thank you so much for joining us here at the table. chuck will be back tomorrow with more meet the press daily and you can catch me tomorrow and every single weekday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. t "the beat" with ari melber, oh, no, ayman is in for ari. we can't have an awkward toss. >> that's something just for you guys. >> thank you very much. a.m. ayman mohyeldin. we start with donald trump's impeachment kries. a stampede of gathering facts gathered by the day, and a legal defense that appears increasingly erratic. trump was pressed on his stonewawing of congress and his refusal to comply with the subpoenas. he suggested the fight could go all the way to the supreme court. >> the whole thing is a scam. it's a fix. and we wrote a letter yesterday, and probably ends up being a big

supreme court case. >> all right, so at this point, trump's strategy, it's pretty clear. obstruct, deflect, confuse. if all else fails, hope the supreme court, to of which he appointed two justices, come and save him, even as new facts emerge today. the full memo from the first whistleblower released with new details about the call and "the new york times" pointing out with details about what went down inside the state department as frustrations grew over trump blocking military aid for ukraine. now, against that drumbeat, trump supporters are pushing increasingly bizarre narratives. one trump ally and former adviser appeared on a fox news panel with rudy giuliani where he referred to democrats' probe as a regicide, which you didn't know, is actually the murder of a king. >> what you're seeing is regicide. this is regicide by another

name, fake impeachment. i refuse to call them whistleblowers. these two nonentities are suicide bombers that the democrats have unleashed. >> you heard that. regicide. that's the language now coming from trump's camp. a remarkable contrast from how conservatives used to talk about impeachment. today, a moment resurfacing from the congressman mike pence speaking in 2008 about what the standard should be for impeaching a president. >> this business of high crimes and misdemeanors goes to the question of whether or not the person serving as president of the united states put their own interests, their personal interests, ahead of public service. >> that's the vice president, mike pence, when he was a congressman back in the day. matt miller, chief doj spokesman during the obama administration

is with us. jason johnson, politics editor for the root.com, and the daily beast, betsy woodruff swan is with us as well. matt, let me begin with you. what do you make of the president subtly invoking the supreme court and that this battle is likely to end up there? >> i think they would love for it to end up in the supreme court because that means we wouldn't have a decision on whether the documents they're obstructing congress from obtaining had to be turned over until some time next year, maybe even past the 2020 election. that's been their strategy all along, not just with this investigation, but with the previous investigations the house launched. deny the house everything they're entitled to, make them go to court, and drag it out because there's a lengthy appeals process. i think, though, this is different in that the house obviously would like to get the documents that they have subpoenaed, but they would like to get witness testimony, but they're not going to wait for the administration to turn it over and they're not going to wait for the end of court battles. they already had a whistleblower who came forward and supplied

them with a lot of information. they have one witness, kurt volker, who was willing to quit rather than stay inside the administration and be prohibited from testifying. i suspect what they'll do is push forward given that they have enough evidence that the president pressured the ukrainian government. and they have evidence of a quid pro quo. there are things they would like to get their hands on, for example, more evidence about the withholding of funds from ukraine, but i don't think they're going to wait for the courts. they're going to go forward because they have enough evidence and they'll get more as more witnesses come forward despite the white house trying to block them. >> the white house refusing to cooperate with these demands, realistically, besides going the path of the courts, as matt was just spelling out, what options do the democrats have beyond subpoenas here, if anything? >> well, their option is to just have a vote. right? they don't require this information. and i'll be honest, we can take the headline, white house stymies congress, white house refuses to hand over information, we could run that

same headline every three months in this administration began. so i don't think for once the democrats are not shocked and amazed that the white house is lying or not providing information. they can have this vote whenever they want. here's the other key part about this. every piece of information that they have asked for, that this administration refuses to come forward with can be part of a complaint about obstruction of justice into an investigation of inappropriate behavior the president has already admitted to. that's their option, to take everything that donald trump is doing now and make that a part of their case in a stronger case that for once, according to the polls, not only are people in favor of the impeachment inquiry, but we have now moved to a point where americans are actually recent polls show, americans are in favor of donald trump being removed from office in a vote. that's something that works in the democrats' favor. >> interesting in all of this, today, you have trey gowdy now going to serve as outside counsel for the trump team, and it's amazing because if you go back to 2012, here he is actually denouncing democrats for not cooperating with

