evening. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> i will just tell you that i have been -- i wrote this book, obviously, so i know what it's about, but i've been super stressed about talking about it because it's not easy to sort of bottle up. that's why it had to be a book instead of just talking about it on tv. the fact of knowing that you were going to be my first interview, i think, like, scaled up my prep so intensively, i'm kind of ready for anything now. >> that's good. i'm glad. that was a great conversation. the book is great and i'm excited for people to get their hands on it. >> thank you very much, you're very, very kind. i really appreciate it. thanks for being with us tonight. happy to have you here. it's day seven of the impeachment proceedings against president donald j. trump. this story and the impeachment process itself are still developing just as fast today and tonight as they have been over the past week.

we'll get to all of that tonight including the new news from "the wall street journal" which nbc news just matched. "the wall street journal" now nbc news reporting that secretary of state mike pompeo was personally listening in on the call that has now led to these impeachment proceedings against president trump. i mean, unless mike pompeo is himself the whistle-blower, that means that he was aware in real time that president trump had personally blocked military aid to ukraine and then when that country's president brought up the need for u.s. military aid in a phone call with president trump, president trump responded by saying i would like you to do us a favor, though. that's when he asked that foreign leader for help with items on his personal wish list, including some sort of law enforcement or legal proceeding against his potential 2020 democratic opponent, joe biden. now tonight we've got news that the secretary of state was listening in on that call while that ask from the president happened.

and that is remarkable. i mean, pompeo's own department, the state department, had signed off on that military aid going to ukraine. he knows that, right? and then he hears with his own ears the president essentially making that aid contingent on him getting this favor about what ukraine can do to dirty up joe biden for the next election. the secretary of state knows that and says nothing about it? again, of course unless he's the whistle-blower, i mean he is e cia. i don't think he is the whistle-blower. but now in addition to the president, the secretary of state is up to his neck in this impeachment scandal. he is there alongside this guy, the attorney general of the united states, william barr. "the washington post" has an actually shocking report tonight about the attorney general, william barr, personally traveling around the globe personally trying to get foreign governments to help him in an inquiry that the white house

hopes will, quote, discredit u.s. intelligence agencies' examination of russian interference in the 2016 election. william barr himself, the attorney general personally has been working on that for the president around the globe. why is he doing that? i mean, the impeachment proceeding is about president trump trying to get help for his 2020 election. why is bill barr traveling around the globe working on stuff with foreign governments that they hope will change the view that russia interfered in the election that already happened in 2016? to understand that, i think it's worth taking a step back. also it's worth taking a step back just because this is moving so fast now. trump's envoy to ukraine suddenly resigning. tonight that ukraine envoy is confirming that he will attend that deposition on thursday of this week. oh, the stories he could tell. the u.s. ambassador to ukraine who was attacked and slimed by

the president, by the president's son, the u.s. ambassador to ukraine who mike pompeo recalled early from office without explanation in the middle of this pressure campaign to try to get the ukraine government involved in helping trump for 2020, that u.s. ambassador to ukraine is going to be deposed the day before the envoy has his deposition. she'll be deposed on wednesday of this week. we have breaking news by the hour still. this sandal is still unfolding. there was a bunch of important developments over the weekend but to try to keep it in perspective and not get too overwhelmed, also to help stack up when something new happens, how important is this and how much does this change the story, in order to keep perspective on it, it's good to start with the basics. go back for a second to where this started. 2014, halfway through barack obama's second term in office as president. russia invades the neighborhoods country of ukraine. ukraine had been interested in orienting itself more toward the

west, more toward europe, the european union, maybe even nato someday. russia and russian interests paid darn good money to install a pro-putin, pro-kremlin strong-man leader in ukraine to keep ukraine oriented toward russia instead of toward the west, but that pro-auto putin strong man was thrown out by his own people in part because of him reneging on limits to ally ukraine more with europe and less with russia. russia decided 2014 enough was enough. they decided that they were just going to invade. they marched over the border and took part of that neighboring country for themselves. they declared that part of ukraine was now part of russia instead. and this to say the least was an unusual occurrence in the modern world. since world war ii we have not seen countries using their militaries to just seize parts of other countries and make them their own, particularly on the edges of europe. but that's what putin did in 2014. and the west was horrified, right? the international order was shaken.

