remember that feeling. seven runs in the ninth against the mets, september 3rd. come on, nats. come on, strasburg, let's make it happen. let's make game six as important in washington nationals lor in mets lore way back in '76. we'll be back tomorrow. we have a lot to get to in tonight's show. democrats releasing brand-new details on this week's floor house impeachment as an army officer details the ukraine call today. later, we have an inside look at how trump attorney general bill barr is weaponizing the doj with a special guest. and susan rice sis on the beat tonight. but we begin with breaking news. i can report to you right now for the first time the u.s. congress is introducing this formal resolution which outlines

the path to donald trump's impeachment. this is speaker pelosi barreling ahead on a full house floor vote this thursday. and here's what we know. this actually tells us new things. resolution lays out where the impeachment probe goes over the next few weeks. the crucial period that could lead to the impeachment of donald trump. and the senate trial of donald trump. democrats are using this resolution to create the process and to figure out, to decide, to conclude once and for all whether sufficient grounds exist for the house to impeach donald j. trump. here's what is key about this news tonight. the resolution confirms the intelligence committee will keep driving this rgate. second, this process will eventually land back at the judiciary committee which of course before the ukraine scandal broke that was the committee that was probing presidential obstruction outlined in the mueller report. this resolution also puts it back in the driver's seat before this thing ends. third, i can tell you the resolution is now the blueprint

for taking what has been a confidential investigation of the ukraine plot into public view. there is a framework now in here for public hearings. democrats say that will confront the complaints that the process of to date hasn't been transparent. there will also be rules for who can question the witnesses and rules for the gop can request its witnesses. today, some of the complaints continued. >> i applaud the speaker for admitting it's a sham. >> pelosi needs to declare a mistrial. this has been a tainted process from the start. >> this new resolution does something else as well. it provides for security redactions and public release of the deposition of witnesses. now, so far, as you know, those depositions have been private. if you watch the news, of course you know the drill. a key witness will march into the congress like diplomat bill taylor and we'll get quotes from a statement, clueless to some of the key points discussed, and

lately those alone have been damning to trump. or you know the drill, a trump loyalist will go to congress like this one, gordon sondland and things dribble out. it wasn't until days later when he was marching into congress that his lawyers told "the wall street journal" he actually confirmed there was a quid pro quo. and it was that same drill, this same damning format for trump today with what you see here as army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, a current white house staffer went through security and marched in to face this committee. his opening statement, he's the first person who was in on trump's ukraine call who has now testified. as we report on what's coming out of that, keep in mind how today's deposition could shift if the house passes this new resolution. because the public won't be limited to highlights or readouts or someone's interpretation. you'll be able to read the whole deposition or whatever isn't redacted once it's released. let me tell you, of all the depositions today, i will be especially interested to read this army officer's complete answers because we're just hours out of it tonight and we already

know it was explosive. a purple heart recipient wounded in iraq, corroborating others who have testified this was a quid pro quo bribery plot. his first-hand knowledge reverberating tonight in the capitol. >> republicans have complained that there wasn't anyone who had first-hand knowledge of the call. he was on that call. >> a person who has dedicated his life to the national security of this country. >> first-hand evidence of the betrayal of this president, of his oath of office. >> now, is there an argument that maybe vindman, however honest and brave just misunderstood the intricacies here as he was running around the white house? was he in over his head? well, keep in mind this is the person, the trump administration put as the top ukraine expert on the security council. today he's telling members that he was so concerned about what he was up to, though he's not

the whistleblower, he twice reported to white house lawyers. having listened in on the call he could see the problem unfolding and he was telling them i didn't think it was proper to demand a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen and it was critical for trump to ask for a pardon play undermining security. that's what we know now. if this new resolution passes, everyone will know a lot more about this deposition and all the depositions. if you're keeping track of this investigation at home, right along with us, sometimes it might be easy to feel like quid pro quo, didn't we already know that? or reported concerns to the lawyers about ukraine, didn't we know that too? so if you are thinking that, i'm here to tell you, you're right. investigations involve painstaking, sometimes repetitive corroboration. that's true whether it's by prosecutors or by congress. you take each claim or fact and you try to match it with as many witnesses who know about it. now, the witnesses are first hand. several people close to the action have said this was a quid pro quo, you've probably heard about that.

