observations. i've had the opportunity to be in the chamber about a dozen times for state of the union addresses. i think one of the reasons this one, you know, hit kind of hard particularly for democrats is most state of the union addresses, they include a bit of discussion about the state of the union as good. but it's more a calling to an agenda.

it's a calling to the nation, we need to do this on immigration, this on health care. that's how the time is spent. donald trump spent the first 20 minutes bragging. i mean it was obvious. it was true donald trump bragging about how great he is. and then every speech has something that defines it, whether it's memorable or not. you know, bill clinton gave a state of the union address days after the monica lewinsky story broke. george bush had the axis of evil moment. barack obama had a bit of a pen and a phone address admonishing congress. this one i think is the reality tv, the transition of the state of the union to reality tv. it was the rush limbaugh moment. it was the personally granting the opportunity scholarship to the young lady. it was the reuniting of the military family. and i think the other thing that was noticeably different was the solidarity of the opposition of democrats. you know, we all watched. there's always on the president's partisan side, there's the cheering and on the other side it's more muted.

there were, for moments that would last 10 or 15 minutes, zero reaction from democrats, even on some simple things about acknowledging the value of vocational education or hcbus. there clearly was a determination by democrats not to affirm this president at any turn because they believed he was actually lying and being disingenuous about what he was bragging about. >> maria teresa, david mentioned the little girl from philadelphia who is now being granted one of these school vouchers basically that republicans champion. very interesting infiltration of the language in that moment. this speech the president delivered, when he's talking about that little girl's education, he never once uses the phrase "public school." >> right. >> what he calls them are government schools, and we know this party, the republican party, hates government. so they are no longer talking about -- trump world is no longer talking about public schools.

they're talking about government schools and what he called failing government schools. >> right. and there's a whole movement on the right that government schools are the indoctrination of liberal ideas into your child. so by providing them with vouchers, then you can home schoolchildren. you can indoctrinate them in your own religious beliefs in a very different way. there's a real issue that's going to come up front. but what really got me pause of this -- first of all, this was very much a hunger games presidential address, and it was very much divisive, but it was almost pulling the wool over americans' eyes because it allowed people to feel that for a second we were unified. and i caution the democrats when they go after trump because he's doing exactly what he did in the 2016 election, when he took the issue of trade, when he took the issue of freedom from the democrats and wrapped himself around it. and tonight he talked about schools. he talked once again about health care. he talked about the environment, barely but he did enough. he also talked about trade, family leave. he's starting also to siphon off

and going after the african-american vote in a very real way. let's not forget that in 2016 he took 8% of floridian african-american voters. that's a lot when you're talking about margins. so i would caution the democrats to think that this was all sunk and that he was lying, lying, lying. we're in it. we talk about it every single day. we can actually fact check him live. but for people that want to pause to feel maybe the country is a little on track, he hit the points they want to hear to make them feel better tonight. >> jonathan, he made history tonight before he even opened his mouth. the very first president running for re-election while in the middle of a senate impeachment trial in the senate, giving a state of the union address. we now have exactly one of those. >> right. and he was able to create the suspension of disbelief that none of this is going on. it actually worked for him. >> not a single reference about impeachment. >> not a single reference. he is a master marketer, and he understands, as mark twain said,

that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. >> yep. >> and it's one thing to lie in tweets and, you know, people are absorbing them at different times, and it goes through the news cycle. but when you're doing it repeatedly in real time, and part of it is goebbels, the big lie. if you're saying you're protecting people with pre-existing conditions when you're in court trying to strip them of those protections at the same moment, that's not just a lie. that's a big lie. what i think is scary for a lot of democrats is he's going to run a big lie campaign all the way to the election. and on a certain level, unfortunately, lying works. people have busy lives. they can't go to the fact checks and find everything out, what's really true. and so this speech worried me, and i think you are going to see him get a bump in the polls out of it. >> rick, your reaction to the speech. >> i'm a little worried too.

by the way, the goebbels idea is that familiarity seems like truthfulness to people when he repeats a lie over and over, it seems truthful. but i would also caution democrats too because we can go and fact check that speech and go through the whole thing, how many jobs he created versus obama, et cetera. but the problem is for democrats is that three-quarters of americans think the economy is going in the right direction. traditionally an incumbent president gets something like 80% of those voters. the thing that's different about trump is that he only gets 50% of the three-quarter voters who think the economy is going in the right direction. the democrats have to peel those people off, and they have to peel more people off. we can quibble about the facts, but the economy is solid for a lot of americans who might vote for donald trump. the democrats have to reckon with that. >> we're going to take a break here. when we come back, we will have the response to the state of the union address, the unofficial response from congresswoman katie porter. managing type 2 diabetes?

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trump probably has no idea that the house of representatives has passed legislation to reduce and control the price of prescription drugs. the bill number is hr-3, and that bill is now in the senate being ignored by mitch mcconnell's united states senate. so when the president spoke in utter ignorance about prescription drug prices tonight, he got a very strong reaction from the democrats on the house side. >> i'm calling for bipartisan legislation that achieves the goal of dramatically lowering prescription drug prices. get a bill on my desk, and i will sign it into law immediately. [ applause ]

>> hr-3, hr-3, hr-3. >> with unyielding commitment, we are curbing the opioid epidemic. >> hr-3 they were chanting. joining us now is democratic congresswoman katie porter of california. she's a member of the house financial services committee. she is a supporter of elizabeth warren for president. congresswoman porter, hr-3, i know you tried to shout it up to him. i'm not sure he heard it. >> no. we hope the president will educate himself about what the house has already done with regard to bipartisan legislation to lower the price of prescription drugs. hr-3 did attract republican votes on the house floor. it's a strong bill. it would really help immediately address the price of prescription drugs. it's one of my top priorities. so for the president to say he'll immediately sign bipartisan legislation if we send it to him, i think we as

house democrats wanted to remind him that we in fact in the house have reached across the aisle and passed bipartisan prescription drug legislation. it's his job to call on senator mitch mcconnell to vote on that legislation and then put it before the president for his signature. >> i want to show a picture that congressman mark desaulnier tweeted. this is a picture of his guest that he brought to the state of the union tonight, isabel bueso. viewers of rachel's program and my program will remember her as someone who was threatened by president trump with being deported even though she's in this country to receive life-saving medical treatment. it took months of television coverage here and news coverage and pushing by members of congress like yourself to change that trump policy. but i know many of you brought guests to the state of the union. did you bring someone from your district in california? >> my state of the union guest was dr. heather huszti, who is the chief psychologist at the