congressional oversight. watch this clip. >> the notion that you could withhold information and documents from congress no matter whether you're the party in power or not in power is wrong. respect for the rule of law must mean something, irrespective of the vicissitudes of political cycles. >> so that man you just saw on the screen there who made that huge appeal about nobody should withhold information from congress' power to have oversight is going to defend and justify the president withholding information from congress. are those words going to come back and haunt trey gowdy? >> no question. and these political cycles have certainly gone through a heck of a vicissitude, as gowdy might put it. the fact that republicans spent eight years of the obama administration laying out in the most robust and detailed way

possible arguments that the executive branch has to comply with subpoenas and oversight requests from the legislative branch is something that's going to create challenges for all of them. that said, the white house's legal strategy faces a really complex difficulty because there's tension within the white house regarding how white house counsel pat cipollone is approaching this particular issue. cipollone is treating it perhaps more as a legal fight than a political fight. it seems like in the white house counsel's office, people to an extent are still in mueller mode, thinking in terms of winning court fights rather than thinking of this as primarily a political undertaking. we know that impeachment at its core is a political tool, and for the most part, the president's outside allies view the biggest threat to him as impacting who might vote, but cipollone is approaching it more from the legal side, and that's generated a little bit of friction. >> the interesting thing is you have the gop inviting giuliani

to testify. lindsey graham wants him to come to the hill to talk about ukraine corruption. watch his latest appearance on fox news. >> hired witnesses to face the witch, and some witches were acquitted. it's ridiculous. the only place i can think of where we had trials like this is in the soviet union. remember the president used to call this a witch hunt? this is now worse than a witch hunt. >> the witches had it better, in other words. >> they had more rights. >> the witches had it better. what do you make of that? what's the risk for the gop to kind of have this narrative floating out there between the regicide, the president is not a king, yet his defenders making him reference to be a king. others calling this a coup. now you have mayor giuliani or former mayor rudy giuliani talking about witches. >> for the duration of his time serving as president's personal

outside counsel, giuliani over and over and over has said things publicly that have undermined the legal arguments he's trying to make in defense of the president. who can forget the moment when he made the bombshell admission about the president paying off porn star stormy daniels in the final weeks of the presidential campaign on sean hannity's fox news show? giuliani creates the most problems for his client when he's in a setting that he feels to be friendly. and no one on capitol hill is going to make giuliani feel more relaxed than lindsey graham. the republican chairman of the senate judiciary committee who is incredibly close with trump, who hangs out and golfs with him all the time. giuliani sitting down in graham's committee room is perhaps the most perilous moment of the impeachment process for trump. >> matt, today, the california congressman ro khanna telling hallie jackson, the democrats need to move forward with a vote. listen to this. >> here's the reality.

we can't count on the white house, we can't count on the court. they want to delay this. we need to move forward. we need to look at what evidence we have, make the best effort, make the case, and have a vote on the articles of impeachment. >> what's the play here, you think, matt? should they go ahead and actually hold a vote, have a vote on impeachment, knowing that the white house is going to stall this, and as you were saying, this could delay into 2020. go ahead and have the vote, get the process started? >> i they think they do. i don't think they need to do it next week or the next few weeks but they shouldn't wait for the white house to comply. they shouldn't wait for the end of the court battles. there's more investigating they can do. they haven't talked to the first whistleblower yet. there's a second whistleblower they need to talk to, and there is a reason for them to keep sending subpoenas to the white house, keep sending subpoenas to individuals at the state department. even if you know the white house isn't going to comply, what it does is puts pressure on the system. when there's pressure on the system, w.h.o. types of people can come forward. one are people inside the government who think there was wrongdoing and they want to blow the whistle on the wrongdoing

