hilton. thanks for joining us on the beat on quite a night. we'll be back tomorrow 6:00 p.m. eastern. as always i'm ari melber signing off. "hardball" with chris matthews starts now. proceed, governor. let's play "hardball." good evening i'm chris matthews up in manchester, new hampshire. proceed, governor. that was barack obama's taunt at mitt romney in their 2012 presidential debate and today mitt romney proceeded into history. in a profile in courage, utah senator mitt romney became the

first and only asenator in u.s. history to vote to remove the president of his own party. he condemned president trump for trying to solicit aide from ukraine. >> accordingly the president is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust. corruption an election to keep one self in office is perhaps the most abusive and obstruckive violation of one's oath of office i can mention. >> at one point the senator who cited his religious faith was overcome with emotion. >> as a senator juror, i swore an oath before god to exercise impartial justice. i am profoundly religious. my faith is at the heart of who i am.

i take an oath before god as enormously consequential. i knew being asked to judge the president, the leader of my own party, would be the most difficult decision i have ever faced. i was not wrong. >> aides to president trump told "the washington journal" that the white house, quote, had been predicting that all republican senators would vote to acquit the president and was caught off backward gi mr. romney's announcement. his announcement came hours before the senate delivered acquittal on both articles of the impeachment. >> the senate having tried president donald john trump on two articles of impeachment

presented against him and two thirds having found him not guilty of the charges contained therein. it is therefore, donald trump is hereby acquitted of the charges in said articles. >> despite hoping to claim a bipartisan acquittal, there were no defections by the democratic senators. in closing senator romney said he was happy to let history judge his vote. >> i will tell my children, their children, that i did my duty to the best of my ability. believing that my country expected it of me. i will only be one name among many, no more, no less, to future generations of americans who look at the record of this trial. they will note merely that i was among the senators who determined what the president did was wrong. grievously wrong. >> for more i'm joined by senator tina smith, democrat from minnesota and peter baker, chief white house correspondent. i want to go to peter, you have

to write the story for the times tomorrow. is this the last hara of the dieing group of independent governments? >> it feels like the mitt romney, george bush era of republicans is signaling its last gasp with that vote today. this is a party right now, with that exception, is firmly behind president trump, firmly in his command. some republicans would say it's out of loyalty, devotion, believing in the things he's doing. others say it's an understanding he commands the base they need in order to win their own re-election. the polls this week show approval ratings among republicans is among 90%, that's a daunting number if you're a republican who wants another election while the president is on the balance this fall. but mitt romney decided that was not going to decide his vote,

and that's a rare thing in washington these days. >> senator smith, you're new to the senate but there's a tradition for years of two wings to the republican party, one being more moderate than the other and being more independent, what do you make of the vote by senator romney today for conviction and removal from office? >> hi, chris. it's great to be with you. i was in my office, had the television on mute, i turned it on when i saw mitt come on. it's been a rough couple of weeks and i didn't have hopes. when i heard him explain his ethical decision, tears came to my eyes. it gave me some hope in what has been a dark couple of weeks. you can see him being willing to buck the fear that i think has been so dominant in the way that trump has ruled the senate. i loved that he did it with such humility. >> senator, this is what jack

kennedy's brook "profiles in courage" is all about. it's the senator who stands up against his or her own party. how difficult is that to do? can you imagine what it's like for romney right now? the hatred he's getting from the president's family, if nothing else? >> he's being exposed to all sorts of hatred and vitriol. i saw there's a negative hit attack ad on romney already coming out against him. this is what i think people hate about politics. this kind of take no prisoners, be with me or be, you know, out of my sight that people just really hate. here's mitt romney, who was the head of the republican party only in 2012, who's already been disinvited from cpac meetings. it's a recipe for a smaller and smaller party, i think. >> in an interview with chris wallace on fox news today,

senator romney recognized the significance of his decision today. here he is. >> you talk about the consequences. you realize this is war? donald trump will never forgive you for this? >> there's a hymn in my church, which is do what is right, let the consequence follow. i know in my heart that i'm doing what's right. i understand there's going to be enormous consequence. and i don't have a choice in that regard. that's why i haven't been anxious to be in the position i'm in. >> almost immediately after announcing his decision, romney came under heavy fire from a slew of trump's proxies. his oldest son, donald trump jr. tweeted mitt romney is forever bitter he will never be potus. he was too weak to beat the