for starters, the g8 group of countries kicked russia out. the g8 became the g-7 instead because russia was no longer considered worthy of inclusion in that group. the western world also united behind strong sanctions against russia to punish their behavior, to pressure them to reverse course. after russia did what it did to ukraine, nobody was quite sure if that was all they were going to do or if they might try something else with some other country. what else would they do next and to whom would they do it? so in 2014 when all this happened, president obama went over there. he traveled to eastern europe on a trip designed to reassure our nervous allies, particularly our nato allies, that they would be protected, that they had our support. president trump gave a speech in warsaw in poland behind a backdrop of f-16 fighter jets that were used in joint military exercises between the u.s. and poland. and obama declared in that address that america's commitment to the security of

our alleys ies is, quote, sack sanctity. he also named a new program to increase the u.s. military presence in central and eastern europe to upgrade nato's ability to operate and defend the nato countries in that region. he also announced the expansion of joint military exercises there. all to show russia this strong, unified u.s.-led western backstop, basically, in case of any further russian aggression. the fundamental idea was to use american resources, american prestige, american leadership, american might, not to fight russia, but to stop them from fighting weaker countries than themselves, to bolster our nato allies to beef up their own readness and ability to pushing back against putin. >> russian provocation will be met with further costs for russia. today i'm announcing a new

initiative to bolster our nato allies. the united states will preposition more equipment in europe. we'll increase the number of american personnel, army, and air force units, continuously rotating through allied countries in central and eastern europe. i'm calling on congress to approve up to $1 billion to support this effort which will be a powerful demonstration of america's unshakable commitment to our nato allies. >> that was five years ago. now that u.s. commitment as articulated by president obama there, that is being quite dramatically unwound by the trump administration. in february of this year, president trump declared a national emergency that he said required him to build a wall between us and mexico. both the house and the republican-controlled senate have since voted the kibosh that declaration, which itself is something, but the whole idea of that emergency declaration was to led the trump white house conjure up money from somewhere

else to fund the construction of this wall, specifically they wanted to take $3.5 billion out of u.s. military construction projects. even more specifically than that, close to $1 billion of what they wanted to take and what they still want to take is the budget specifically appropriated by congress to fund that european reassurance initiative, which the u.s. government started not because president obama thought it was a great idea and he conjured it out of nowhere, it came from congress. it came from the administration, it came in bipartisan fashion from the united states after russia invaded ukraine. the whole idea was that the united states would stand up in order to help our nato allies push back against russia's new interest in invading its neighboring countries and taking over parts of them. earlier this month nbc news obtained an internal air force report which detailed 51 u.s. air force construction projects that will see their funding cut

off and military readiness are adversely affect by this plan. the document showed that, quote, projects to upgrade airfields in germany, luxembourg, hungary have been she would halfed. directly limiting presence and impairing mission capability and readiness. so it's not like this was, like, just paint jobs and vanity projects that they were cutting. this was the muscle in terms of what nato could offer to backstop central and eastern europe, right, that could backstop our nato allies, backstop our nato capability in that part of the country to push russia back from what they were doing. as for what president obama described as that sack sanctity commitment, trump teece new definition secretary urged those allies to quote pick up the tab

themselves for those projects. the new position of the trump administration including trump's new definition secretary is that our allies should pick up the tab for our upgrades for our u.s. military bases in their countries, even though the whole point in the first place was to show we're with them and will spare no expense to help them against russia. and that story, that's what seemed like it was going to be this year's big new, weird national security story about yet another thing the trump white house was pushing to benefit russia and to hurt and insult our exposed allies and to undermine western alliances. seems like that was going to be the big national security thing that we had to deal with in 2019. turns out that was just the appetizer, that was the amuse bouche. that was just the spinach dip, because that was about the countries that were frayed for themselves after they saw what russia did to ukraine. when it comes to ukraine itself,