and they want to come forward and testify even if it means risking their career. the second are people who are close to the president who have some culpability. if they see this is going wrong, if they see that the president might go down over it or if they see they may become a fall guy, their interests change. they don't want to protect the president, they don't want to protect the secretary anymore, so they come forward the way kurt volker did and testify and turn over text messages and evidence. i think there is still time for them to push forward, to gather more evidence. they don't need to go to the impeachment vote now, in the next few weeks, but it can't stretch longer than next year. >> matt miller, betsy woodruff. jason johnson, stick around with us. >> coming up, fresh revelations from the ukraine whistleblower. new information not contained in the official white house read-out. plus, global outrage of trump's betrayal of u.s. allies overseas and whether it's related to trump's business abroad. >> and a surge in support for impeachment, and critics slam

facebook for spreading a false trump ad about joe biden and ukraine. i'm ayman mohyeldin in for ari melber. you're watching "the beat" on msnbc. is she alright? i hope so. so i talked to my doctor about humira. i learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. be there for you, and them. ask your gastroenterologist about humira.

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cbs news obtained the memo and reports that it was written right after the whistleblower's conversation with a white house official. now, that official was, quote, visibly shaken by trump's y ukraine call because the president, quote, had clearly committed a criminal act. remember this, when the white house released its call read-out, trump claimed it actually told the whole story. >> they didn't know that i had a transcript done by very, very talented people. word for word. comma for comma. done by people that do it for a living. we had an exact transcript. >> word for word, comma for comma. exact transcript. you heard the president say it there. that was not what the white house released, in fact, but there were a lot of questions about the official read-out. in fact, "the washington post" pointing out the use of ellipsis, writing it fueled questions about what may have been removed and why. now, we have the whistleblower memo, and look at these

disparities. it's been pentagon lawyer, ryan goodman. the whistleblower's memo says that trump claimed the crowd strike, you remember that company? he says that was a ukrainian company. the white house call notes just say, crowd strike, dot, dot, dot. the whistleblower also wrote that trump urged the ukrainian president not to fire the prosecutor but the white house call notes don't say that at all. in fact, they just say, quote, he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it, again, dot, dot, dot. so the big question tonight is this. it's all being raised by this memo. did the white house remove material before the public could see it, and more importantly, if so, why? joining me now is andrea kendall taypler who served as a u.s. intelligence officer on russia and eurasia before estepping down in 2018. she's one of 90 national security veterans who signed an open letter in support of the whistleblower. also with me here is former

federal prosecutor paul butler. great to have both of you with us. andrea, let me begin with you. let's talk about what we learned tonight from the memo that cbs news has obtained. we highilated some of the disparities. what did we learn from this tonight? >> the biggest takeaway for me is that in fact there's very little daylight between all of the documents that we now have out in public. there's really little difference between the memo that was just released, the whistleblower's original accusation against the president, and the transcript itself. so i think it makes a fairly solid case about the facts that we have in front of us. and it will make it really difficult, i think, to question what actually happened. we have a case here clearly of the president using his political office for his own political gain. >> paul, as a former federal prosecutor, when you see the disparity between the whistleblower's memo and the so-called summary or memo that was released by the white house

of that phone call, one that the white house initially when it put out, acknowledged is not a verbatim transcript, despite what the president said, what do you think of the disparities between the two documents and the kind of legal problems it creates for the president in. >> so the disparities are relatively minor, but the differences seem to be that the white house readout, the summary, makes the president look a little bit better than the actual -- than what we actually know about the conversation from the whistleblower. one example is that the president's claim that crowdstrike is a ukrainian company, it's not a ukrainian company. the reason that's important is because there's this whole bizarre conspiracy theory that trump has that somehow the ukrainians were involved in implementing or instigating the russian investigation. and so again, more evidence that that was trump's motive in talking to the ukrainian

president, to get him to authorize an investigation into not just the bidens but the origin of the 2016 russian investigation. and the other part has to do with this prosecutor. so in the white house readout of that conversation, they don't say the name of the prosecutor who trump said should not be fired. it turns out that the prosecutor trump was referring to was this corrupt prosecutor who people in the ukraine don't like. they want him out of office because they don't trust him. and he's the one who trump said don't fire. so it seems, again, an effort to make the president kind of look good, even though overall, both readouts are extremely incriminating. >> so one of the points that's interesting about this memo is that trump, the memo says that trump, quote, did not raise security assistance. did he need to state it or was that part understood by then?