let's be clear. vindman who testified today was there. here's how "the washington post" reports that extra punch of what it means to have him testify today. this is a story that was coming out late today as his testimony emerged. quote, vindman is the fifth person to say there was a quid pro quo. but here's why he's different than the others, though. he's the first white house official who was on the july 25th call. by contrast, ambassador taylor's significant allegation is secondhand relying upon another official telling him sondland had conveyed that quid pro quo to ukraine. and congress is taking at least four more depositions from witnesses this week alone. vindman, as of couple days ago, was not even billed as the most significant witness. and tonight, he has, in his uniform, shredded one of the few defenses president trump had left. i want to turn to our power pale to start our coverage tonight, michelle goldberg.

emily, and brittany cooper, professor at rutgers. good evening to each of you. >> what's up? >> what's up? a lot happened today, i think. >> yeah. >> i wonder what you think of the evidentiary significance of this witness. >> you know, what's most acc zas p exasperating is that the theater that the republican party engages in is they continue to claim they're being victimized there are say sham trial, it's designed to get their guy out and they're claiming that they're powerless to stop all of this from happening and the big bad democrats are bullies. but the real power lies in the fact that this man, the president got on tv and admitted that there was a quid pro quo, that he did this, he demanded ukraine investigate, he demand china investigate, and we still have to have this much evidence to prove a thing that we all witnessed with our own eyes. that's the testament to the power, not only of republican partisanship, but also of

trump's larger white nationalist project, of his project to take down this democracy, is that we have people who tell us that the truth is -- that they are the victims of a sham. and in many ways that is how they feel about it. >> part of what you're gesturing at is in a healthier civic system, the facts would be saebd and the established and there are arguments over removing a president who has done things in the view of the many terrible. but you're saying we're not there yet because we're laying out what happened. >> i'm literally saying that these people have all the power to determine the narrative, but they are claiming that they are victims. and so this is why we have to engage many this drum beat with them and we can't move this process forward. >> well, i guess we are in some ways moving the process forward. i think you're right that the fact that our politics is so he polarized is putting pressure on this witness testimony to confirm things. and you're right about this too, that trump, you know, in some ways kind of gestured right on

television right in front of us if you do the crime right on tv somehow it's not a crime anymore. >> that's right. >> i think it's important to hear from all these witness when's you have a segment of the public that's so skeptical. and as you were saying, this is how investigations work. you have concentric circles and people confirm each other. >> and i'll hand it back to you, but to that point, when mueller was doing this, although we did follow it, we didn't have nearly the realtime readouts. >> exactly. it's key because the white house is blocking production of all the documents that the democrats want. so they don't have internal communications, they don't have records of key meetings. so hearing from people's mouths what happened, that's their way of building a record. >> i think even more than that, you know, what republicans have been saying up until now, you know, besides these process complaints, is that, well, it's just trump being trump. which on the one hand is an incredibly damning admission that you can't trust the president not to commit crimes. but the argument was he just made this one phone call and he's sort of verbally incontinent, he says all sorts

of things and nobody takes him seriously. one of the things that fiona hill and bill taylor and now vindman have confirmed, this wasn't just one phone call. this was over many, many months. >> isn't that when you get into whatever's happening, maybe not today or tomorrow, if they hold this vote on thursday and if they ultimately impeach donald trump, the senate will have to deal with this. there may be senators who want to cover his or her heads and not discuss anything. but there may be other snrs ten that say we have to get into what is acceptable. there may be a defense that a terrible phone call is not impeachable if all you did was have one terrible phone call and afterward the generals came in and the security adviser came in and said you can't do that and the president reassessed. what you're speaking about this wasn't a bad phone call, this wasn't bad words there are wasn't a mistake, that this was the alleged criminal foreign policy of the united states. >> right. i think that they're already sort of moving to that defense, to, you know, they're kind of

not he didn't do it but that it's fine and it will be interesting to see if they can sustain that after, you know, a lot of public hearings, after it's kind of very clear to all of their constituents what exactly has happened. i think that probably most of the republicans will come down on this is fine. >> let me put you on that. for you and the panel. have they, the trump defenders in washington, landed on its fine? i know this is like the craziest part of covering these days of 2019, but i think that it seemed like the chief of staff came out with a trial balloon of it's fine and then had to walk that back. >> i think that's true, but then, i mean, if you look at what's happened since then, one of the lines of defense they were trying out this morning was this really frightening and outrageous smear of vindman that you heard on fox news and some republicans that you can't really trust him because his family is from the former soviet union, right?