of course they've had it considerably worse. they got invaded, right? they are still engaged in a war with russia since russia took crimea from ukraine. russia has since begun and continued an endless occupation in another part of ukraine. and that russian occupation of big swaths of ukraine has been grinding on for five years on ukrainian soil. it's cost 13,000 lives and counting. while it is always an advantage to fight on your own soil on our own home turf, the ukrainian military is absolutely outnumbered and outgunned by russia. here's where we come back into the plot and where president trump does too. because one of ukraine's most prized weapons to defend itself against this invasion is a weapon they've only recently acquired. it's called the fgm 148 javelin. looks like that kind of clunky oversized dumbbell, right? remember the shake weight, that infomercial? looks like a big menacing shake

weight. but what the fgm 148 javelin is one of the world's premier anti-tank missiles. for one thing, it's light, it waegsz just under 50 pounds. you need only one person to operate it. in addition to that, when it is launched, it creates little black blast, that means if you shoot one of these things at an enemy tank, the lack of black blast makes it hard for the other side to spot you to identify where you launched the missile from. because it has little back blast, you work fire it from enclosed spaces which can help you avoid return fire. unlike most long-range anti-tank missiles the javelin is what they call a fire and forget system. which means that it requires no further input from you after the launch. it has infrared technology to guide the missile. which means you don't have to stand there doing stuff to make the missile land where it's supposed to. you can just shoot it and immediately run to find cover. the javelin missile is a

formidable of women it's precise, effective, it's got good range, it's sort of imminently usable. it can destroy tanks and oormtd vehicles and helicopters. the javelin is primarily used by u.s. soldiers, but as of last year it has also been used by the ukrainian military as a way of fending off russian forces and russian-backed forces pushing further into the eastern part of ukraine, which russia has been occupying. ukraine got those missiles from the united states last year. but there was something a little bit hinkey about that last year. last year while president trump's campaign manager, paul manafort was on trial in the u.s., he was also the subject of four separate criminal investigations in ukraine stemming from his work for that country's former pro-russian leader. those investigations into paul manafort dofd tailed into some of the investigation robert mueller was doichlkts he ultimately charged paul manafort

and he was ultimately convicted and sent to prison for seven years. as andrew kramer reported last may for "the new york times," ukrainian investigations into paul manafort last year that were proceeding alongside our special counsel's investigation here, those manafort investigations last year got spiked by the ukrainian government. they got shut down. the they blocked prosecutors for issuing subpoenas for evidence or interviewing witnesses. the prosecutor told "the new york times," quote, we have no authority to continue our investigation. so why did the ukrainian government spike those paul manafort investigations last year? well, at the same time that they did so, ukraine was finalizing plans to finally acquire these

javelin missiles that they really wanted from the united states. the state department had issued an export license for the javelin missiles at the end of 2017, december 2017. on march 2nd of last year, the pentagon had announced final approval for the sale of the javelins to ukraine. still the missiles didn't come and the ukrainian government apparently came to believe that the missiles were not going to come unless they did something to please the trump administration. unless they did something that the u.s. government wanted them to do. and they came to believe what they needed to do in order to get those missiles was stop those live investigations into paul manafort. in early april, ukrainian officials gave the order to halt the investigations into paul manafort and halt ukrainian cooperation with the mueller investigation. on april 30th thereafter, ukraine announced they had finally received those missiles, which they had been waiting on for months. from ukraine's perspective, there didn't seem to be mystery

as to whether there was a connection between those two things. one member of parliament saying that grochlt was trying to avoid irritating top american officials. same quote, we shouldn't spoil relations with the trump administration. another member of parliament said ukrainian investigations into manafort, quote, put at risk vital american aid to ukraine. quote, everybody in ukraine is afraid of this case. now, who created the impression in ukraine that if that government wanted military aid, if they wanted those javelin missiles to fight back against russia, they needed to stop investigating paul manafort? who conveyed that information to them? why did that government come to believe that they wouldn't get those missiles unless they stopped investigating manafort and stopped helping with the special counsel's investigation? a handful of senators tried to follow up and get information