democrats then and so he's not that i know offing them now. the chair of the rnc and romney's niece tweeted this is not the first time i have disagreed with mitt, and i imagine it will not be the last. the bottom line is president trump did nothing wrong, and the republican party is united more than ever behind him. i stand with trump. >> it seems there's an element of this that may cause a consequence. the one who yelled from the crowd, the emperor has no clothes. is there a chance the willingness of the one senator from utah to say the president has no clothes will start something big? >> it's possible. anything is possible. we're three years into this presidency and from time to time you've heard, you know, a republican stand up and say, wait a second the emperor has no clothes, jeff flake, bob corker, even people who used to work for

the president himself, john kelly, his former chief of staff in recent days has spoken out candidly. right now what matters in washington is whether you're for trump or against trump. look what donald trump jr. said in the tweet, if you're not for the president you should not be part of the party. it's not just the republican party anymore, it's president trump's republican party. that's a drastic change from three years ago when the republican establishment made it clear they didn't particularly care for the president, to be loyalty to him, whether it's reince priebus who told him to drop out our paul ryan, the house speaker who took away his endorsement in the last days of the 2016 campaigns. you can't imagine that happening today. the fact we're talking about senator romney so much is because it is so rare rather than what it used to be just three years ago. >> senator romney also told fox news today, he told chris wallace, he could handle the

political consequences of his vote but not the personal consequences of inaction. here he goes. >> i have broad enough shoulders to be able to weather personal changes in my career. political or otherwise. but what i don't have is the capacity to ignore my conscience. i don't have the capacity to say that what was wrong was not wrong. what the president did was grievously wrong. i believe he made a very serious miscalculation of judgment. one that strikes at the very core of our constitution. and in a setting like that, not to acknowledge that would place a greater burden on my conscience, than even on his. >> let me get back to peter for some analysis here. i did work in utah for a number of years in politics. among the lds community they don't like the type of person, i don't think as a general statement, that donald trump represents, a show off, a clown, a man of no real personal

morality. it seems to me that he will not stand alone in salt lake city when he goes back from washington. what's your hunch? i'm not sure he's the only person in utah that doesn't think like this. >> yeah, utah is a deep red state but it's a different kind of deep red state than a lot of the other ones where president trump is popular. remember the independent libertarian candidate got in double digits in utah. those are republican voters who didn't like president trump, didn't like what he stood for. as you say, the lds community there finds a lot of things about president trump ana ma to their faith, their idea of mortality and so forth. so i think the risk to senator romney at home is probably less politically than it might be for a lot of republican senators in their home states because it is a different kind of state than many of these red states. >> senator smith, i know from experience there's certain

people who find a return to their religion more comfortable after they get out of politics because politics forces you to make decisions that don't always square with your religion, that's a terrible fact of life. in this case he's responding to his religious impulse while in office, what makes it dramatic, i'm choosing my belief in god and faith over the political pressures being applied to me as i speak. that's rare. your thoughts? >> there is such a drive to get power and keep power. and to see people who make decisions based on what they know is right, that's what we want. that's what this country needs. my colleague doug jones who sat behind me in the impeachment proceedings said something similar, when he said, don't call me cue rourageous when i d what i knew was right because i followed my oath. that's exactly what mitt romney did. you look at mitt romney and say he doesn't need to be here.

he doesn't need for himself to be a senator, he's here because he wants to serve. and that's what we need. >> well said. so well said. thank you tina smith, u.s. senator from minnesota and peter baker of the "new york times." joining me is colorado congressman jason crow. thank you, you were impressive during the case. could you say that you got a mistrial today because you got one juror to say something different than the rest of them? it was not a unanimous vote by the republicans? >> good evening, chris. certainly there was not an acquittal in the form of an acquittal you would see in a trial because this wasn't a fair trial. this was the first impeachment trial in american history there wasn't witnesses, evidence. the senate made a determination last week they did not want to hear what the president did. that's forever going to put an asterisk on the results of this case. >> how much of this is 94% of

the republican party in the latest gallup poll to support this president? how much was the almost unanimous support of the republican party for this president? >> i can't get into the senators' individuals minds. i think one dynamic happening here was the idea that, you know, certain members of the republican party, certain members of the u.s. senate are kind of forgetting what their job is as members of a co-equal branch of government. the united states capital is not a wing of the white house. a member of congress doesn't work for the president of the united states. our system only works when we have co-equal branchs that are willing to, in the words of our founders, set ambition against ambition because they realize the failing of all people and they realized you needed to have these checks and balances. that's an important role in congress and that's why we continued to remind the senators of that throughout the trial. >> write the ep at that time for