essentially the smear that an immigrant necessarily, an immigrant that came here when he was 3 necessarily have dual loyalties. if the republican party is going to get behind that, that's truly terrifying. i think that they actually had to walk away from that, right? you have liz cheney back away from that. you had a lot of pushback, maybe because they thought that was too indecent for them or maybe they thought it wasn't a sustainable argument. they're not going to stand before the american people and say don't trust this army colonel, he's an immigrant. and so -- and they've also had to somewhat give up on these process questions because nancy pelosi has called their bluff. you know, then you hear reports from the white house that trump and kushner want to debate this on the merits. they want that defense to be made on the merits. and so where else are they going to go? >> and, emily, there's a difference in impeaching the witness and saying you can't trust him, what he's saying isn't true. and saying it doesn't matter what he says is true, to quote

michelle goldberg, it's fine. >> i think that the way in which they still haven't said it's fine is the idea that trump was withholding military aid, freezing this aid that congress had authorized for ukraine in return for digging up dirt on joe biden and his family. that, i think, they have not conceded. that's a really important point. and william taylor testified to that level of quid pro quo last week. i'm really interested in whether future witnesses get into that terrain as the kind of more serious, you know, potential payback that trump was asking for. >> and that goes to, again, new revelations from vindman. i'm going to read this to you, brittany, because this gets into him versus ambassador sondland who is your trump loyalist and donor. he said sondland imfa sized the importance that ukraine deliver on the quid pro quo, the investigations of 2016 and bidens. i stated this is new today, ambassador sondland's statements

were inappropriate. it had nothing to do with national security and i reported my concerns to the nsc's council. the other thing that comes through here not the third thing or the first or second, but you've got a lot of people. >> yes. >> hitting the red phone and the lawyers and the warnings, and it still didn't get corrected until it went public. >> this is the thing that i'm trying to get at by talking about the mountains of evidence, right? part of what i know being an african american in this country is that very often when you you're a person that doesn't have power, you are yelling about injustices that happen. and people can keep on dismissing those injustices because of their own agenda. and so then you need mountains of evidence to prove that the cops are disproportionately targeting african-american men. we have a housing crisis in the country. i'm talking about the levels of evidence it's taken to prove something we already know. yes, i believe in process. yes, i think the process is moving forward. what gives me pause is that you still have the republicans

largely having the power because they control the senate to not hold this man accountable. so the democrats will engage in this theater, it is appropriate for them to do so. we will engage in this process. but the fact that we keep on having to reiterate something that we already know gives me real pause. a country that doesn't have a clear understanding and grasp on the truth despite all of these officials coming forward and saying this is a problem is an empire that's dead on arrival. >> well, you want to get into it, we're talking, emily, about burden of proof. >> yeah. >> you're saying that while the rules are supposed to be one standard of burden of proof, the system, as it has operated, has different standards for different people based on power and marginalization. >> let me say one last thing about that. what i'm saying is that trump claiming that he is powerless but the evidence that he is more powerful than he should be is that we are requiring so much evidence in the face of brazen skirting and breaking of laws and using the u.s. government as a shakedown for his own personal

interests. >> right. as a shakedown that enlisted members of the military who are generally understanding of the use and projection of american power abroad, including to take lives when deemed necessary or justified, are saying, yes, there is the power to kill but there isn't the power to do this. the president has gone too far. >> that's right. >> and as you say, how much evidence does america need? this was a fascinating conversation. i will be bringing brittany and michelle back on future shows, thank you very much. and i'll be bringing emily back for your reporting on mr. barr later this hour. as we fit in a break, i'll tell you why the bombshell could mean trouble for a different trump loyalists. also, jared kushner speaking in public and outlining a defense of, yes, his father-in-law. then later, bill barr has a growing role in this ukraine scandal. there are new reports that he's weaponizing the powers of the justice department while everyone focus on impeachment. and later, obama's former national security adviser susan