from the ukrainian government. mother jones posted online a copy. did anyone from the trump administration or anyone acting on its behalf encourage ukrainian government or law enforcement officials not to cooperate with the investigation of special counsel robert mueller? but as best as we can tell, the senators were never able to get information, so the matter was essentially dropped. until now, hello, ukraine is once again trying to get more of those javelin missiles. in the phone call that is leading to president trump's impeachment, in the phone call that took place in late july between president trump and ukraine's new president, according to the notes of that call released by the white house this past week, there's a remarkable moment where the ukrainian president asked specifically about those missiles. president zelensky, quote, we are ready to ton cooperate for the next steps, specifically we are almost ready to buy more javelins for defense purposes. president trump immediately

responds with, quote, i would like you to do us a favor, though. you want the javelins? i'm in need of a favor. last year they were under the same impression that they had to trade some kind of favor to get them, and it was related to the investigations of paul manafort. this year, the president wants a favor. a few favors. we now know that the president and his emissary, mr. giuliani, are pressing ukraine basically for three things. one of them has to do with the 2020 election. apparently they want ukraine to give trump something he can use against joe biden in the 2020 election. either to keep biden from becoming the democratic nominee or beat him in the general or maybe both, right? so that's one thing. that's what president trump is going to be impeached for. but then there's these other two things they've been asking ukraine for. rudy giuliani has been telling ukraine they need to open an investigation into what happened to paul manafort. these revelations in ukraine in

2016 that paul manafort had been paid millions of dollars off the books by that country's pro-russian political party. those revelations in 2016 not only resulted in manafort getting fired as trump's campaign chairman, they resulted in some of the prison time manafort's now serving because he didn't pay taxes on that secret income. rudy giuliani and president trump have been pressuring ukraine to investigate those revelations about manafort from 2016 to try to get manafort off the hook for what he did over there, for what he got caught for in 2016. trump has also told ukraine that he wants them to investigate the security firm that first determined it was the russian government that hacked the democratic party and started the attack on the 2016 election. just step back from this a second, right? you look at this in terms of what trump is going to be impeached for, he's definitely going to be impeached for what he was asking for from ukraine

for 2020. he went to ukraine to ask for help with w682020, for help wit beating biden, that would help president trump. but there are also simultaneously asking for help with the 2016 election too, with the election that's already over. we, the united states, have not been supporting ukraine for these past five years out of some inherent love for ukraine. lovely as they are, right? there isn't some terrifically spiritual bond between our countries that supersedes the bonds we have with other countries the only reason we've been supporting them is because they were freaking invaded by russia, right, which is a very unusual thing. up until now on a bipartisan basis, we, the yierkts helped support that country because they were invaded by russia and russia is occupying part of them. we have been helping them keep their country intact while russia is trying to take it. so to the extent we are now no

longer supporting ukraine or we are making our support for them contingent on these political favors for president trump for his re-election campaign, it's a radical change in a short period of time in terms of what the u.s. is doing and what are when a our attitude is toward that world-changing event from 2014. and i think now it's becoming clear why or at least it's becoming clear how this all fits together. the "new york times" this weekend published a run downabout this big change our country has gone through toward ukraine and how it hasn't been run through any normal policy process. it hasn't been articulated at all. it's been this off the books odd process involving people who were not sure who they worked for and maybe in giuliani's case he's doing energy deals on the side. just this mess in terms of not knowing who's acting as a lawmakers who's being paid by who. one of the things the "times" slips in in literally paragraph 75 of this 85-paragraph article

is the bigger thing to woat wor here, president trump has quietly been working to get ukraine to settle with russia to end this war. quote, mr. trump has quietly been urging a deal to reduce tensions between ukraine and russia that would pave the way for a removal of western sanctions on moscow, long a goal of mr. putin's mr. trump hinted that was his goal when asked about president zelensky. president trump told reporters, quote, i think he's going to make a deal with president putin, and he will be invited to the white house. he makes a deal with putin and that gets listen invitation to the white house? the u.s. president is quietly and maybe not so quietly too trying to get ukraine to make a deal with russia. on putin's terms. russia invaded ukraine in 2014. they shouldn't get to settle this on their terms, but that's what president trump is trying

