describes as blinking. >> i agree with john heileman, 110%. i respect nancy pelosi, she's been a fantastic speaker. she's dog walked the president as we talked about many times before. but in this instance what they're thinking about is 2020. they're thinking about holding onto the house, thinking about the presidential, and that is the wrong thing to do right now. because what will happen is if they do not act in a way that is effective, not in this process way, they're going to handover power to the president of the united states which is donald trump. you do not want to give him that power. and i've said this before on your show, we are -- they are fighting on his turf. they need to take the fight to him. and john is right, if you have impeachment proceedings can you imagine the coverage of that, the wall-to-wall coverage, the folks testifying like mcgahn, like mueller, and how you will bring the country along with you? i want to bring some numbers in. watergate, before the impeachment proceedings, 37% of americans were not for impeachment.

with us on set, msnbc national affairs analyst john heileman is back. and associated press reporter jonathan lemire is here. joyce vance, let me start with you. something i heard from the time that robert mueller was done to the moment his actual report was made available on the doj website was the explanation on obstruction is really confusing, from doj officials i don't understand it, doesn't make any sense, he basically punted. robert mueller did nothing of the sort. he did not punt. he found he could not say at the end of 22 months that trump had not committed crimes but he was hemmed in, restrained, boxed in, whatever word you want to use by doj policy that said you couldn't indict a sitting president. that's pretty clear. >> it's pretty thinly sliced and nuanced here. mueller starts by saying -- at least from my point of view analytically the first step is, if i could have told you the president didn't commit a crime, i would, and i'm not telling you that. that's the starting point. then he says, doj policy, which is the law and that's where prose

i'm john heileman i'm in for nicole wallace. total and complete exoneration?ms masses of former prosecutors who are today saying president donald j. trump would have and should have been charged with obstruction of justice if not for the office he holds. more than 300 of those attorneys served under republican and democratic administrations alike. they write, quote. each of us believes that the conduct of president trump described in special counsel robert mueller's report would in the case of any other person not covered by the office of legal counsel's policy against indicting a sitting

i'm john heileman i'm in for nicole wallace. total and complete exoneration? meet the scores upon skads upon teams masses of former prosecutors who are today saying president donald j. trump would have and should have been charged with obstruction of justice if not for the office he holds. more than 300 of those attorneys served under republican and democratic administrations alike. they write, quote. each of us believes that the conduct of president trump described in special counsel robert mueller's report would in the case of any other person not covered by the office of legal counsel's policy against indicting a sitting priority result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice. to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice runs counter to logic and our experience. since that is what the prosecutorial community took away from robert mueller's finding, no wonder the democrats wantd to be hear from robert mueller himself. and no wonder that president trump wants robert mueller t