children's hospital of orange county. i am very committed to my bipartisan bill on mental health parity, making sure that private insurance companies are covering mental health in the same way as they do physical health. this is already part of federal law, but it's not being enforced the way it needs to be. so families as a result are going out without mental health services. this is an issue for pediatric patriots in particular, but it also, of course, affects veterans, families of veterans, just a wide range of americans. ultimately it's a public health issue. >> what else would you like to respond to the president about in this speech? >> one of the things i really noticed was what wasn't in the president's speech. it certainly was a wide-ranging speech and he felt free to reach out and grab on to topic after topic. he had a large number of guests. what was notable to me is what

he didn't talk about, which was corruption, which was tackling corruption, in his lingo, draining the swamp. yet the house democrats passed hr-1. it's our marquee bill. it's our top priority dealing with corruption, the anti-corruption provisions, campaign finance reform, making sure every american, regardless of their party preference, has the ability to vote, and the president completely ignored that issue. and given that that was such a prominent part of his campaign, it really stood out to me that he wasn't showing any interest in advancing that bill. >> congresswoman katie porter, thank you very much for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. and when we come back, the new hampshire primary is now just a week away. democratic presidential candidates are already in new hampshire making the case for replacing donald trump. hi guys. this is the chevy silverado with the world's first invisible trailer. invisible trailer? and it's not the trailer right next to us? this guy? you don't believe me? hop in. good lookin' pickup, i will say that. oh wow.

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let's head back to nbc's steve kornacki with more results in iowa. >> thank you, lawrence. yes, this thing was acting up when i was here was a few minutes ago. so i can actually show you exactly what's happening here instead of just describing it. this is what you're seeing here, the most recent update. this is the first preference vote. when folks showed up at their caucus sites, who did they say they were in favor of? it's nearly a 4,000 vote advantage for sanders over buttigieg. so sanders with that advantage nearly three-quarters in.

now watch what happened when they then went to these precinct sites. the candidates who didn't hit 15%, their supporters became free agents. they could go to other candidates. when that process played out amongst these precincts that have now reported -- that is the wrong button. let's try that again. let's try that three times. i don't know what the -- oh, my god. here we go. if you can remember, this is what happened the second time. bernie sanders' lead over pete buttigieg, it shrunk to one point. so buttigieg drew very close there, but still sanders led even after the re-allocation process, and yet right now with nearly three quarters in, he continues to lead in the state delegate equivalent. it really is, it's geographic distribution. this is a thing we talk about in national politics a lot, but buttigieg basically is doing better in a lot of counties, a lot of precincts that get sort of more state convention delegates than their turnout, at least proportionally. so buttigieg is benefiting from that, and in terms of what we are waiting on right now, the

bubbles here, you can see the giant bubble. the bigger the bubble, the more missing precincts. des moines, that's the biggest one right now. let's see what's happening there. it's dead even right now. >> steve, thank you very much. really appreciate it. we're going to take a break. we will be back with more on the 2020 presidential campaign, including the latest tracking poll of new hampshire voters. there is an iowa bump for at least one candidate in new hampshire. we'll have that when we come back. it's time for the ultimate sleep number event on the sleep number 360 smart bed.

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before we show you the latest "boston globe" tracking poll of new hampshire voters, let's look at yesterday's "boston globe" tracking poll of new hampshire voters before there were any results from iowa. there's bernie sanders at the top at 24%. joe biden solidly in second place. elizabeth warren in a solid third place. pete buttigieg down at 11% in fourth place. that's yesterday. now let's take a look at tonight's "boston globe" tracking poll of new hampshire released after 11:00 p.m. there is an iowa bump for pete buttigieg, who has moved up to second place, tied now with biden at 15%, who dropped three. elizabeth warren dropped down

three points from 13% down to 10%. and bernie sanders at 24% yesterday before the iowa results and at 24% tonight after the iowa results. rick stengel, bernie sanders seems to be unmovable at the top of that poll. >> well, maybe he's plateaued. i have to say my heart goes out to mayor pete because we've all covered iowa caucuses before. what we would have been used to last night is a headline of "mayor pete blowing out of iowa" beating the expectations game, being this fair-haired young man who comes out of iowa. he would have gotten an even bigger bump in new hampshire, but of course it was submerged with the absurdity of what iowa did. iowa, the caucuses have always been silly. it's reached a level now where there should never be an iowa caucus again as much as i love the people of iowa. >> jonathan, you've been through a lot of iowa caucuses, a lot of

primaries. big asterisk, i think, goes on the iowa results for the fact that the senators were locked up in an impeachment trial for two weeks, leaving the field to joe biden and pete buttigieg alone. pete buttigieg really took advantage of it. it's also very bad news for biden when you consider how poorly he did even with those senators kept out of play. bernie sanders, elizabeth warren stuck in washington. but buttigieg's score against bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, and amy klobuchar really needs an asterisk when you consider what happened to them in that impeachment trial. >> biden was really sucking wind in iowa. i went to a caucus last night outside des moines in urbandale, iowa, and the biden people got to viability by one vote. they just barely were viable. there were a small group of them in one corner, and all the energy was with sanders and warren and of course buttigieg. so he has a real problem, and

he's going to have to retool his campaign to do something here. i think they know it. but, you know, when you're a former vice president of the united states and you're whipped by a south bend, indiana mayor, you got some rethinking to do. the other thing that was -- the expectation -- and everything is the expectations game now. that's the whole thing. the expectation was that bernie was going to win, and there was actually a lot of fear in the democratic party that if he won iowa and new hampshire, he would then be unstoppable. that's not going to happen now. he will be in this all the way to milwaukee, but he's not going to create a juggernaut. that ended in iowa. and if he wins new hampshire, people will go, well, he's from vermont, you know. big deal. he won it the last time. so bernie has some things he has to prove when this moves to nevada and south carolina. >> maria teresa, bernie is the only one who ran in these races four years ago. >> right. >> he got 49% in iowa just four years ago.