to arrange. i mean, obviously to the extent that we're no longer standing with ukraine, we're denying them military aid whenever we feel like it, that doesn't put them in a good position for negotiating into their five-year long war with russia. but president trump is apparently trying to arrange that, which, of course, would result ultimately in the dropping of u.s. and international sanctions on russia for what it did to ukraine. and those sanctions were in place when president trump took office. he's been trying to get rid of them ever since he got to washington. the additional problem for president trump is because of the means by which he took office and elected, beyond just the sanctions on russia for what they did on ukraine, there was the additional round of sanctions against russia too, really bad, really tough sanctions that hurt them in ways that are important to their economy. i wrote a book about it that comes out tomorrow. those additional sanctions as trump was coming into office were from russia messing in our 2016 elections.

there are the sanctions for what they did this ukraine. there's the second round of sanctions, russia messing with our elections. those sanctions can't be dropped as long as the u.s. government still official attributes the attack on our election to russia. and so we see the president and rudy giuliani and apparently now attorney general william barr traveling the world trying to undo the u.s. government's attrition of the 2016 attack to russia, trying in "the washington post's" words tonight discredit u.s. intelligence agencies' examines of election. that's the other thing russia needs in order to free itself from sanctions. russia is sanctioned for what they did in ukraine. trump is apparently working to undo that so those sanctions can be dropped. they also interfered with our elections and have been sanctioned for that. trump is also apparently working very hard to undo that. trump is working very hard on both of those things. yeah, he's trying to get help

for 2020, but those two things about russia invading ukraine and russia helping him get elected, he's working on those just as intently. both of those things have bank shot indirect benefit to him in terms of helping his reputation for how he got elected, but both of those things have direct benefit to russia because they need those sanctions dropped desperately because their economy cannot function with those sanctions in place. dropping those sanctions is the most important foreign policy goal that russia has. and trump is working double time to get it done before he gets impeached. we'll be right back. performance comes in lots of flavors.i'll b. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result.

that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪

. tell me if you are sense ago theme here. when president trump's first national security adviser michael flynn was indicted for lying to investigators, what he lied to them about was his secret conversations with the russian government about u.s. sanctions on russia. the obama administration instituted sanctions against russia. flynn was telling them not to be worry about it. michael isakoff was first to report the first order of

business for the trump landing team at the state department was also to try to come up with a way to union laterally relieve u.s. sanctions on russian. it emerges what president trump has been trying to do in ukraine is not only to get that country to help me him with his 2020 re-election effort, but he's been trying to undo the u.s. government's conclusion that russia attacked us in the 2016 election, something for which we sanctioned russia. he's also reportedly been trying to pressure ukraine into settle winning russia over russia's ongoing war and occupation in that country. "the new york times" reporting this weekend that trump has, quote, quietly been urge ago deal to remove sanctions on russia for what it did in ukraine as well. secret talks about relieving sanctions on russia during the campaign, secret talks about russia sanctions, relieving sanctions on russia when they first got to russia. now it's talks about leaving

sanctions between the president and various foreign governments. for a scatter-shot administration that can't seem to hold a single idea in its head for more than 15 minutes, boy, do they seem focused on relieving sanctions in russia, working on it in every possible way, including this breaking news tonight about not just the president's involvement in this but what attorney general william barr has been traveling around the world trying to do himself. joining us now is michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia under president obama. armrest, it's nice to see you. thanks for coming back. >> rachel, thanks for having me and congratulations on the release of your book tomorrow, blowout. i know how hard it is to write books. congratulations. >> thank you. it has basically killed me. i am basically dead. >> doesn't seem that way to me. >> if you get a chance to read the russia chapters of it, i would love to hear it. >> of course i will. >> the latest developments here in terms of this breaking news tonight about what attorney general william barr traveling

the world trying to get foreign governments to help him in an investigation that the white house hopes will undo the u.s. attrition that russia attacked our election, that's just one of the developments that's being reported in this fast-amusing story. what's your take on that one in particular? >> just outrageous. i just can't believe it. i have to tell you honestly, i think that we get to the end of the craziness and then there's a new revelation. attorney general barr of all people should know better about doing this. it does underscore to me what happens when people get close to president trump and how he pulls them into his way of doing things, his way of conducting foreign policy if we can even call it that. it really saddens me as an american. this is not in america's national interest. this damages our reputation around the world. >> in terms of the way russia has suffered with u.s. and u.s.-led sanctions, obviously they were sanctioned