when you think of a president about to have a phone call with a president of another country, there's a lot of prep work that goes into it, a lot of low-level communication that the groundwork and the subtle messaging is already put in place for the president to just not specifically have to reference security assistance. >> i think that's right. when you look back at the transcript, the original transcript that was released by the white house, the president had gone on at length about all that the united states does for ukraine. he reminded zelensky over and over again and made his case about all that the united states did. and so it was understood that part of what he was talking about was the security assistance that ukraine or that the united states gives to ukraine. and i think also what was clear from that is that fact that he felt that the united states wasn't receiving reciprocity, i think was the word he may have even used. that what we were giving to ukraine was not being reciprocated. so exactly to your point, it was

pretty well understood what was on the table. >> paul, let me go back to the issue of the prosecutor, because you raised an interesting point in why the way it is characterized in the memo and the way it was characterized in the transcript or the summary of the transcript that was released by the white house really changes the narrative. on one hand, the prosecutor is seen as fighting corruption. or the president is fighting krupg by telling them don't fire that prosecutor. but at the same time, by keeping that prosecutor there, he was the person that everybody universally agreed was not doing a good job in fighting corruption. >> yes, and this is the prosecutor who trump hopes will investigate his political rivals. again, we all know that it's illegal. it's a criminal act for the president to seek campaign contribution, including opo research from a foreign national. again, we have a transcript that details the president committing this crime, but here's the thing, ayman. there were a lot of people on

this call, not just the president and the ukrainian leader, but many other folks, including the secretary of state, mike pompeo. so they know exactly what was said. and what are they doing? they're stonewalling. they're not going -- they're refusing to come to congress and let the american people know exactly what happened. so apparently, they're afraid that when the contents of this call are revealed in detail, the president will be in even more trouble than he is right now. >> yeah, lots of unanswered questions remain about what went down on that phone call. andrea kendall taylor, paul butler, thank you both very much. >> turning now to republicans slamming donald trump for letting turkey attack american allies, as new reporting emerges about trump's business conflicts in turkey. we're back in 30 seconds. turday. pain happens. aleve it. aleve is proven better on pain than tylenol.

when pain happens, aleve it. all day strong. tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management. all right, so the question tonight is, why is donald trump letting it happen? today, the turkish military raunched attacks on the kurdish forces that fight alongside the u.s. against isis. it's happening in the wake of trump's promise to pull out american troops from there. there are already reports of civilian deaths and kurdish commanders are warning of a potential humanitarian crisis. members of trump's own party are accusing him of abandoning a key ally. >> this impulsive decision by chaos.sident has undone all the

>> once again, the united states will have abandoned an ally. >> and even trump's military advisers disagree with the move. in fact, trump says he's fulfilling a campaign promise to get out of the middle east, but there's another dimension at play in all of this. trump has business interests in turkey. that's something he clearly admits. >> i have a little conflict of interest because i have a major, major building in istanbul. and it's a tremendously successful job. it's called trump towers. two towers. instead of one, not the usual one. it's two. >> all right, so the turkish president attended the opening of the towers back in 2012, with ivanka trump publicly thanking him. a top ranking obama diplomat, wendy sherman, observing, quote, it always is a concern that those business ties at the very least color his judgment and at the very worst are the reasons for his judgment. joining me now is rick stengel, a former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and an msnbc political

analyst. his new book is information wars, how we lost the global battle against disinformation. and heidi przybyla, her new article is titled donald trump's longtime business connections in turkey back in the spotlight. richard, let me begin with you. what do you make of the reason that president trump decided to pull out under this campaign promise that he's pulling out of the middle east, when in reality, our contribution or our footprint in syria was the smallest out of all the footprints we have in the region, and hardly a significant one from a footprint point, bought significant one from a tactical security point. >> ayman, i wish we didn't have to have any american service men or women in harm's way around the world, but we do. and the reason we had not a small force in syria, thousands or so, was to combat isis. that started back in 2014, 2015. our greatest ally there, who lost thousands and thousands of lives, were the kurds. and they fought beside us,