he got half that last night, half that. there's a myth about the solidarity of the bernie voter, that they're attached to bernie and they're never going to go anywhere. half of them have already gone somewhere. >> i would pause for a second and say that i think bernie is going to be able to contest nevada in a very big way because that is the most geographically, demographically state that represents the rest of the country, meaning that he has a surge of young voters, of latinos and young african-american voters that quite frankly none of the other candidates have. but i do want to take a pause and say that we are speaking about pete buttigieg and the fact that he rose as perhaps either number one or number two and not remarking that he's the first openly gay, married american to take this. and that in itself is history. recognizing that we as a country, for as difficult as we may be here, that we actually evolve, we change, we embrace, and we love. and now we're not even really talking about it. had this happened even ten years

ago, it was basically, no, his candidacy was dead on arrival. so i applaud the fact that we've actually moved together as a nation. and on the bernie thing, i think that he remained flat. i was talking to a lot of voters in iowa over the weekend, and i do think that what was interesting was they were looking at biden really closely, but they were trying to figure out if he could actually make it to the finish line. and so the people who ended up winning was not just mayor pete but also amy klobuchar. that's where the voters went. and the fact that she is still holding on, she's out-raising elizabeth warren and many other folks, it would be interesting to see how she ends up. >> warren did better. >> david, your reaction to what we saw last night -- oh, i guess we didn't see it until tonight, in iowa. they're finally getting some results and what we're looking at in the tracking poll in new hampshire. >> so with all due respect, i think it's a four-way race. i think klobuchar might have just another state or two to go. biden is going to face the wall in south carolina. that's going to be the test for biden if he can break through that. i always like to keep this in

perspective. i'd say don't worry about this mishap in iowa. this was 41 delegates. this is a delegate race as we saw in 2016. one month from now there's 1,400 delegates at stake on super tuesday. but i would also say keep an eye. this was a good week for the president. this was his launch of his re-election between being acquitted on the impeachment, having state of the union, and having a very competitive democratic primary that is still unsettled. the president is going to run on a tight message of creating jobs and killing terrorists. and if you're a democrat, i don't know that you want to spend much time trying to persuade democratic voters to come over. if you have five minutes, don't try to persuade a trump voter. spend five minutes registering a new democratic voter because this is going to be a turnout election. if you can sustain the blue wave of '18 but still turn out more like you saw in the obama administration, any one of those four or five democratic candidates currently standing can beat donald trump in november.

>> rick, one of the, i think, largely unnoticed elements of your résume was that you were on bill bradley's presidential campaign in the primaries in 2000, challenging al gore as a front-runner, coming in second. what's it like coming into new hampshire when you haven't been successful in iowa? it's obviously the spot where you either catch up or you don't. >> yes. i actually remember that plane ride from des moines to new hampshire. i think we left a few minutes before the gore plane did, and we lost by a significant margin. that was a very, very long plane ride. and i -- >> well, no one had that plane ride last night because no one knew they lost. >> yes. they were spared that. but what i also remember was working on a speech for senator bradley the next morning, and while i was still working on it, staying up all night, i saw al gore handing out donuts at a factory in nashua, and i thought

why aren't we out there. you know, it's brutal for the candidates, and i do think going back to david's point and the others is that it really is -- it's a crazy process. only a tiny percentage of the delegates are selected during this ten-day window, yet so much attention is based on it. they've spent so much money. the whole process has to change next time. i know i said that already but -- >> jonathan, what can you accomplish in seven days on the ground in new hampshire, which all the candidates are going to have now? >> a lot. the new hampshire voters don't care about iowa. there's a long history of -- and obama won iowa, and then he lost new hampshire. you know, vice president bush, when he was running in 1988, he finished fourth in the iowa caucuses. he was a sitting vice president. he was behind pat robertson, and in a week he turned it around. he beat bob dole, and he was on his way to the nomination. so the debate this friday in manchester is very important. it could change momentum.

there's a lot of weirdness always in new hampshire. i mean tulsi gabbard has 5%. so different things can happen, and this thing is still up for grabs. i think a lot of folks think it will go all the way to milwaukee. we are going to have what for us has been kind of a dream as reporters. we may have, if not a brokered convention, at least a really competitive race right through. >> but i do think that the person that won on this fumble is bloomberg. i think that bloomberg was calculating that he may have had to step himself out. but this fumble of the iowa caucus actually created an incredible opening for him. >> but the other candidates want him in the debate because they don't think he's a very good candidate. >> i think he ended up staying longer than i think he had calculated. >> we're going to a break. thank you all for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. when we come back, presidential historian jon meacham will join us. (janine) ghostbusters!...

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the lead house manager in the senate impeachment trial of donald trump has now taken his place as one of the best political orators of the 21st century. and my personal ranking, congressman adam schiff is now number two to president barack obama's number one at the top of the list of greatest orators of the 21st century. adam schiff took his place on that list in an unusual forum, the historic senate impeachment trial of donald trump. here's adam schiff yesterday, a

day before the state of the union address, warning republican senators about how history will remember them. >> history will not be kind to donald trump. i think we all know that. not because it will be written by never trumpers, but because whenever we have departed from the values of our nation, we have come to regret it. and that regret is written all over the pages of our history. if you find that the house has proved its case and still vote to acquit, your name will be tied to his with a cord of steel and for all of history. >> joining us now, someone who might write some of that history, presidential historian and msnbc contributor jon meacham. he's the co-author of the book "impeachment: an american history," which republican senator lamar alexander was reportedly reading in the senate

chamber on thursday during the impeachment trial of donald trump. thank you for joining us tonight. first of all, where do you rank adam schiff now in our 21st century political orators? >> oh, he's an amazing political figure, a figure of remarkable advocacy. he took a largely inchoate rage about the incumbent president, which began before the 2016 election, and turned it into a coherent and, to many people -- not enough -- the right people with authority over it -- coherent and convincing case that the president had, in fact, violated his constitutional responsibilities. and i think people will be studying the schiff presentations in the senate for a long time. >> let's listen to more from adam schiff where he talked to the republicans about who they are. >> yeah. >> i do not ask you to convict

him because truth or right or decency matters nothing to him, but because we have proven our case, and it matters to you. truth matters to you. right matters to you. you are decent. he is not who you are. >> jon, what do you think when historians are looking at this period, surely they will find adam schiff as a very helpful framer of what they're looking at. >> that's right. and he's arguably the most -- he and speaker pelosi are arguably the most important voices of the reaction to the reaction, right? in many ways you can think of a modern america as having been founded in 1964 and 1965. i think that's one of the reasons we're having so many difficulties is we had not tried to govern this particular polity until the voting rights act, the civil rights act, and the immigration act of 1965 which

undid the national quotas that had grown out of the klan-dominated '20s. so the america that rosa parks and martin luther king and john lewis and lyndon johnson helped build is the one that is moving inexorably in a particular demographic direction. the 2016 election in many ways was a ferocious reaction to that demographic reality. so if those were the founders, if parks, king, johnson, lewis are the founders of a modern america, trump is a reaction to it. pelosi and schiff will be, in this narrative, as the people who were trying to be the guardians of the values that had been present at the creation of the 1965 america. >> and for the first time in history, future historians will come upon a state of the union address delivered by a president running for re-election while

the jury is technically still out in his impeachment trial in the senate. what will they see in this state of the union? >> well, you know this because you've written and created narrative. sometimes you just thank god for making it all so easy, and this is one of them. this is a night that -- this is a week, really, a couple of days where you don't really have to work very hard. i hate to say that because of course what we do is very hard. but you have the impeachment unfolding. you have the medal of freedom, which was popularized, as you know, by john kennedy at daniel patrick moynihan's recommendation as a sign of a kind of aristotelian excellence, that kennedy sense that he wanted to honor courage and excellence in the modern era. it's given to the absolute apotheosis of reflexive partisanship in rush limbaugh.