aggressively in austin-led effort after they invaded ukraine. they were sanctioned additional because of their 2016 election interference. there have been other actions by russia including the attempted assassination on british soil for which there were both u.s. and international sanctions. how tough have these sanctions been on the russian economy and on putin and how much of a priority is it for them to get these sanctions lifted? >> you know, we academics debate thousand measure the percentage of how much damage it's done to the economy. some say 1%, others go up to 2%. it's compounded, so that's one part of the argument. the second are the actually people on the sanctions list. it hitters they want and some of them are very close to putin. one of them that we discussed before, for instance, deripaska spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get off the sanctions

list and investigated in kentucky. but you think the most impressive evidence for how important it is to get the sanctions lifted is how much time and attention vladimir putin has put to the issue. as you very rightly described in your opening remarks today, it is a central talking point that he does all the time, and they've always thought that some day, some way, president trump would finally deliver on what he promised during the campaign in 2016. >> in terms of how barr is approaching this, this new news, not very much surprises me anymore. i was legitimately surprised to see this report in "the washington post" that the reason that william barr was meteorologist in italy this past week is because he's been personally working the italian government try to get them to cooperate in this investigation, that they're hoping will undo the attribution of them

attacking our election. he asked president trump to make this call to the leader of australia to ask for australian cooperation in this probe as well. obviously when there are law enforcement investigations with an international cast, it's not unheard of to have international cooperation and to have it asked for by the u.s. government. but this with the attorney general personally showing up in foreign countries asking for help on this incredibly politicized thing, as a former ambassador, how unusual is that? how will foreign countries react to that? >> well, i think i made a great point. it's not unusual for us to cooperate with the italians or the australians about an intelligence matter or national security matter. but we're usually doing it to deal with countries like russia, with vladimir putin. we're not usually negotiating our own intelligence agencies. that's what is so extraordinary and sad to me about this reporting. and it just underscores how obsessed president trump is with

trying to unravel the facts that are overwhelming from 2016. in the call with zelensky, as you rightly noted as well, he brings up cloud strike, because he's trying again to undermine the evidence that we have about what the russians did in intervening in our 2016 elections. >> michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia. appreciate you being here. >> thanks for having me. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. ith us but i'm a e so i don't have hands... or a camera...or a website. should we franchise? is the market ready for that? can we franchise? how do you do that? meg! oh meg! we should do that thing where you put the business cards in the fishbowl and somebody wins something. -meg: hi. i'm here for... i'm here for the evans' wedding. -we've got the cake in the back, so, yeah. -meg: thank you. -progressive knows small business makes big demands. -you're not gonna make it, you're not gonna make it! ask her if we can do her next wedding too! -so we'll design the insurance solution that fits your business. -on second thought, don't...ask that. that fits your business. if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,

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i know i seem flustered tonight. i am flustered. as i have been freaking out about for the last several weeks. my new book comes out tomorrow just over a couple hours from now. the title is "blowout." the subtitle is corrupted did he do rogue state russia and the most destructive industry on earth. this book has been killing me for more than a year. it's blood pressure my pet projects for many months. and it turns out much to my surprise, i guess, timing wise that all of this stuff i have researching about, all of that is hot in the news right now because that's the kernel of the trump impeachment, it turns out. i didn't know it was going to time out this way, but it has. the book comes out midnight

tonight. i start the book tour later this week. you can find out more at msnbc.com/blowout. if you want to see me talk about the book, if you want to see me in person, on my crutches on a stage somewhere, i think at this point there's only one stop on the book tour that is not sold out, and that is the one stop in atlanta. so i think that there are still tickets available in atlanta even though every place else in the country is sold out i'm sorry about that, but happy for atlanta. if you want to see me there, tickets still available there. while i am getting ready for this launch, though, getting ready to spend a couple weeks out in the world talking about ukraine and corruption and u.s. politics and russia and where this impeachment scandal came from in the first place, there is also tonight some new news about the president's envoy to ukraine, the envoy who just suddenly quit the day after the whistle-blower complaint came out. he quit just hours after he