rather we fought beside them. and so what trump is doing is betraying these allies who fought and died with americans for a good cause. and he seems to have done it, you know, mainly because erdogan asked him to on a phone call. but it's absolutely shameful. and the whole, you know, kind of establishment realizes that. again, it would be great to have them at home, but let's do ittane more rational way. >> heidi, you have some amazing reporting in this article. tell us a little bit about it. >> so this is really the first time that we have seen the president make a major national security decision, putting lives at risk, in a place where he himself has acknowledged that he has a conflict of interest. there are several ways in which this is true. the most visible one are those trump towers where he got $10 million payday for that, while the royalties for that have decreased over time, ayman, because he's now president, he

receives less money for that, there are many other ways in which he's invested in turkey. we found as part of a lawsuit that is an active lawsuit right now, that turkey has the highest number of foreign ventures in which the trump family is at least a partial owner, at 119. nbc news has also found exclusively, according to a report that was put together for us by an outside group, that the turkish officials are the top patrons at trump properties worldwide. now, let me stress that no one is saying that this is why the president made the decision that he made. but what we are saying is nobody understands why he made the decision, and he has these business interests. this is the first time we're really in this position of having to ask some of these tough questions, because the fact is that there's a pattern here, specifically with erdogan. rich can tell you more about this, but trump also deferred to erdogan on two major issues,

going against nato. the first one was his purchase, erdogan's purchase of a russian missile system. that, a lot of members of congress, think should have triggered sanctions. and trump has essentially held those off. trump also notably praised erdogan after his crackdown, after a failed military coup in 2016, effectively taking over a number of independent news media outlets. imprisoning a journalist, and trump, again, kind of soft pedaled that and even praised erdogan. erdogan has also used the towers for leverage already, amen. back in 2016, when trump tried to ban certain individuals from certain muslim nations, turkey threatened to take his name off the towers. than when we saw michael flynn, his then national security adviser, pen this op-ed favorable to erdogan, and it calmed down and quieted the calls for taking trump's name off the towers that he is so proud of. >> yeah, it's definitely a

complex web, as heidi was painting, but there's an interesting point. the question about alliances now comes into play. i want you to take a listen to what the president said about alliances earlier. watch this. >> by allowing this offensive, is it going to be more difficult in future times of deed to develop alliances? >> no, it won't be. it won't be at all. alliances are very easy, but our alliances have taken advantage of us. >> you know something about alliances and coalition. you had to build a kind of global coalition to combat extremism, and the messaging of extremism. what do you think -- what do you make of that, when you just abandon your allies on the battlefield, what it's like to try to build an alliance and coalition going forward? >> very difficult. i want to point out that the reporting that heidi was talking about is really superb. and one of the things we have seen historically is wherever trump has an investment, he's enthralled to that country or

that leader. that's one reason presidents should put their assets in blind trusts. but to get back to your question about alliances, as jim mattis said when he was leaving, alliances make a nation stronger. we're stronger because of the aliechbss we have, and the alliances we have are partially because people trust us. they trust our word. they trust what we tell them that we're going to do, and we do it. we formed a 61-plus nation alliance to combat isis. secretary kerry went around the world, president obama did as well. that was a proud moment, and this is an unraveling of it in one fell swoop. >> i can only imagine what our friends in the region are thinking about recalculating, as tom friedman said earlier today, about our steadfast support for these countries. finally, let's talk a little bit about your book, if i can. i want to get your thoughts about misinformation, how misinformation is at the center of what we're seeing, because even in a conflict like turkey, you look at social media. there's a big pro-turkish presence online that is pushing the turkish narrative, but