so you have the medal of freedom being an emblem of the new frontier being given to the central architect of a reflexively partisan culture in the midst of a state of the union that had nothing to do with union and had to do with trump's political state as all that unfolds. so i think when we write the history of this era, some of this stuff will come pretty easily. >> and not even any veiled reference to impeachment tonight. >> i was struck by that. i thought there would be a wink or a smirk, and he just kept rolling. i mean i think the reference actually was a non-verbal one. i think it was the failure to shake the hand of the speaker of the house. i think that was the reference. it was the first thing, and it clearly set a tone for the entire evening, and really the entire era, right? let's not be sentimental. america has been ferociously divided before.

what's different about this is really from 1933 to 2017, we had a kind of figurative conversation between a world represented by fdr and one represented by ronald reagan. that was a coherent conversation, right? we dealt with the relative role of the state in the marketplace, the relative projection of force against commonly agreed upon foes and rivals. this is not a sequential chapter to that. >> jon meacham, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i really appreciate it. >> thanks, lawrence. joy reid will continue msnbc's state of the union and campaign coverage next.

as woe approach the crown of another hour, 11:00 p.m. eastern tile. >> mayor pete buttigieg is in a unique position tonight. having come into the state of the union address with an incredible piece of news he would hike to share very wildly with the entire country. i'm doing really well in iowa and might have won. it's interesting to think about what this does in terms of the momentum. we are -- we keep talking about this, but the 2020 democratic nominating process is the most interesting and most

unpredictable process i have ever seen in my lifetime. is and i'm now old. and it's starring off bananas and there was a surprise. so far there's a surprise in terms of the result. and this young candidate who had seetzero name recognition less a year ago and still has zero name recognition in a lot of the country has a story to tell. maybe it's a good place for him to tell it right after the state of the union. maybe it's a good place to tell. if the iowa results are going to be stretched out over several days on a monday in january. or in february. i think it's very obviously the iowa democrats screwed up and have to answer for it. the ultimate impact of what happens here will depend on the results and the if this keeps trickling out. >> he's been on 62%. buffering for five hours. it's like netflix. i have bad for mayor pete.

he's in a unique position to see if what he did in iowa will work in other states. will he take it to new hampshire and south carolina. apply this method next. he's probably -- he's single digits in all other places. where can he make the leap based on the momentum from iowa. >> what did the iowa operation teach him? we know the theory that senator sanders brings to organizing and voter turn out. that's part of his eligibility argument. it's part of the way he says he should be the nominee and attract your support. it's more of a process question than it is a demonstration from all of the other other candidates including elizabeth warren. there's problems with what states go first and we have the fight about iowa being first of all.

you stress test the campaigns in different types of operation. iowa caucus is different than the primary and caucus and south carolina primary. we'll see that before a giant money bomb lands on all of them less than one month from tonight on super-tuesday. >> to the folks joining us in what is normally the 11th hour, in air quotes, this was day 1,111 in the trump administration. we are talking about dual stories, the state of the union address we just witnessed, hard to bring together in one cogent sentence, equally difficult to explain is what is still unfolding in iowa. steve kornacki is back at the board. oh, 24 hours ago we were talking about when are we going to get results from iowa. >> and we're still asking when are we going to get results from iowa? when are we going to get more results? before we get into that state of the union speech, 62% of precincts were reporting.

62% still reporting. we have heard things from the iowa democratic party about more votes coming in. those suggestions have not panned out. that has been a recurring theme these last 24 hours. so it is still at 62%. i should make very clear here the decision desk here at nbc is not characterizing anybody as the winner or any single person as the leader here in terms of the state delegate equivalents or that popular vote, that initial preference. you have buttigieg leading sanders by 25 state delegate equivalents and of course you have sanders right now leading by three points in that initial preference. we've been talking about this tonight. why does buttigieg have that advantage in delegates when he is losing the initial preference by three points, when he's also losing the re-allocated preference? sanders is also leading that.

what you see here, it looks like i sort of made a mistake here. these are all marks. i marked off in yellow here, these are counties that buttigieg has won or is leading in right now. you see there are a lot of them all throughout the state. these are all counties where their share of the delegates statewide are greater than their share of the turnout. so we keep talking about this, how there is a bit of an advantage, especially in some rural counties where you get more bang for your buck in terms of delegates than necessarily raw votes. so you see all of these counties here. buttigieg is leading in all of them right now, and it explains how he's able to take the lead in state delegates despite trailing right now in that initial preference. so we'll continue to see -- we're not giving up hope tonight to get some more vote in on this thing. but that pattern we've been talking about, buttigieg and the delegates, sanders and the initial preference, we'll see if that continues or if we get a clear winner in this final 38%. >> steve, i mean this completely absent snark. we're talking about individual initial preference. isn't that what we call, in non-caucus states, going to

vote? >> that would be the argument that the sanders campaign will make if this holds. i'll put it up right here. they'll say, hey, look, this is your clearest indication yet of what people intended to do with one choice in the iowa caucuses, and they'll probably say, hey, look, they've been doing the iowa caucuses for 50 years. it started back in 1972. in 1972 this was a very convoluted process that only a few people took part in, and they came up with this very complicated state delegate equivalent formula. and they had conventions that played out over a period of months to get to that. i think if you look back at that, as an academic exercise, if 50 years ago you said, hey, we've got a choice here. we can do state delegate equivalents or raise your hand at the caucus, which would you rather have? i think there might have been a serious discussion about which is a better instrument of measuring support. the sanders campaign if this holds is going to say more people went out to these caucus sites and decided they wanted to support sanders than buttigieg. they also will have the talking