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president trump led a bribery quid pro quo plot with ukraine, it was concerning, it was bad for u.s. security each of those statements may sound like the democrats' arguments for impeachment, but each of them are actually from donald trump's own ukraine point person on the national security council. army officer alexander vindman

who reported this call to the white house lawyers twice and gave today's damning testimony to congress knowing it puts heat on the president as well as on trump loyalist gordon sondland. that trump donor and hand picked ambassador who is facing questions now from house democrats over whether he actually committed perjury in his deposition. this is part of vindman's testimony we didn't have time to get to yet earlier in the show because he's telling congress that sondland emphasized the importance of ukraine investigating the bidens and how he told sondland those statements were inappropriate because a biden plot had nothing to do with security. so how does that care? well, sondland had testified he recalled no discussions with any white house official about biden or his son and didn't recall pushing any such investigation into the bidens. now, there may be wiggle room there with the word recall, but vindman is laying out a story that contradicts sondland. meanwhile, trump allies have not landed on a key hessive plan to combat this avalanche of

evidence. an aide and family member who is usually behind the scenes stepping out way broad defense today. >> he hasn't done anything wrong and at this point they've investigated him over and over and over again. the president's record of accomplishments is unimpeachable. >> kushner, an attorney, should know that impeachment is not about accomplishments in office. richard nixon had a very productive accomplishment record on policies ranging from creatingal protecti creating environmental protection agency. and missile policy. some conservatives evare rushin to smear that out. i'm going to show you a brief portion of the attacks followed by a condemnation that they view as shameful from lawmakers from both parties. >> a u.s. national security

official who is advising ukraine while working inside the white house apparently against the president's interests -- >> he is incredibly concerned about ukrainian defense. i don't know if he's concerned about american policy. his main mission was to make sure the ukraine got those weapons. >> i'm not going to question patriotism of any of the people who are coming forward. >> when you have people that are basically willing to put their life on the line for all of us, for us to denigrate in such a manner, it's just not who i am and how i was raised. >> it is shameful to question their patriotism, their love of this nation and we should not be involved in that process. >> and we have two guests to get into all of this and we're back in just 30 seconds. get into all of this and we're back in just 30 seconds. you need for your home at a great price, the way it works best for you, i'll take that. wait honey, no. when you want it. you get a delivery experience you can always count on. you get your perfect find at a price to match,

on your own schedule. you get fast and free shipping on the things that make your home feel like you. that's what you get when you've got wayfair. so shop now! we're joined by federal proper john flannery and speech writer for george w. bush. good evening, folks. >> good evening. >> david, your view of what today's testimony means and whether the backlash to vindman reflects the strength of what he said. >> look, if they had good arguments, they wouldn't make bad ones. people have been complaining about the president's talking points and their weakness. but they've got a difficulty, they've got a legal difficulty and the first is that most of the people defending the president aren't very smart and the president is very, very guilty, so that puts you -- that creates a difficult situation with which to come up with talking points. this questioning of vindman's americanism is the most

astonishing thing, though, because what drove the ukraine scandal in the first place is that president trump himself outsourced the making of american/ukraine policy to two ukrainian -- two ukrainian-born american citizens. both of them were born in the ukraine and both of them were naturalized in the united states. now, the difference between them and vindman, of course, is that vindman is an officer and a patriot who is working on the public dollar and they were small time grifters trying to make a dishonest buck by paying gratuities to people around trump like former mayor rudy giuliani. but this is not about the americans versus the ukrainians. this is about the honest naturalized ukrainians in american uniform and the dishonest naturalized ukrainians who were working for a russian oligarch. >> when you lay that out there and we've been careful how much we're going to show of this, but look. vindman has faced these smears before he even set foot in congress today about whether he's a loyal american because of the immigration. and i want to show you something that could be out of a movie as

a child, it turns out he was actually interviewed in a documentary about a symbol of patriotism, the statue of liberty. that's vindman with his grandmother and twin brother who also works the national security council speaking about their path to the u.s. take a look. >> we came from kiev. and then we went to -- >> our mother died so we went to italy then we came here. >> john, it's striking, you know, what emerges when people come into the public eye. here we are again talking about not only who makes the calls on u.s. policy which david just spoke to, but also america's role in welcoming immigrants. >> absolutely. i mean, he took a bullet for america in iraq. actually an explosion, it was an ied. and here is he doing what? he is fighting for american foreign policy which is to protect ukraine from russia, the aggressor. and who are the people who are not supporting american foreign