disinformation has now become at the heart of what we're seeing around the world in so many ways. >> absolutely, as you well know. in the region, one of the things the turks are seeing and other people are seeing is the success of russian disinformation in the 2016 election. from which they have had no penalty. in fact, you know, the president of the united states welcomed it. and they haven't been punished. so other people are getting into the act, and they realize this is asymmetric warfare. you can't afford an f-35. you can afford a bunch of people tweeting and pretending to be other people, which is what russians are doing and now the iranians are doing, the turks are doing too. it's really scary for 2020. >> heidi, has the white house or the trump campaign at all responded to your incredible reporting there when you put it to them? >> no, and we have reached out to the trump organization's lawyer as well, and we have gotten no comment. >> something tells me i should not be surprised by that silence. richard stengel, heidi przybyla, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> still ahead, just coming in

to us, mike pence pressed on what he knew about trump's search for dirt on biden in ukraine. his response is striking, and believe it or not, it's all caught on camera. >> plus, democrats warning that facebook is letting trump spread disinformation again, the same way it let russian trolls cause chaos back in 2016. as a financial advisor you have to listen. you listen to your client's goal of sending her daughter to the music school of her dreams. and you help her turn it into reality. principal. we can help you plan for that.

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all right, tonight, democrats are attacking facebook and other tech giants for enabling trump and giving him a that fact checkers say is filled with falsehoods. it's been viewed over 5 million times and repeats the same kind of conspiracy theories be peddled by rudy giuliani, but a to facebook executive said

basically politicians can lie as much as they want. >> we do not submit speech by politicians to our independent fact checkers, and we generally allow it on the platform even when it would otherwise breach our normal content rules. >> critics say facebook is repeating the same kinds of mistakes it made back in 2016 when it allowed russian agents to spread lies on social media in order to elect president trump and hurt hillary clinton. in fact, just yesterday, the senate intelligence committee revealed what those secret agents did on election night. quoting a russian who said we uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne, took one gulp each and looked into each other's eyes. we uttered almost in unison, we made america great. joining me now is roger mcnamee, who was an early mentor for mark zuckerberg but is now a critic. his recent book is zuked, waiting up to the facebook catastrophe. good to have you with us.

lots to talk about. let me get your thoughts on what should facebook be doing about false ads like this trump campaign, this trump ukraine campaign ad that we just referenced? >> so ayman, what happens here is a few weeks ago, a journalist, judd legham, went to facebook and pushed them because there were ads on the platform that had demonstrably false statements in them. and he pointed out that facebook's terms of service said that you could not have misrepresentations in any kind of ad, including political ads. and facebook's response was not to remove the offending ads but to change the policy. and that, it seems to me, is a fundamental issue. facebook owes the country its best effort to protect elections. after 2016, the company clearly has a massive responsibility here. and in my mind, they're not just falling short. they're actually going in the wrong direction, that they're doing things that are guaranteed

to produce bad outcomes and be bad for democracy. not just on foreign interference, but obviously, on domestic as well, and not just for democrats. this is for everybody. to my mind, that's just horrible for democracy. >> but roger, to that point, realistically, and just to play devil's advocate, is it realistic to expect companies to fact check and then police the lies that politicians -- politicians come on the air all the time and lie. you had corey lewandowski stand in congress and say i have no obligation to tell the truth to the media, when he appeared on this show and other shows. why should we expect a company to actually police the content of advertisements that politicians are making? >> to be clear, ayman, i think there's a distinction between advertising and normal political speech that is worth looking at here. for the longest time, television networks took the position that you could not say something that was obviously false in an ad.

and they did police that. and cnn, in fact, rejected the very ad we're talking about, and other networks, including some we both like very much, maybe didn't do so. and i think this is a really important question for democracy. what kind of a country do we want to live in? what kind of standards do we think companies should be held to? because i think when companies know that something is false, their situation is really different than when they don't. >> let meet get your thoughts on elizabeth warren. facebook facebook already helped elect donald trump once because they were asleep at the wheel while russia attacked their democracy. sheulse said facebook is taking deliberate steps to help one candidate intentionally mislead the american people. there's obviously no love lost between her and facebook in terms of even policies about how big that company should be. what is your response to her claim about facebook in all of this? >> i think facebook needs to be incredibly careful. they have done studies in the past which they have published that suggest that by putting