point of saying even when given a second choice at this point, even when given a second choice, sanders still leading buttigieg. we'll see if that holds. buttigieg leads that delegate formula but the two measures there of first and second round support, sanders leads. >> thank you, steve. >> we are going to be talking with a top national surrogate for the sanders campaign. i want to tell you one quick piece of news before we go to her. this has just been reported. we were talking about that dramatic visual we had right at the end of the president's state of the union address in which nancy pelosi pointedly -- i'll demonstrate -- pointedly took her copy of the speech and tore it. as speaker pelosi left the floor, a couple of nbc news reporters asked her what she thought of the speech, and she told them, quote, i tore it up. she was asked why she tore it up, and she said, quote, because it was the courteous thing to do considering the alternative. >> lighting it on fire? >> which makes my mind start to conjure a number of different

alternatives. i want to bring in congresswoman rashida tlaib. democrat from michigan. she's supporting bernie sanders for president. she was at the capitol tonight for the state of the union address. congresswoman, it is great to see you. thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> so i understand -- i was just told right as we were bringing you on that you were among the several democratic lawmakers who actually walked out of the president's speech before it was done tonight. tell me about that decision and what was the tipping point for you? >> i think, you know, even the mention of brett kavanaugh for me is a trigger, just as a woman in america, the fact that he, you know, rightfully was accused and having an incredibly strong woman come before the public and the world and tell her story of sexual assault by this person that was appointed to the supreme court is just -- i couldn't stand still and not do anything about it, and i needed to walk away from that. >> in terms of the president's

remarks there, i'm not sure exactly the moment when you got up and when you were out of the chamber or not. the president seemed to ad lib a remark when he was talking about supreme court justices saying, we have many more in the pipeline, implying that he is intending or expecting to fill a lot more supreme court seats. that seemed to be a moment that, again, was off script in terms of the prepared remarks, but making a major promise in terms of what his intentions are. >> yeah. i mean, look, one of the things that i know from my residents as they probably watch this -- i mean we're the third poorest congressional district in the country. and for him to, you know, flaunt and brag about taking people off of food assistance, the fact that, you know, rightfully they're very angry. i'm getting text messages from folks saying, but i thought he's in court right now trying to take away protection and health coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. >> mm-hmm. >> he's lying, rashida. do something about it. it's like what can i do? he's the president of the united states, a forever impeached president. what we need to do is remove him from office. he cannot continue to lie to the

american people. he cannot continue to -- not only what i saw in lie after lie but also to mislead the public and use immigrants and use people of various different faiths to try to increase fear and do fearmongering kind of politicians. look, we're tired of the hate rhetoric. we're tired of the divisiveness in our country, right? we want actual policy and actions. look, we have been talking about lowering prescription drugs. we've been talking about the issues around the broken immigration system but really trying to say we need a just, fair, very humane immigration system. he needs to be working with all of us and many of us that represent these vulnerable communities, these front line communities. and right now, you know, we just don't want to be -- we're not part of a reality show. we are the united states of america. we are made of people that are impacted by everything he says

and everything he does and doesn't do. so for many of us standing by, it was really, you know, the kind of text message i'm getting from folks is it was bizarre. it's unreal. is he really saying this because it's untrue. those are the kinds of things that i think need to be really centered and people need to elevate. and i hope folks are fact checking because i walked out of there knowing a number of facts, a number of parts of his speech were completely false. i literally thought his nose was growing during the speech like pinocchio. it was blatant disregard of the truth, disregard of really understanding the importance of really trying to get to a point not just like kind of making up stuff as he goes. that's exactly what it felt like. >> you raised the issue of impeachment and what you described as the necessity to remove this president from office. obviously it is a split screen in terms of major news right now with this president having a

state of the union address, with the iowa 2020 caucus results still coming in and the democratic candidates moving to new hampshire, and of course the culmination of the president's impeachment trial tomorrow. you were so outspoken to the point of rhetorical exclamation points about wanting the president's impeachment and seeking the president's impeachment. now that we're on the precipice of the senate making its decision, what everybody expects to be a party line acquittal in the senate tomorrow, what's your take on whether it was a good idea, whether it went the way you wanted it to go, whether it went the way everybody should have expected it to go? now that it's at this point, how do you feel about that having been so sure of it early on? >> look, you know, this is about doing what's right for our country and for our democracy. i have to basically move forward and, you know, i took an oath, and move forward in saying i have to uphold that oath. that means holding a president accountable to the united states constitution. i mean before i got here, residents at home were saying, look, there's this upgraded version of pay to play, rashida. you have a sitting ceo in the white house making decisions in the best interest of his companies and the fact that he hasn't divested and hasn't complied with the emoluments clause.

it may not be the basis of why we move forward. but where we are now is we at least got the truth out as much as folks are pushing back against that. the one thing the american people need us to do is do the right thing, not strategically, not looking at polls, but doing the right thing to protect our democracy and making sure that we're elevating the truth no matter what, no matter how hard it is. they deserve the truth. they deserve to know exactly what this president is doing, and it may be bribing a foreign national today, but tomorrow it's going to continue moving money away from the military and from our schools and from other programs to benefit his resorts, watching him allow folks to use the trump hotel as kind of access to the most powerful position in the world to get their way. i mean these are kinds of things that really are at the core of why we need to be pushing back against this illegal and very, very, very much un-american kind of way, i think, that as we push

forward in trying to represent our people. it's just wrong. and i can't -- we can't sit back and say, oh, well, is it going to go through the senate? is it the right thing? was it the right thing to do at the moment? it was because people demanded us to hold him accountable for bribing a foreign government. they want us to hold him accountable for lying to them. they want us to hold him accountable for not upholding the united states constitution, the oath that he took. and that's all we can do. we set a dangerous precedent when we do nothing. it just was not an option for us. >> congresswoman, i also need to ask you you're an endorser of senator bernie sanders and his presidential campaign. >> yes. >> we are in a weird state where we are more than 24 hours out from the iowa caucuses. we've got 62% of results reported. senator sanders appears to be ahead in terms of the votes cast by people allocating themselves to specific supporters and then re-allocating themselves. the delegate count appears to be

slightly in favor of mayor pete buttigieg. obviously we'll still get more results and we don't know what the final tally will be. but how do you and the campaign feel about what happened in iowa given both the results and the strangeness of the process? >> i mean i think with every campaign, as long as you were rooted in the community and grassroots and engaging people that haven't been engaged historically, that you did everything possible to grow this movement of not me, but us. you know, it has been about all of us. i have seen people that said they had never participated in iowa caucuses but for the fact that bernie was running for president of the united states. that, to me, is inspiring. the one thing that i know for folks even in my district and across the country, they're tired. they're tired of folks that bow down to corporations. they want somebody that's not going to sell them out. you hear it over and over again. we don't want the same old kind of leadership that comes in and literally bows down or tries to come too much in the center where we're not transforming people's lives. we're not being able to take care of them. they're suffering. they're in so much pain for not being included on a number of things that would be able to elevate them out of poverty, being able to make sure they have health care coverage.

