david gergen, i want to bring you into the conversation. on the idea that david urban brought up there. which is that there isn't a tape recording or there isn't videotape of the president saying i order a quid pro quo, which seems to be the only level of evidence that would move republicans in congress on this. >> well, woe know a lot more if the president weren't stone calling. and the hypocrisy here is that the republicans are claiming there is no direct evidence we don't have the president on tape or doing something that's very direct. and there is a reason for that. and that is the people who talked to the president have all been prevented from testifying. you know, and the president has shut down that part of in inquiry. what we're into is that there is plenty of circumstantial evidence -- overwhelming circumstantial evidence that supports the notion that for better or worse the president was not moved by the corruption -- overall corruption and in ukraine. that wasn't his point. sondland made the point to holmes. the president is not

back with david axelrod, gloria borger, david gergen. gloria , the idea of it all comes down to bolton, that's an incredible roll of the dice. i don't know that anybody really has any idea of his perspective. there was that story he said compared something that he was hearing from sondland and others as a drug deal. what he actually testifies to, it's kind of amazing that it could possibly come down to that. >> yeah, i think so. look, it's very clear from the testimony we've seen that bolton was completely unhappy with what was going on vis-a-vis ukraine. he referred to it as a drug deal. he thought that it was a rogue policy that was being directed by rudy giuliani, and he referred to giuliani and mick mulvaney when he was talking about that drug deal. the question that i have is how are they going to get him up there and what venue. you know, his attorney is also the attorney representing somebody else who wants it to go to court first to see if he can -- if he can testify. seems to me they're going to subpoena him the same way they've

david gergen, i want to start with you here.ublicans are now apparently saying, yeah, there was a quid pro quo. but, no, it's not impeachable. that's a long way. they've moved a long way on this. >> yeah. it is a long way. actually they're just, you know, observing the obvious and stating the obvious. but i do think it's significant politically, john. the next question to them will be was it appropriate? and on that one, i don't think they can possibly say it was apropriate. and that takes them down the road toward, okay, it was inappropriate, but you still don't think it's impeachable. do you want to censure? how are you going to register your dissent? we just heard from congressman khanna. that puts them in a very, very awkward position to acknowledge it. it has been central to the republican defense. it's been central to the republican defense that there was no quid pro quo. one more defense has been knocked down on the republican side. >> and it strikes me, shan, i have to say. this is what mick mulvaney told us when he was

david gergen, thanks for being with us. >> thank you, john. >>> we do have breaking news.oomberg files for a 2020 democratic primary. does this mean he's definitely running? it takes a village to raise a child. to build a bridge. to throw a baseball... to throw yourself into the unknown. to lose fear, to create hope. we believe that it takes a village of over 200-thousand dedicated, passionate, driven medical and non-medical professionals to deliver on our belief in total health for all. we are kaiser permanente. thrive. >>> breaking news. michael bloomberg just filed to run in the alabama democratic presidential primary. the billionaire and former new york city mayor will also file for the arkansas democratic primary before tuesday's deadline. this is according to a bloomberg spokesman who also says bloomberg has yet to make a final decision on a run. what we do know is that bloomberg is worried that the current democratic candidates can't beat president trump. here's what joe biden had to say about that today. >> michael's a solid guy, and let's see where it goes. i have

joining me now cnn senior political analyst david gergen, nixon white house counsel, john dean. >>> david, i'm wondering how what you make of the transcripts that have been released today. >> we should be very glad they've been released. it gives the granular view, much more sobering and distressing than what we had heard before today. and i think the details show you that this became a ses pool. our own state department became a cesspool. it's one thing for an american ambassador to be called home because there is a physical threat to the ambassador coming from some thugs or rebels outside the gate. it's another thing to be threatened by your own government. your physical security is being threatened when they ask her to come home. then the president in that phone call with zelenskiy, the president of ukraine, they started talking about her and the president said -- the president of the united states says, she's going to go through some tough things. >> yeah. >> she felt, i think, quite rightly, that was threatening to her and she remains threatened to this day. anderson, it may take as

former republican congressman and david gergen presidential adviser to nixon ford, reagan and clinton. just a few presidents. good morning to both of. >> you good morning. >> charlie, i start with you. you served in congress as a republican. you saw folks line up yesterday and i wonder if the experience of frances rooney one of your few colleagues mo stood up said he was open to impeachment stood out to them and he was on this broadcast a few weeks ago and described what happens afterwards. >> at this point you are not ruling out the possibility that this is an impeachable offense for the president. >> i don't think you can rule anything out until you know all the facts. every time one of the people testifies we get more information about what was going on over there. >> what happened in the horsepower after that? he was attacked by republicans in his district around the country and within 24 hours he was no longer running. is that -- is fear driving republicans to stand in line with the president, charlie? >> i think that is certainly a big part of it. no doubt about it. we have seen