what happened today for history? >> chairman schiff put it best last week -- or earlier this week. i'm losing track of the days here. i think it was in our closing on monday when he said is there not one among you willing to have the courage to stand up, he was speaking to the republican senators in the room when he said that. there was one among them. senator romney stood up, showed courage. for me this is a story about courage, about people who are willing to do the right thing and put their oath first. there are always going to be those who don't do it. there's always going to be those who don who stand up and run away from the fight instead of to it. but the story is going to be about those that had the courage to stand up and run to it. this is a story about the truth. the american people saw what happened, they have a picture of the president's misconduct and we have to decide what to do

going forward. >> that's why i love politics, sir, because occasionally one of you guys get out there and stick your neck out and prove you're a person against the odd. coming up, mitt romney stands alone and the response from republicans has been vicious. donald trump jr. says he should be banished. is this 300 a.c.? as for the president, there's no contrition and no lessons learned as maine senator susan collins promised. plus we're in new hampshire as the focus has shifted from iowa. it'll shift entirely to new hampshire when we get some complete numbers from iowa. pete buttigieg and bernie sanders, the two of them, have they both got the big mo as george bush described it as he beat ronald reagan in iowa in 1980.

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were i to ignore the evidence that has been presented and disregard what i believe my oath and the constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, i fear, expose my character to history's rebuke and the censure of my own conscience. >> that was mitt romney on the senate floor this afternoon. the lone voice of decent from president trump's republican party. the lone voice in either body. none of the other 52 u.s. senators, republicans, joined him. silence. crickets. as a matter of fact some said they saw nothing wrong in what

president trump did. >> the two articles of impeachment before this body today are without merritt. >> with my votes to acquit president trump, justice will be served. >> this whole thing centered around witness statements that the president had somehow threatened or pressured the president of the ukraine to do what he was going to do. that simply wasn't the case. >> and then there were those that were uncomfortable with the president's behavior but wouldn't vote to hold him accountable. >> regardless, it was wrong for president trump to mention former vice president biden on that phone call, and it was wrong for him to ask a foreign country to investigate a political rival. i do not believe that the house has met its burden of showing

that the president's conduct, however flawed, warrants the extreme step of immediate removal from office. >> it was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent, and withhold united states aid to encourage this investigation. but the constitution does not give the senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year's ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate. >> for more i'm joined by susan page, joe walsh, republican presidential candidate. susan, it's inappropriate to laugh in church. i don't get this one. inappropriate to sell u.s. foreign military assistance to a country fighting for its life

unless you get an announcement. that's where susan collins is wrong. it's not about the different it's the announcement we're looking for dirt. that's what the president wanted, bad p.r. on the bidens. inappropriate, that seems weak. >> that was some of these senators trying to find a middle ground where they could acknowledge they weren't entirely happy with how the president behaved but didn't think it rose to the level of impeachment. trying to find some place to stand when you're up for rae re-election in a place like maine. that can be a tough place to be. we can see with tough votes congress has taken in the past, the 2002 vote for the invasion of iraq. the safe vote, to support the president, turned out to be bad later on. >> to make a "godfather"

reference, it was a smart move for clamensia. is the safe vote voting for acquittal with all this evidence the president did exactly what he's accused of doing? >> i don't think so. chris, most of the person people understand we didn't have a trial, a fair trial. susan is being respectful. but every single senate republican was an absolute -- they put party before country. you know this better than i do. mitt romney, how often in american history do we see a politician actually do the principled thing and put country first? it's an amazing thing. >> would they be doing this jen ewe flexion to him, bowing to him if the economy were in bad shape? i'm asking a good economic

determinism? are they driven by the economic news right now? >> they're also driven by fear of his voters. they don't want to lose his voters. they know what trump did was wrong and for them to come out today and say it was inappropriate, they didn't have the courage to say that a month or two ago. >> are they afraid he's going to go after them? >> absolutely. with a tweet, sick his reporters on them. they put trump before country. >> susan, do you think there's a sense out there just to justify these self-saving particular votes by these guys and women, and how much of it is simple fear of extermination politically? >> i think that the congressman is exactly right. they are concerned about the president undermining their own political futures because he has such a strong hold now on the republican party. and he does at this point. i think senator romney is going to be in for a world of pain, at

least for a while. one thing overlooked when you're talking about romney's courage, his willingness to stand up and vote for conviction, also gave cover to some of the democrats who were under pressure to vote with the president, joe manchin, kristen cinema. romney gave them cover to stick with the democratic side, to vote with conviction, and that's going to cost him as well i think with the white house. >> do you think it helps in a state like west virginia where they voted by a margin of 45 points for trump or in alabama where doug jones has to fight for an election after the special victory down there, do you think that's enough cover? for them. >> i think -- i think -- for doug jones, i think doug jones also was a profile in courage today. i think he has worsened the odds, which were already long for him to win re-election in alabama, which is such a powerfully red state.