and, you know, senator sanders, the one thing about him is he has a record, not like everybody that is running for president. he is one that has an actual record that's so consistent with protecting the working families and protecting work is class. and that is my district, and that's why for so many of us, he speaks to us, and he engages again people that have never been engaged before. and he's bringing people together that wouldn't even be in the room but for the fact that he is the one running for president. >> congresswoman rashida tlaib, who is one of the -- we are now getting further reports -- many members of congress who walked out of tonight's state of the union address. congresswoman, thank you so much for making time. we really appreciate you having time with us tonight. >> thank you so much for having me. >> we have a ton yet to talk about, a ton yet to cover. we will do so right after this break.

coming up on 20 minutes after the hour. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. as we said, day 1,111 of this trump administration. what a day it was. it leaves us with 273 days to go, alas, until the 2020 presidential election. donald trump delivered his third state of the union address on the eve of a senate vote to remove him from office or acquit him of the charges. it was a bizarre night. it started with what can only be described as a snub to the speaker, failing to shake nancy pelosi's hand when she -- when he arrived at the podium. then there was this after the speech.

>> thank you very much. >> then there was the speech and everything that transpired, including but not limited to the awarding of the presidential medal of freedom to rush limbaugh by the first lady in the gallery during the speech. here for our discussion on a boisterous tuesday night, stephanie ruhle, our nbc news senior business correspondent, the host of her own program on this very network. michael steele, former chairman of the republican national committee, former lieutenant governor of the great state of maryland. he is the host of the podcast that bears his name. doris kearns goodwin, presidential historian and author. she has written bestsellers about both roosevelts, kennedys, lincoln to name a few. her latest work is appropriately titled "leadership in turbulent times." eugene robinson, pulitzer prize-winning columnist for "the washington post."

and among our political analysts and in washington, robert costa, national political reporter for "the washington post," moderator of "washington week" on pbs. robert, i'd like to begin with you because i can't help but notice the location of tonight's event over your shoulder. the reaction to what was a bizarre night to watch. >> reporter: first republicans talking to white house officials tonight, senators and congressmen, it's clear they believe the president's remarks were the formal kickoff of this phase of the 2020 election, an economic message to the suburban voters in the country, and then the pivot toward the hardline message on immigration, the awarding of the presidential medal of freedom to rush limbaugh, speaking to voters out in different parts of the country in swing state battlegrounds as the president looks to contain his coalition for 2020. for democrats, they see challenges here. the president is boosted by approval ratings. he is going to likely be

acquitted in the senate impeachment trial. but look beyond all the color tonight. you saw earlier today speaker pelosi, her emphasis in her news conference, health care, health care, health care. you saw that in the governor's speech in the democratic response. that, the democrats see, as the path to power in 2020, not necessarily combating president trump on impeachment. >> stephanie ruhle, the hour is late. i had something prepared and planned for the broadcast tonight, but we can no longer do that. we tasked you with fact-checking on your area of expertise, the economy. i note several handwritten pages in kind of frantic sharpie, i think, is the motif. >> i wouldn't say frantic. here's the thing. >> please. >> we knew that the president was going to lead with the economy, and he has every right to. the economy is strong.

we are at historic low unemployment numbers. the stock market, which is different from the economy, is soaring. he walked in tonight after a record day in the stock market, and you could say lots of people aren't investors. you're right. they're not buying apple stock, but millions of ordinary americans do have retirement accounts and own 401(k)s. and last year the s&p was up 29%. that makes a lot of americans feel good. the question is why doesn't the president leave it there? why does he start by saying, i took us out of years of economic decline. it was an economic reversal. i unwound failed economic policies. what in the world is he talking about? we are in the tenth year of an economic expansion, which was obviously started in the obama administration. the president has seen 6.7 million jobs created in the last three years. you know who created more? obama in the last three years of his administration. the unemployment fell faster under obama, and gdp, when the president says it's the greatest economy ever, he ranks seventh among his 11 predecessors as far

as growth goes. and you can't forget what's goosed that growth? record tax cuts for corporate america. so the question is why on earth wouldn't the president leave well enough alone? he's got a strong economy. because to what we just heard in the last segment when rashida tlaib said she was triggered, that's exactly what the republicans want to do. they know what the facts are, and they know what framing it incorrectly is. and by framing it incorrectly, you're right. people are frantically fact-checking and twitter is aflutter. but the state of the union isn't a debate. it's a presentation. and the president got to paint a picture, not take a snapshot. and painting that picture works for a lot of americans. >> michael steele, we're old enough to remember proper civics education. we're old enough to remember bipartisanship. so it's with some sadness that

we greet mistruths from the lectern, and it's with some sadness that we look at the picture of two very distinct chambers tonight. >> very much so. in fact, what i noted was how the president addressed the house. he addressed republicans. he didn't address democrats. and so the answer to your question, stephanie, is the base. this whole thing on the economy was to -- you know, it plays for them. they don't believe obama had any good cut related to the economy. they don't believe obama had any good related to foreign policy. they don't believe any of that. so you have to keep that narrative going, and the president did a very effective job playing that out, creating that snapshot, actually bringing up some old photos and putting

it back in front of his house. this was as much a thank you, guys, for what you did for me over here as it was a conversation to the base, saying, remember what i said i was going to do for you? not only have i done it, i'm doing it in spades. they have nothing to do with it. in fact, they've stopped me and blocked me. and that's what's going to feed this election cycle going forward. >> doris kearns goodwin, thanks to your writing, we know that this is the same chamber where the old lion fdr finally came as close as he would ever come to talking about his paralysis. he was just back from yalta, i believe, and said, you'll forgive me for not standing but ten pounds of steel around my legs makes it difficult to get around. same chamber. talk about the oratorical history or lack of it that was made tonight. >> well, i keep thinking that i wish i were listening to fdr in 1941. that's a traditional state of the union. he had a goal. usually a president in the old days before the lenny skutniks have taken over the theatrics, which were very effective, but a lot of time goes into that rather than the governing. you're trying to get laws passed. your state of the union is meant to mobilize people to action. in 1941, the main goal that fdr had when he talked about the four freedoms, we're going to create a whole new world based on something that now norman rockwell has written about.