found out he was about to be deposed in this investigation. we found out that deposition is going ahead. there's important stuff you should know about that, and that's next. stay with us. d that's next. stay with us there's my career... my cause... and creating my dream home. i'm a work in progress. so much goes into who i am. hiv medicine is one part of it. prescription dovato is for adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment and who aren't resistant to either of the medicines dolutegravir or lamivudine. dovato has 2 medicines in 1 pill to help you reach and then stay undetectable. so your hiv can be controlled with fewer medicines while taking dovato. you can take dovato anytime of day with food or without. don't take dovato if you're allergic to any of its ingredients or if you take dofetilide. if you have hepatitis b, it can change during treatment with dovato and become harder to treat. your hepatitis b may get worse or become life-threatening if you stop taking dovato. so do not stop dovato without talking to your doctor. serious side effects can occur, including allergic reactions, liver problems, and liver failure.

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before anybody knew about president trump pressuring ukraine to dig up dirt on his political rivals for 2020 a good month before that story broke open, two journalists in ukraine sat down with the u.s. special counsel envoy to that country. they sat down with kurt volker in august and & asked him about rudy giuliani and why it was that rudy giuliani was being spotted in ukraine so much and what exactly he was doing there. >> he is not representing the u.s. government. he is a private citizen. i just think that we need to get anything that people have any concerns about anywhere off the table because the u.s./ukraine vip too important. >> just the final question to

this topic, mr. ambassador. if hypothetically this investigation is done in ukraine about meddling in the u.s. elections in 2016, would it be conceded again as a meddling in the u.s. elections at least by the democratic party? >> i think it's important we make sure there is no interference or no effect on u.s. elections. anything that is, you know, investigated or anything would have happened in the past should be treated as a matter of looking at what happened, not trying to through anything happening today. >> nothing trying to influence anything happening today. at the time that have interview, kurt volker was the u.s. special envoy to ukraine. now he is the former special envoy because last friday he abruptly resigned after he was named in the whistle-blower complaint that has given rise to this impeachment investigation. and really, even with the seemingly nonstop flow of breaking news about this whole impeachment scandal, there is a ton we don't know. it is unclear whether u.s. special counsel envoy kurt

volker may have been part of this scheme to frsh ukrainian gotham. he shadow meeting the government after president trump pressured them in a phone call to hand over dirt on biden as a condition of getting military aid. was volker part of this scheme by president trump? or was he not part of this scheme but rather an important witness to it who might be able to shed light on what was done wrong? we may be about to get some answers. the house of representatives as part of the their inquiry has announced they'll be deposing five key state department officials named or referenced in the whistle-blower complaint. mr. volker tonight says he will show up for that house deposition on thursday which raises questions in terms of the prospect of unraffling some of the mystery and surround this situation. congress has to start somewhere. they are starting with the state department depositions this week. they appear to be planning to move fast.

joining us now is congressman thomsa kirsc kirs raja krishnamoorthi who serves on the oversight committee i appreciate you being here. >> thanks, rachel. and congrats on you are book. >> thank you very much. i'm very embarrassed. let me ask you about your committee and its plans and the speed at which this is proceeding. as far as i can tell, we have the slate of five depositions coming up, five state department officials who would have had knowledge of trump's engagements with ukraine. those are scheduled to begin this week. ing do you think you'll get all those people to come in? >> i hope most of them come in. it's important mr. volker comes in. he is mentioned in the complaint several times by the whistle-blower, and he has some interesting potential conflicts of interest that name shed light on whether he actually helped to pressure the ukrainian president to actually do what president

trump wanted him to do. in any case, he's an important witness to some of the event that unfolded in ukraine at that time. >> having him resign basically very shortly after you announced, raised questions as to the timing of his resignation. does that have an effect on the white house's wanting to block it? we've seen them say no to subpoenas. will they try to block the depositions? >> yes, if they are not currently employees of the administration, so to speak, in his case he was never an employee. he was kind of some kind of unpaid volunteer adviser in any case. if they are no longer employees of the administration, they have