and i think he basically acknowledged that. he said that wasn't the calculation he was making on this vote. >> okay. another sign the republican party is now the party of trump entirely, lock, stock and barrel, even before his state of the union speech last night, the president was welcomed with the sounds more reminiscent of a rally, a trump rally. >> four more years. four more years. four more years. four more years. four more years. four more years. >> thank you very much. >> okay. a little coldish, what do you think? >> chris, i've been out there talking to republicans in iowa and new hampshire. my party is a cult. i mean that. it's not a political party. six or seven years ago you and i are talking about issues and debating and fighting issues. now it's all about where you are on trump. and if you don't kiss this guy's feet every single day, you're in

real trouble, politically. >> did you notice, susan, the way he walked in last night, into the house chamber, there was a certain setting of his jaw almost, i'm in here, i'm going to let them know, i'm going to show these people i'm the boss. i'm the guy. and he walked in there, i guess he offered -- no. i think the speaker offered to shake hands he wouldn't do it. but he didn't have a smile on his face i can detect. he was like i'm here to show these people who's boss. look at that face. most presidents are smiling when they come to greet their colleagues. then he wanted to tell the chief justice he's his boss the too. and then he used the military, the joint chiefs as his pawns in a chess game. i got a couple guys here to do my stuff. no the military fights these fights, he doesn't. did you notice that performance the way i just described it, susan? >> chris, have you ever -- i've

covered now six presidents delivering state of the union addresses. have you ever seen anything like that what we saw last night? >> no. >> so partisan, so combative, half acting like it's rally, the other half in their chairs not showing any approval, sometimes booing ands hissing. usually the problem with the state of the union is it's too boring. that's not the case last night. it's a sign of something happening in our politics that is not a good thing. >> i wish the democrats would withhold, restrain themselves from the tendency to get down in the ditch in which guy. ripping it up was not a smart move. i respect the speaker, but ripping it up is playing his game. when he didn't want to shake her hand, maybe he brought her to that point. the democrats sit there with the smug look, it's not working,

people. applaud like the speaker did when it's right, for the heroes of the country, the good people and good causes like standing up to the communist down in venezuela. cheer for juan goido. i think you have to be discreet and grown up and say this guy is in the cutter i'm not joining him. thank you, both. still ahead more caucus results. the po any express arrived from iowa. steve kornacki is going to be here to read the latest numbers and discuss the latest mistakes. stick around you're watching "hardball." stick around you're watching "hardball. through the at&t network, edge-to-edge intelligence gives you the power to see every corner of your growing business.

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and discuss the latest mistakes. and discuss the latest mistakes.

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welcome back to "hardball." the results of monday's night -- it was monday night's -- iowa caucuses continue to slowly trickle back to the rest of the country. as of now, 86% of the results have been released with pete buttigieg and bernie sanders vying for first place in delegates. sanders is ahead in raw votes but buttigieg is ahead in the percentage that determines how many delegates the candidates receive. however after facing fierce criticism for the delayed results, the iowa party admitted today to making another mistake in a batch of votes put out

today and had to issue what they called a minor correction. i'm joined by steve kornacki at the big board. help us. >> a couple hours ago they put numbers out. we are getting these numbers directly from the iowa democratic party. and they ce up with that correction. so we believe these are now the accurate numbers, they are the most recent numbers they've sent to us. you mentioned it, the state delegate equivalent category here, that's what's used to determine the winner. that's what pete buttigieg has in the lead. what you see on the circles, the bigger the circle, the more vote there is to come here. the more precincts. what you can see if you're sanders trying to make the comeback, the good news for you you see the big circle here, you see ames, a big college town. sanders doing well there. buttigieg not so much. so there's a couple of opportunities here for sanders