more importantly, he needed to get lend-lease passed. we were still an isolationist country. that speech helped to get lend-lease passed. without lend-lease, the war might not have been won. our allies were given our tanks and our weapons and our planes. think about 1965 when lbj gave his state of the union and he outlines all the things he wants the congress to pass, voting rights, medicare, aid to education, npr, pbs, immigration reform. those are the old state of the unions, and now they've become, even though it was effective and maybe you could argue what he did tonight was to mobilize his people to vote for him, and that's a different kind. and the campaign is there, and we're in the middle of the election, and he's got impeachment tomorrow. and he at least didn't choose the route that mr. nixon chose when he was giving his state of the union, when he was already under hearings for watergate, and he did bring up the watergate investigation. then he made this incredible faux pas. he meant to say, we intend to replace the present discredited welfare system, and by mistake he said, we intend to display the discredited president.

i mean that's one of the great moments in state of the union history. but i want to be in those old days when it was really something that mobilized a country to bipartisan action. >> eugene, i know you as the possessor of a restless mind. i am guessing you have recorded the first tappings of a column based on what we just witnessed tonight. where are we as a country? >> well, the first and last tap. i had to file the copy before i came out here. so where are we as a country? well, you know, that speech was -- it was a triumphalist speech in a setting that is traditionally stage managed really to display the promise of congress. he's there at the invitation of the speaker of the house. so presidents are there on the invitation of congress, and

they're asking congress. they're laying out their program to congress, but it's a sign that they need congress to effect their policies. and donald trump didn't give that kind of speech. it was -- it was me, me, me. it was i did this and i did that, a lot of stuff that he didn't do. he apparently made the u.s. number one in producing oil and gas when that happened under the obama administration. and, you know, i could give more examples of that. >> nafta is the worst ever, but the usmca is the best, when usmca is the new and improved nafta. >> is basically nafta with a little pixie dust on it. so that was all about stoking the base, and it was done in the manner of reality television, at which donald trump is a master. you know, so not only does he have rush limbaugh there but on the spot he has the first lady

put the medal around his neck. >> yeah. >> not only does he have the wife of the serviceman there, but he brings the serviceman home for the reunion. and it is effective. people watch reality television. >> stories about human beings. >> exactly. >> what's so significant about what gene is saying right now, it is something that it still stuns me that the vast majority of people both in politics and the media still have not gotten what donald trump did tonight, donald trump has been doing for 20 years. and america has been watching donald trump do it on "the apprentice," on the beauty pageants. page six of "the new york post"." they have followed this man's story and for the first time in

2016, he actually made them much more a part of that story. and now he's like, hey, you thought that was good. how about this? rush limbaugh. >> yep. >> medal of freedom. first lady, put it on his neck. come on. and then, oh, no, no. i got something more for you. here's one of our men and women -- one of our servicemen. >> bring him down. >> bring him down. welcome home. in fact, you don't have to go back to fight. you get to stay home. and i watched on twitter, republican, democrat, independent response to that, boom. and so whoever comes up against donald trump had better bring their "a" game, and i don't mean "a" as in the traditional sense of it, their asymmetrical game. >> exactly. >> you cannot play this game against him. this fight between now and november, baby, you better come ready because this is a warm-up to what's going to come. >> we're going to take a break in our conversation. our friends will stay here with us. our conversation continues right after this.

i think that this is not going particularly well so far, and why is tom perez still the chairman of the democratic national committee? i have no idea. this party needs to wake up. there's only one moral imperative in this country right now, and that is to beat donald

trump. that's the only moral imperative. it's the only thing i want to hear. and until we understand that, we win every argument, brian. we win the argument on anything. we don't win the elections because we talk about stuff that is not relevant. >> before we come back to our friends here in the studio, let's go right to robert costa in washington. robert, that happened in the 5:00 hour today. james carville, self-described old warrior, now 75 years old. we should mention he's an lsu fan and a former member of the u.s. marine corps. you're never a former member of the u.s. marine corps. you're always a marine. but he's charged up. he is very concerned at the kind of purity testing he's seeing, at the distractions he sees getting thrown out. moral imperative is replacement, defeat and replacement of donald trump, and he's worried about

what he sees in the party. >> reporter: he's not a lone voice. mr. carville's message was echoed tonight on capitol hill, speaking to democratic lawmakers and aides, they too are frustrated with the lack of clarity coming out of the iowa caucuses. all eyes now turn to the new hampshire primary, but senator sanders and senator warren well positioned there near their home states. and all eyes also on south carolina. vice president biden, a bastion of support in that state among african-american voters, can he win in south carolina and power through until super tuesday, or will mayor buttigieg, with what so far we see as solid results in iowa, will we see him try to consolidate the center of the democratic party? a lot of uncertainty tonight as they listened to president trump in that chamber about where this party is going? will it move in the sanders direction or more toward the center? >> thank you. we greatly appreciate it. stephanie ruhle, the intersection of politics and the economy is democrats learning to speak american, something that in recent years hasn't always come naturally. >> and it's what the president nails.

he was up there tonight talking about a blue collar boom. i could go blue in the face giving you all the facts around where there is no blue collar boom, but the president has won those voters. in iowa, we know farm bankruptcies were up. we know more and more farmers are struggling after $28 billion in farm aid that they got because of the president's trade war. but many are standing with him because they say he's the first person to see me. tonight literally speaking about them. that actually matters. and to james carville's point, democrats need to stop winning arguments and start winning elections. take a page from his book. he is staying connected to those base voters while at the same time look at that stock market. he is hooking up investors. >> here you are -- well, it was going to be another thought. another break for us. no one's going anywhere. thank you very much to stephanie ruhle. thank you to robert costa. our coverage continues right after this.

>> four more years, four more years, four more years.