things like little tags that say i voted or i registered to vote, if facebook can have a measurable impact on turnout and on the number of people who vote in an election. and as a consequence, i think there should be legitimate concern that no internet platform, gnaw facebook, not google, not instagram, not youtube, play any role at all that shifts the scales in this election for any candidate. i think senator warren is completely correct to raise this issue. and candidly, i don't understand why every candidate is not on this, ayman, because it's not just about voting itself. there are also issues like climate change and gun violence and white supremacy, where essentially the internet platform are the tool that give disproportionate political power to the deniers of climate change, to the people who are in favor of anti-vax, and to people who are in favor of white supremacy, and in my mind, there's a level of responsibility to society that these companies have not stepped up to. it's really too bad because

these guys are friends of mine, and they're not bad people, but they're not looking at the problem the way i wish they would. >> roger, i appreciate your insights. thank you for joining us. >> coming up, the new video of mike pence pressed multiple times on what he knew about trump's search for dirt on biden. you'll be surprised by his response. so i got this. yep, this too. even long hair and pet hair are no problem. but the one thing i won't have to clean is this. because the shark self-cleaning brush roll removes the hair wrap while i clean. - [narrator] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans, now cleans itself. now available in our new uplight model. pain happens. saturdays happen. aleve it. aleve is proven better on pain than tylenol. when pain happens, aleve it. all day strong.

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all right, breaking news at the moment. new video from vice president mike pence, repeatedly questioned if he knew the reason donald trump held up aid to

ukraine was to pressure them for dirt on the bidens. and over and over again, the vice president wouldn't answer. watch this in its entirety. >> were you aware, mr. vice president, an interest in the bidens, the interest in investigating the bidens, at least part of the reason for aid to ukraine being withheld? >> i never discussed the issue of the issue of the bidens with president zelensky. >> were you ever aware? >> what i can tell you is that all of our discussions internally, the president and our team, and our context, in my office with ukraine, were entirely focused on the broader issues of the lack of european support and corruption. >> were you interested in the bidens being investigated? is that tied to aid to ukraine being held up? >> that's your question, let me be very clear. the issue of aid and our efforts

with regard to ukraine were from my experience in no way connected to the very legitimate concern the american people have about corruption that took place, about things that happened in the 2016 election in ukraine, or about -- >> all right, joining me now is "new york times" political correspondent nicholas confessore, and jason johnson. nick, let me begin with your reaction to that video because the significance of it is simply he hears the question. it is asked multiple times of him. it's a very specific and pointed question. did you know about aid being held up in order to investigate the bidens? the fact that he doesn't answer that yes or no, it's very simple. he does not answer that. what does it tell you? >> the vice president is a seasoned and practiced politician. what you saw there was him drawing a line between what he saw and heard and what he did.

and i think i also -- i was hearing him talk about corruption. and what we know is the administration had established as a code word, corruption, let's talk about the bidens without talking about the bidens. it's not clear to me exactly what he denied there. >> do you know, i'm sure having covered politics, this is a question he's going to be asked about again tomorrow, throughout the day. can he continue to dodge this question or do you think the vice president's office is trying to now figure out what is the best way to come out and answer this going forward? >> it's always possible. you know, it's entirely unclear if documents from the veep's office will end up in the hands of investigators, but there are lots of people who work in the white house, work for the vice president, who advise him on national security, and there's going to be a paper trail and people who understand what he knew and when he knew it. if that account is inaccurate, we'll eventually find out. >> jason, when you look at the president's men who are being

embroiled in this, from those who serve overseas to those in the white house, is mike pence trying to create distance from the scandal with the way he answered the question? >> i believe so, but it's not going to work. look, either mike pence is the dumbest guy in dumbest guy in the white house who seems completely oblivious to everything that's happening at all times or he's completely aware of it and is simply trying to portray himself as this innocent dove in the woods in case something happens and he might be the last man standing in this administration. bairld remember we still have not heard the transcript of his conversations with zelensky which he says the white house is currently working on. it's very hard to believe he did not hear the scuttlebutt in the white house where this funding was going and what the circumstances were. i think at the center of so many of these controversies is mike pence sort of playing the innocent guy, and we need to hold him accountable as barr and many other people who have been indicted. >> he hasn't offered a credible