to eat into that. the problem is, there are also opportunities for pete buttigieg to counter sanders. you can see debuke, along the river, some smaller cities, buttigieg doing well there. for sanders to make that up at this point, that is very difficult for bernie sanders to do. i think more likely if you're the sanders campaign, it's not trying to catch buttigieg here. that looks like a real long shot. it's for the sanders campaign putting a spin on this, hey, like you said, the raw vote, the first preference, the popular vote. the folks that showed up, sanders looks like he's likely to be able to claim that more people showed up to support sanders than buttigieg, at least initially. >> you know, we spend our lives making calculations, women -- mostly women figure out thanksgiving dinner, how long the turkey has to be in the oven

and the potatoes and vegetables, everything is calculation. we go to work, it's a busy day, rainy, you have to go early. people are allowing for conditions. why didn't the democratic party of iowa do either? >> there are all sorts of questions here. was it the app, designed to get the results sent in, all sorts of reports of problem with that, and reports of people trying to call it on the telephone was having an issue. i think it was an issue where you have volunteers, volunteer people, everyday citizens running these things and the first time ever, they've been doing it almost 50 years and for the first time ever they were told to take these three different counts, the initial preference, the reallocated preference and then the final delegate equivalent and send these into the state. what happened was the state said, wait a minute, this number

shouldn't look like this if this looks like this. they didn't have the answer. the state has been reconstructing these things manually. that's what's taking so much time. >> one more question. 1700 precincts and how many telephone numbers were available for those 1700 precinct captains to call into? >> i don't know the number to that. we haven't been able to get too many questions to the iowa democratic party. the reports you have is folks weren't able to get it through on the app and then having difficulty getting it through on the telephone, too. so doesn't sound like that many. >> doesn't sound like that many to me. 1700 minus one. with iowa thank god in the rear view mirror, attention shifts to new hampshire, where i am. can a 38-year-old former small town mayor, middle sized town mayor and a 78 democratic socialist, self-described,

double down on their strong showings in iowa? are they the two to beat? be sure to check out my podcast, so you want to be president? it breaks down six key lessons on presidential campaigns, one being win iowa. episode three, the walls have ears, you'll love this one, it's available now wherever you get your podcasts. you're watching "hardball." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ wherever we want to go, we just have to start. autosave your way there with chase. chase. make more of what's yours.

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welcome back to "hardball." we're slowly getting a clearer picture of the results out of iowa more than two days after monday night's caucuses. but with no official winner all eyes shift to new hampshire, right here. they've descended here as they begin the week long sprint to next tuesday's primary. >> we're still waiting on more math to come through. but what we know, without any

doubt, is that our vision has been validated. and that this is an astonishing victory for our organization, our values, our campaign, and our candidacy. >> we're in the top three in iowa and now we've landed in new hampshire and we're out here fighting for every vote in new hampshire. >> they are still counting votes in iowa. i assume that one of these years that vote count will be completed. what we can do right now is make sure we have the largest voter turn out in the history of new hampshire, that's the most important thing we can do. >> one of these years. partial results in iowa showing him in fourth place, former vice president joe biden acknowledged he faces now an uphill battle here in new hampshire. >> i am not going to sugar coat it, we took a gut punch in iowa. the whole process took a gut punch. look, this isn't the first time in my life i've been knocked down. i'm not going anywhere. i'm not going anywhere.

>> and i'm counting on new hampshire. we're going to come back. >> with the new hampshire primary just six days away, did the results in iowa -- they're still murky, the democratic race enters a new phase of uncertainty and it could get ugly now. they're already shooting at each other. you're watching "hardball." other. you're watching "hardball. thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs

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welcome back to "hardball." we're in manchester, new hampshire right now. where in just six days voters will cast their votes in the second contest of the democratic presidential race, new hampshire's first in the country primary. you go into a booth, don't tell anybody how you're voting, carry a sign, you walk into a booth and vote. it matters, today joe biden took aim at his two rivals vying for first place in iowa, pete buttigieg and bernie sanders. >> every democrat will have to carry the label senator sanders has chosen for himself. he calls him -- i don't criticize him. he calls himself a democratic socialist. we're seeing what donald trump is going to do with that. mayor pete likes to attack as well, he's a good man, calls me part of the old, failed washington. really? was it a failure that i went to