>> that was the stuff of a trump rally, and that was a first in our memory on the floor of the house chamber at the start of a state of the union. with us here at the table, cody keenan. he rose through the ranks from campaign intern in chicago to become the director of speechwriting in what became the obama white house, writing backyard stump speeches and state of the union addresses, everything in between. he remains the former president's chief speechwriter to this day. it's a bucket list speech. it's not your favorite undertaking was the state of the union. >> no. >> because elements of

government line up to have their arguments made. as construction, how was tonight? >> oh, tonight's was -- it basically started out as a fact sheet that was bereft of facts. went to all the gifts he wants for voters this year. and then they have a tendency to google a bunch of historical things that happened in america and try to string them together. as a speechwriter, i'm in mourning for -- >> amelia earhart got a shout-out. >> so did harriet tubman, but this is also the president that kept her off the $20 bill. they need to be careful with who they're choosing here. >> oratorically, this guy couldn't be more different from the guy who has been the voice in your head for so many years. >> one of the other things about this speech is there was no story to it, no narrative. president trump really is all about him, you know? it's me first. everybody else second. there's no sense of where we are in the broader sweep of american history, no sense of continuum to our story. it's just what's good for us

right now. >> as i said in the moments afterwards, when it went dark, it was dark for a state of the union. this is a presidency that started out on american carnage. >> right. and then you have a massive comeback and a half hour later we're back in the darkness. i think he sees that as a way to turn out his base, you know, along with what i think was actually a really good case for barack obama's economy in the first ten minutes. >> doris, this is your area as well because you've covered the best and the worst delivered from that same wooden lectern. >> yeah, but on the other hand, i mean i agree that there was no

arc of a story that you would want for the country as a whole. but i'll go back to what you said earlier. he provided a dozen little stories that had a human notion to them. i mean i wouldn't take the limbaugh one, but i think the tuskegee airmen and that kid and the grandfather, and then he stands up. that one sort of got to me. so i don't know. i mean the question is what are you judging the president on? and if you're judging him on did he create a campaign state of the union for his base? i think you'd have to say he was very effective. i mean the interesting thing is when he gave that carnage, the inaugural address, he came back a few weeks later with what was the first unofficial state of the union, and it was very measured. it talked about civil rights, and it talked about justice and the anti-semitism. and then three days later, four days later, he talks about being wiretapped by obama. so the question we'll see now, he didn't go down the path of getting off -- he hardly ad-libbed tonight. he did what people wanted him to. he didn't talk about impeachment. what will happen with his tweets in the next days ahead. >> cody, let me ask you this. there were identifiable mistruths in the text of that speech tonight. that is still a new notion for all of us here at this table. it has to be a startling idea to you. >> yeah, i mean my wife was a fact checker in the white house, so it was tough the first -- >> what's that? >> but trump has figured out how to game the system. if he gets everybody talking about the showmanship in tonight's speech, avoiding fact checking, you know, avoiding any substance whatsoever, and even

the really nice moments -- and i was listening to what you were saying before, michael. i choke up every time i see a commercial with a reunited soldier and their family. they work. they really do. but what all of us as a country have to do in this election is look at what matters behind that. this is a person who dismissed 60 soldiers with traumatic brain injury as having headaches. we can't get lost in these heartwarming stories without thinking about the real policies at stake. you bring a soldier home. but negotiating to keep troops in iran. >> eugene, this is a tough one. the reuniting the soldier with the family. i'm noticing people on social media tonight tiptoeing into a criticism of that action on behalf of -- >> no. it was a beautiful moment, and you can't escape that. i agree with doris that there were moments that were incredibly effective. they did not string together into a larger narrative. they did not -- you know, he did not do what obama would always

do, which is, you know, he'd start at the beginning, and he'd sort of, you know, build it up, and there was a narrative arc to his speeches, thank you for that. but it was disconnected in the way that life is now, you know? in the way -- we don't have the long attention spans that we used to. you know, it was like twitter. >> we do have the emotion. we do have the emotion. when you see that image, to your point, cody, when you see that image, you get the well up -- >> i watch those videos on youtube. they're -- >> yeah. so that's what the president plays to because that's his space. that's the space he operates in.

he wants you to be emotional about what he just said or what he just did because in that emotion you will react. and he saw his base tonight react when they responded "this is my president. i'm so proud of him. i love donald trump." so that feeds into that. and to your point, brian, on the left, they're muted. their response is like, well -- >> i don't want to be anti -- >> so he sort of puts them in a box with that emotion. >> cody, is emotion hard or easy to write? >> well, it depends on what it is. we had to do plenty of eulogies after mass shootings. that is very, very hard. try to make people feel good. one of my favorites was we had this young couple in the box and we basically made the entire economic section of the speech about them rather than choosing a bunch of different stories. and the president said they were young and in love in america and that it doesn't get much better than that. it doesn't matter what your party is, you can feel that, the first time you fell in love with somebody. >> our thanks to everybody. what a night. what a day. what a time they're having in the state of iowa, for example. our thanks. our coverage continues right after this.

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we're back in the studio covering the final vote in impeachment in the senate. what we've missed in our coverage of iowa and the state of the union has been some of the closing arguments including what has gotten a lot of attention, the closing remarks of congressman schiff of california. >> now you have seen what we promised, overwhelming evidence of the president's guilt. donald john trump withheld

hundreds of millions of dollars to an ally at war and a coveted white house meeting with their president to coerce or extort that nation to help to cheat in our elections. and when he was found out, he engaged in the most comprehensive effort to cover up his conduct in the history of presidential impeachment, fighting all subpoenas for documents and witnesses and using his own obstruction as a sword and a shield. if abuse of power is not impeachable, even though it is clear the founders considered it the highest of all high crimes and misdemeanors, but if it were not impeachable, then a whole range of utterly unacceptable conduct in a president would now be beyond reach. trump could offer alaska to the russians in exchange for support in the next election or decide to move to mar-a-lago permanently and let jared kushner run the country,

delegating to him the decision whether to go to war. because those things are not necessarily criminal, this argument would allow that he could not be impeached for such abuses of power. of course this would be absurd. more than absurd, it would be dangerous. it must have come as a shock, a pleasant shock to this president, that our norms and institutions would prove to be so weak. the independence of the justice department and its formerly proud office of legal counsel now mere legal tools at the president's disposal to investigate enemies or churn out helpful opinions not worth the paper they are written on. the fbi painted by a president as corrupt and disloyal. the intelligence community not to be trusted against the good counsel of vladimir putin. the press portrayed as enemies of the people. the daily attacks on the guardrails of our democracy so relentless assailed have made us numb and blind to the

consequences. does none of that matter anymore if he's the president of our party? every single vote, even a single vote by a single member can change the course of history. it is said that a single man or woman of courage makes a majority. is there one among you who will say enough? america believes in a thing called truth. she does not believe we are entitled to our own alternate facts. she recoils at those who spread pernicious falsehoods. to her truth matters. there is nothing more corrosive to a democracy than the idea that there is no truth. >> adam schiff from yesterday in the senate. just tonight there's a new development in iowa. colonial penn can help.

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♪ it was the state of the union address overshadowed by political tension. president trump spoke for nearly 80 minutes with remarks that seemed like a press conference. and nancy pelosi ripping up his speech. pete buttigieg and bernie sanders leading the back but not all precincts are reported yet. it could be a pivotal moment for the president as the senate seems poised to acquit him on abuse of power and obstruction of congress.