explanation why he did not go to the inauguration of president zelensky. he was supposed to be the person that went but i believe it was rick perry, a lower member of the cabinet who ended up going, and that in and of itself was to send a message. >> exactly, exactly. and here's the thing, the messages often sent from mike pence are i didn't do it, i'm not involved. and the trump administration sort of rolls him out to play this clean sunday passer guy to say i can't believe there's no corruption going on in this building, i can't believe it. but again it doesn't work when you consider how close he's been to so many different individuals volved. you can't believe he doesn't talk to barr, to giuliani. you can't believe he didn't talk to zelensky. so, again, we have to end this narrative that mike pence is somehow in any way separate from the corruption that's endemic in this administration. >> let's switch gears for a

moment and talk about impeachment and the polling that goes around with that. nick, on the one hand overwhelming majority of americans want to see impeachment, at least want to see the impeachment inquiry, unfold, take place but at the same time the majority saying they don't want to necessarily see the president removed from office as a result of this office. >> it says to me the american people want more answers. if you're supporting an impeachment inquiry, it means you're open to the idea he might be impeached in the end. what i think is really interesting here is this massive shift in support for the inquiry, and i think it shows that a lot of people were playing too much 3d chess about the political impact and the risks of impeachment. and the simple answer is if people have a good reason to think there are questions to be answered and then have serious and meaningful, that they're open to an impeachment inquiry and democrats are not going to suffer i think for this one to kind of harm that some of their

party are worried could be. >> to that point, when you look at the poll number said out there in terms of the public's attitude towards impeachment if you're a democrat or republican, what is your take away? start with the democrats. >> well, if i'm a democrat i'm saying, look, let's get this vote started, let get this done some time before the end of it year. there's a recent fox poll that says a slight majority of the public is okay with impeachment and removing the president. if i'm a democrat, i'm ready to move on with this because you want this vote to happen before the primaries begin. if i'm a republican, i'm thinking about my district. and, look, and i say this in a cynical sort of way. you should as a republican be thinking about the safety of this country. you should be thinking about your obligation to uphold the constitution. but realistically if you're republican you're thinking am i in a purple district, is this going to blow up in my face? and some of these senators have to think about how this vote is

going to look and how bad they're going to be come october or november of next year if they're trying to defend a president, this will not be the last time he makes a suggestion that a foreign entity should come and mess with our elections. >> next bernie sanders just talked to nbc news. his first interview since his heart attack. we'll tell you about that next. k we'll tell you about that next c? hey jill! hey kurt! movies? i'll get snacks! no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on our car insurance with geico. i got snacks! ohhh, i got popcorn, i got caramel corn, i got kettle corn. am i chewing too loud? believe it! geico could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. the♪lexus es... ...every curve, every innovation, every feeling... a product of mastery. lease the 2019 es 350 for $379/month for 36 months.

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today senator bernie sanders sat down for his first interview

since he suffered a heart attack last week. here's what he told nbc's harry smith about criticism the sanders campaign was not trance parent at least initially about his health scare. >> it's a couple of days before we learned you had a heart attack. there seemed to be this sense, well, the campaign must be hiding something, what's going on? >> no, that's nonsense. and i think, you know, sometimes however people think campaigns are, we're dealing with all kinds of doctors. and we wanted to have a sense what's going on really. so the first thing we try to do is understand what's going on and not run to "the new york times" to report every 15 minutes. you know, it's not a baseball game. so i think we acted appropriately. >> despite that there's still some questions around sanders health. sanders hoping to hit his stride before the iowa caucuses in february. but it does raise a lot of questions not just about bernie sanders but about elizabeth

warren, joe biden, about president trump, whether or not they are all going to be in good health and stamina trout the duration of this campaign. that does it for me. you can always catch me weekday mornings 5:00 a.m. eastern on morning joe first look. but for now "hardball" is up next. >> trump tries to run out the clock. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm steve kornacki in for crith matthews. after weeks on the defensive the president is diving head first into a constitutional showdown. in a sweeping assertion issued yesterday the administration outright refused to comply with congress in its ongoing impeachment inquiry. the letter claims among other things the house