congress to get obama care passed into law? >> for more i'm joined by mike mem lee, saha kapor, and ruth marcus. you decide whether the op-eds get in or not. i've been in this room with tom brockaw, in 1988. it seems boxing is the most dramatic sport, is this coming down to two -- you're covering biden. it looks like it's going to be a bb fight between buttigieg and bernie. >> biden starts with a b also. >> not talking about those bs. >> it might be a three b deal here. >> you think biden is still in it? >> i think we don't have a declared winner in iowa, but we have a declared loser in joe

biden. so if he is limping into new hampshire and he needs to perform here in a major way. but he is -- he is in it. he's not out of it yet. >> it yet. >> i keep thinking a star is born, bernie and buttigieg. you know the old guy with a new cover. >> i think a way was a gut punch. it could be a knockout blow. now the question for buttigieg is barack obama can come from behind and grow his vote elsewhere? or is he a mike huckabee, winning a very eccentric state, the caucuses that don't happen anywhere else? >> why would a caucus voter be

more likely to vote for a buttigieg? >> i think his team did a good job of organizing it. they needed an extremely good showing in iowa. there is no other state as friendly to him as a mid-western state. >> like barack obama? >> you know who shot it would be a race? the happier he was going to be. we saw them struggling. >> i'm surprised he took schatz at his opponents. >> i wasn't surprised, because that fight has been blewing a long time. it was interesting to see him go after beat buttigieg.

the shot voters say they're debating. >> that's exactly why he needed to do it. to have the graciousness to goth not go over mayor pete so you don't want to alienate his supporters. now with pete's whatever happens in iowa winnish in iowa. >> he looks like he won the delegate fight. >> where does he go for his bounce? biden needs to be a two-front war. he can't always go after bernie. >> i was waiting for him to go this long after pete. pete has been doing well, no big surprise. >> there are two lanes. i call them the afc and the nfc, the battle for the middle is biden and buttigieg he went on

to accuse him of downplaying the accomplishments of the obama administration. >> is he saying it was a failure? pete, just say it out loud. i have great respect for mayor pete in his service to this nation. but i do believe it's a risk for his party to nom nais nate someone never elected in indiana. i do believe it's a risk. >> indiana. like that's the worst. i'm not sure where he wanted to put the move says on indiana. >> obviously, he's not going to win that state. >> responding to attacks in an interview this afternoon with stephanie ruhle. here he goes. >> as to the obama organization, i have enormous respects for those achievements. if you look at what president obama was able to do with two terms. it's extraordinary. i had his back in that period.

even when it was a mayor and it wasn't easy to step forward. i think the bulk of the credits belong with president obama. >> yeah, the problem with this back and for with buttigieg and biden. it remind me of w standing next to tony blair, like tony blair would explain what w was saying all the time. >> i'm imagining him watching pete buttigieg's response, i had barack obama's back from south bend, indiana, i was with him in the trenches. there is why they felt they needed to go after him. they feel he has been taking these shots subtly. you heard him say, say it out loud. if you think the democratic party did not do enough. he's trying to call him on it. >> here is someone from the old politics that i really like. >> it's all about performance. >> this is the bigger thing.

he kneaded to show he is fighting overall. hess performance was lack luster. thank you for joining our network and ruth marcus. a pro of greatness. wasn't romney great? >> i loved the strength of his language. thanks for letting me say. >> that. >> i'd will say something about it. i was romantic about politics like i used to be. it means believing in guts. you are watching hardball. n guts you are watching hardball. i'm your 70lb st. bernard puppy, and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier. hey! my focus is on the road, and that's saving me cash with drivewise. who's the dummy now? whoof! whoof!

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. all right. the heart for my political life. it can be truly dangerous. there is a question of what role our national government can play in the life of us, our citizens. there are questions the role we should play here at home. but there are, there has been something else, all along, the basic human drama of wondering who will stand up and put his or her face to the crowd. the lone voice that can bring themselves up to stand up to the majority of pressures of the majority around them. today i was loved why i love politics so dearly. every once in a while, two

rarely, someone will stand against the pressure and stand with the team and dare to speak the truth. it takes no courage, of course, to hide in a pack. to speak in unison with those around you. what takes bravely, in regard is the voice that speaks out and tells the brave truth through the sad chorus of silence and submission. i saw it with john mccain when he refused to let that woman in the crowd question his rival barack obama's loyalty. today we saw when mitt romney stood up for the constitution against donald trump. and that's "hardball" for now. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> each senator when his or her name is called will stand in his or her place and vote guilty or not guilty. >> democrats, independents and a republican vote to remove donald trump from office. >> mr. romney, mr. romney, guilty. >> tonight as