david gergen, jennifer rodgers and jeffrey toobin, thanks for being here. >>> still to come, the politicsthis, right or wrong, valid or not. how would the potential impeachment of president trump affect voters' attitudes toward the two parties? (contemplative synth music) - [narrator] forget about vacuuming for up to a month. shark iq robot deep-cleans and empties itself into a base you can empty once a month. and unlike standard robots that bounce around, it cleans row by row. if it's not a shark, it's just a robot. hi honey, we got in early. yeah, and we brought steve and mark. ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. select chuckit launchers are november 22nd$4.99!tsmart! 25 ounce beggin strips are only $9.99! and don't forget - our black friday deals start online thursday at petsmart.com! petsmart! dana-farber cancer institute discovered the pd-l1 pathway. pd-l1. they changed how the world fights cancer. blocking the pd-l1 protein, lets t

back with me is jeffrey toobin and another cnn legal analyst jennifer rogers and david gergen who hasd four presidents, republican and democrat, including one who has been impeached and one who resigned so knows a lot about this type of thing. jeffrey, i want -- >> i'm batting .500. >> jeffrey, how do you see this process playing out? we know the intelligence committee is going to write this report. then it goes to judiciary. do you think we'll still be getting new information as this goes on? >> probably some but i think there's one big question that the democrats have yet to resolve, which is how to structure the impeachment. there are really two broad options, one is that it's just ukraine, that it's just the abuse of power in connection with the president's int interactions with ukraine. the other option includes the obstruction of justice discussed in the mueller report and the obstruction of congress in terms of the failure to respond to subpoenas, allow witnesses to testify. so a narrow impeachment based on ukraine, a broader impeachment with obstruction, that's a question nanc

joined now but our legal and political folks, john dean, jeffrey toobin, david gergen, gloria borger, kirsten powers, scott jennings and jen psaki. >> i think they are getting away from quid pro quo because most americans, except david gergen speak english rather than latin. and bribery is also a -- it is clear what it is and there is evidence to support it. personally, i think extortion may be a more accurate description. >> but is it a little late for them to try to be rewriting, remarketing what this thing was? >> i don't think so. the facts are the facts. we are now moving into the impeachment process. and it happens to be true that the constitution speaks specifically of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. >> but gloria, what changed? why do you think they made this change? >> quid pro quo wasn't working. it was complicated, latin, as you point out. and the president -- you know, the supporters of the president kept saying well, you can't have a quid pro quo if there wasn't aid. the aid wasn't stopped. they got the aid. so where is the quo? would that be? >>

david gergen and anita kumar, thank you both. great to your contributions tonight. >>> we're also following other breaks nu breaking news. the defense secretary has now ordered the resignation of the navy's top civilian leader for his handling of this war crimes case. the president is responding tonight. all the details on this breaking story just ahead. a peaceful nt frequent heartburn waking him up. now that dream is a reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? you may have gingivitis. when you brush, and the clock could be ticking towards bad breath, receding gums, and possibly... tooth loss. help turn back the clock on gingivitis with parodontax. leave bleeding gums behind. parodontax. true to you and your skin? when you can't tell where your foundation ends and your skin begins, that's a true match. l'oréal's true match blends seamlessly into skin for a true to you finish. in 45 shades. it's perfect for me. find your true match, from l'oréal

joining us right now is jeffrey toobin, kirsten powers, david gergen, and former sufrrick san.f, the reporting about moving some impeachment witnesses potentially on loan to the white house back to their home departments ahead of schedule, is that okay? i mean obviously the president can have whoever he wants to have working around him. >> he can, and we can draw our own conclusions about why they're being moved back. i mean, you know, i'm reminded of a line from phillip roth. the smallness of people was simply crushing. i mean, you know, the smallness of donald trump to punish these people for answering questions under oath when they've been subpoenaed is just -- but, you know, it's par for the course. i don't think it counts as obstruction of justice. i don't think it's witness intimidation. i don't think it's a crime or an impeachable offense, but it's just really, really small. >> david, i mean if some democrats considered the president tweeting about ambassador yovanovich witness intimidation, do you think there's anything, you know, not right about moving people out of th

it doesn't necessarily tie the two together. >> although david gergen, if you have a conversation inch when aid is brought up the first thing you reference right after it is a favor of investigations into, you know, a fictional server or a -- no evidence of a server in ukraine and the bidens, that does, you can argue certainly, i know it is an arguable point. i know senator santorum will argue the bidens were not part of it. >> i think you can't question. obviously there is a linkage. and sondland is going to, his testimony becomes pivotal this week because he himself has testified he told the ukrainians that you're much more likely to get something done if you move on this announcement and you investigate the bidens. let me just say, i think the bigger point about this week is a pivotal week is up until now the white house has very successfully blocked our view from the oval office. we've got the telephone call but beyond that they've very carefully concealed what the -- to go to the famous howard baker question from watergate what did the president know and when did he know it? i t

few better to ask than david gergen. he is a senior political analyst.so much for being with us. >> thank you. >> generally speaking in your vast experience inside these different administrations, do chiefs of staff freelance typically, do things on their own? >> no, no, even the strongest don't. and mick mulvaney is i think the weakest chief of staff in modern history. he's still acting. both of his predecessors were fired. the president makes it clear on many occasions that he makes all the decisions. everybody reports to him. it really doesn't matter to him that a number of vacancies occur in government because he is the government. and so i think that mick mulvaney is in a situation where he would never go outside his lane. he would only act at the behest of the president. even strong chiefs of staff go to the president with a big issue. and al hague who had enormous power during the closing months of the nixon administration where the president essentially was off keel and hague had to hold things together, he would still go to the president. jim ba