a little more freedom to testify. that being said, i wouldn't put it past this white house to assert all kinds of privileges with regard to information that these folks may or may not possess. certainly we've seen that in the case of don mcgahn in our demands for him to come before congress to testify on any number of issues. >> obviously there's going to be a huge amount of public interest in what kurt volker might have to say. the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, who was recalled early from her post in suspicious circumstances seemed suspicious at the time, particularly suspicious now in retrospect, now that we know what was going on at that time. do you expect the public will ever know what happens in these proceedings? will they be taped or transcribed? is this committee council taking it, are we going to see any of this stuff? >> sure. with regard to former ambassador

i don't v , she's going to have a lot to say about what occurred with regard to the allegations in the complaint. i think that we should have maximum transparency with regard to the proceedings. that being said, if classified information is shared or something that can't be displayed in open setting, it makes sense to have them in closed setting and perhaps later on chairman schiff will decide whether to publish the transcripts as he has in other situations. in any case, we're trying to get exactly what's what and make sure we get to the bottom of the complaint asap. >> with the exception of classified information which goes without saying, people like me and a lot of people in the public will be banging down the door trying to get the transcripts of these depositions, if not the tapes. congress raja krishnamoorthi, democratic member of the house intelligence committee, thank you for being here tonight. >> thank you, rachel. >> we'll be right back, stay with us. th us. panera's new baja warm grain bowl is full of good.

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they were first republican members of congress to endorse him. chris collins and duncan hunter came out in support of donald trump for president on the same day on february 24th, 2016, they were first. even so, they were not exactly profiles in courage. they signed on for trump only after trump had already won three of the first four primaries and caucuses. still, though, they were the first members of congress. being first makes you stand out.

so does being indicted. chris collins and duncan hunter, the first members of congress to proclaim themselves tump supporters were both criminally indicted in august 2018 in two unrelated felony schemes. duncan hunter was charged for alleged using more than a quart million dollars of campaign funds on personal expenses. his trial starts next year. congressman collins was died for alleged insider trading. he used his position as an early investor in an australian biotech firm to tip off his son and other family members about a failed drug trial in order to help them avoid over $750,000. he tipped his family members from the white house grounds while he was attending a white house picnic. you can actually see the video of him there on the white house

grounds making phone calls. prosecutors say that at that moment he was basically saying son, you need to sell. you need to sell. those indictments landed in the middle of the run-up to the congressional midterm elections. and president trump took that coincidence of events to opine about exactly how he believes the rule of law should be employed and enforced as long as he's in power. he publicly attacked attorney general jeff sessions for those two members of congress being indicted saying it would hurt republican chances of holding control of the house of representatives. the president said, quote, two long running obama era investigations of two very popular republican congressman were brought to a well public sized charge by the jeff sessions justice department. two easy wins now in doubt because there's not enough time. good job, jeff. rule of law, rule of law! as it happens, congress collins

and congressman hunter each plead not guilty at the time remarkable after pleading not guilty, both collins and hunter did win re-election in their deep red districts in 2018. that's where we left this story until today. ahead of an expected change of plea to guilty in federal court tomorrow. congressman chris collins resigned from congress today. the congressman part of this story is over. but we do still have donald trump, the real donald trump on the record with one of his most brazen attacks on the rule of law, attacking the indictment of those two republican members of congress, one of whom has now resigned is reportedly about to plead guilty. it's not the first time donald trump revealed how he feels about how the law should be applied while he's president and for what purpose. it was one of the bluntest and most shocking and it will come

to an end tomorrow when congressman collins walks into court and pleads guilty. that's going to do it for us tonight. again, thanks to everybody for being so nice about my new book which comes out in a couple hours. it's caught "blowout." i'll be book touring starting later this week. there is one location on the book tour for which tickets are still available and that's atlanta. if you're within reaching distance of laptop, hope to see you there i'll talk more about what's in the book over the course of this week. i'm so freaking exhausted and postadrenalined about putting it out there in the world. i don't think i can speak about it yet. see you again tomorrow. time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> tickets are available for friday night on this show when you're talking about your book. i got my amazon notice today