joining me now, david gergen, kirsten powers. mean first of all, the quotes from this person are pretty incredible to hear one also has to consider that this person, though they think this, as far as we know either still works for the administration or did work for the administration and for whatever reason, even though others have now come forward and put their careers on the line, this person is not doing that. >> well, that's true. i think the person is totally disaffected but for whatever reason that's odd, is hanging in there. obviously does not want to be identified. what's missing from the book right now, at least the excerpts we have, are any incidents or stories or precise things that happened as opposed to sort of this vast overview of what we know. you know, we've known all along that the white house has become a snake pit. we just didn't know until this book came out just how many snakes are in there. and that's one thing, but the president always abusing power once given, that's been pretty apparent for a while. but

and joining me now is gloria borger and david gergen and carrie cordero. what do you make of this was a bridge too far for the attorney general, something he wasn't comfortable with now? it's not like he hasn't gone to bat for the president before. >> i think that probably the attorney general was frustrated his name kept coming up in a situation which he had nothing to do with, and they did put out a statement, you will recall, after the whistle-blower report saying that they didn't see any campaign finance laws that had been broken, and they ended it there. and then they later said, well, by the way, we never had anything to do with ukraine. we've never spoken about the ukrainian issue after the release of the transcript. i think that it gives us a real inside look, though, anderson, into how the president views barr and the way the president views barr is as his personal attorney ux and he doesn't like his personal attorney not to go out and represent him and why she was so upset with jeff sessions. it's the same kind of attitude towards the department

david gergen, let's start with you. two weeks of the hearings. from the tone of chairman schiff tonight it sounds like he has more or less wrapped up his phase. do you think the democrats made a solid case? >> i think they made a very solid case on the merits. on the question whether in fact there was a series of misdeeds on the part of the white house as cohorts i think it is compeing. i think they may not have judged properly how it's going to play in the country. the early signs are the country is not paying attention. there were top ten surveys what the priorities ought to be, impeachment number ten. i think it's been hard for the public to follow it. you have ten different characters who come on stage. none of them were known to the public before this had all happened. and trying to keep up who's who and, you know, there's no crinology, we're not walking our way through the chronlogically, and i think it's really hard for people to follow. i think a lot of people are emotionally exhausted. that's not to say the democrats can't recoop. it is

with us now is cnn senior political analyst david gergen. he say an advisor to four president, both republican and democrat. and with us is cnn legal analyst and former prosecutor michael zeldin. david, let me start with you because you just heard president trump say he has the real polls on impeachment. a week and a half ago he said i'm the team when asked about his defense team. does he understand the gravity of this? >> when the polls are good, he claims them and says they're wonderful polls. and when they're bad he insists they're fake and that he has the inside knowledge. we don't know what that is. i think it doesn't exist. there may be one poll that is highly suspect in the field. there has been one on the conservative side that the procedures they use have mostly discredited that poll. but that has given the president better numbers. but they're just not believable credible polls. >> michael, this week the impeachment inquiry a new phase. supposed to open public hearings and testimony being made public as well. that's been happening b

joining us now is advisor to four presidents david gergen and phil mudd.ttacked another witness that's an aide to vice president mike pence who said in her deposition that trump's ukraine call was unusual and inappropriate. tell jennifer williams, whoever that is to read both transcripts of the presidential calls and see the just released statement from ukraine. then she should meet the never trumpers who i don't know and most of whom i never heard of and should work out a better attack. to label a never trumper is the messa message here you're on your own? >> very much so. and if you say anything about me you're going to be attacked publicly and i'm going to flog you. we know enough to say this, that the woman the president disparaged today is very close to the vice president of the united states. and she would not have testified up there unless one of two things was true. she really felt she had to tell the truth and she wanted to -- and you have to appreciate that. or possibly she feels that the vice president wants a little distance from all of this. i

joining us now are john dean, david gergen, nia-malika henderson, jeffrey toobin, and scott jennings.eff, i mean, there was clearly a reason that the democrats saved fiona hill for the last witness. >> if you have a helen mirren bad ass, you put her at the end. it was -- and just an extraordinary performance. and also, just as a citizen, i think you had to feel good about the public servants who work for the united states in anonymity throughout this, you know, the foreign service officers, the people who -- i mean, these were incredibly impressive. >> an impressive bunch. by the way, that foreign service exam is hard. >> very hard. >> we don't want to talk about your cia history. >> oh, sorry, i didn't mean to say that. >> i interned. i was a waiter, too. no one talks about that. >> but you know, the facts are not in dispute here. i mean, what the democrats did over these two weeks was to show overwhelmingly, completely, thoroughly, that what happened here was the president of the united states said to his staff, i have one priority with ukraine and it has nothing to do with the nati