policy? for mr. trump to giuliani to volker to sondland, that whole group of people, they're the enemies of the people. and this person is coming forward to protect ukraine but also the integrity of the white house, not to be using our power and withholding $391 million in defense money from ukraine to protect itself from russia. >> well put. >> in exchange for a personal favor to the president. we try. >> i think you both nailed it. we reported it. we're going to move on from this smear having cashed that out. i want to get into the other two pieces for both of you. and you're both in this segment in part because john has worked as a congressional investigators and david, you have the insights at the white house. my question to both of you, i'm coming to you on a news night where we got the actual resolution for the impeachment on the president. it's a big deal and the rules and the vote on thursday setting up the rules for the impeachment. since i came out on the air, the democrats have released the lengthier underlying rules and we're getting into the weeds,

but the weeds might determine with where this whole thing goes, john. >> yes. >> i wonder, what does it mean to you that we are seeing the actual blueprint? this is the constitutional blueprint that the congress builds when they are going forward. doesn't seem like there's a big off-ramp for the democrats from impeaching trump. >> this is ramming speed finally. we've been waiting for the rule of law to be enforced. finally in the courts and on the hill we're doing that. the resolution itself set a framework among the caucus and to give notice to everybody how it's going to run. and this is how the judiciary committee is going to proceed. and those rules for the judiciary committee which is where it's going to be referred when the intelligence committee finishes its work are very similar to the rules we had during the clinton investigation. and the presentations and the back and forth and the steps by which they could determine whether or not there are articles that will be reported

to the floor are very similar to what happened during the clinton impeachment. it's going to be hard for the republicans to fight that. >> you see this as lightning speed at that point? >> well, lightning on the hill travels -- >> lightning for lawyers, yeah. >> i'm stymied in relative vitti. >> david, what do you see? >> i'm sitting and talking to you tonight from the very same room in which i spent many evenings during the clinton impeachment, now almost 20 years ago. one of the things that is different between now and then. the clinton white house had a rule, which was they were not going to let the impeachment get inside their decision cycle. and with extraordinary presidential discipline and it's still kind of weird how bill clinton did this. they partitioned off the impeachment inquiry from everything else the white house was doing, that's one of the reasons that bill clinton survived. bill clinton was a much younger man than president trump and much more energetic. but even had he limited number of hours in the day. what's clearly happened now, this inquiry is going to drive it, is the inquiry is completely

inside donald trump's head, inside his decision cycle. and this is a president who doesn't work so many hours, who's not in such good physical condition. so he is not going to be able to execute. he's not of the temperament to execute and he's not going to be able to execute the clinton strategy of holding it off while trying to remind the american people of whatever it is the american people liked about him. >> john. >> well, i agree basically with that. the thing about the clinton impeachment and this one is we, among the democrats, drafted a procedure by which this would be done more deliberately. and i believe that the rules that they put for the judiciary committee are similar to those. the republicans voted against fair rules in the clinton impeachment on the floor of the house. and now we're going to have a fairer process with a more appropriate set of charges, namely, crimes that we can identify and misdemeanors and bribery. >> in the broad outlines, we're just getting this stuff, as i said it's all flying at us new.

but in the broad outlines we're seeing the president, his lawyers will be afforded process and appearance in the house. the republicans did afford that to clinton and he engaged it sending his lawyers down to both of you, first to john. given that the white house has thus far tried to stonewall everything, do they ever pivot and send sekulow or giuliani down there the way clinton did to try to move the house? >> we had better counsel from the president's naufs those days but, yes, they may and they probably if they're smart should. i remember the presentation abbe lowell made to set up the case for the defense. and -- >> who now represents jared kushner. >> well, you know, but kushner seems to be free and clear. i -- >> he's clear. let me bring it to david, then, because, david, the same question to you. donald trump as you know is full of branding contradictions. >> yeah. >> one of them as we've discussed before is claiming to fight all the time when actually running away in court, settling, et cetera.

here they're stonewalling. do they ever pivot? >> well, one of the things we saw when the president made a statement about baghdadi with all of its fictitious details, there's a real question of how connected donald trump is to reality. it's hard to make good legal decisions when you won't september truth about your legal jeopardy. one of the differences that's going to come up in this process and it will come up later when this affair goes to the senate. in 1998, 1999, but the time the impeachment got to the senate, the republicans wanted to get it over with as rapidly as possible. the senate process was quite short because by then the public had spoken, clinton was polling in the low 70s and the republicans wanted to get it off their desks. it had backfired upon them. and in this case, this process may get as lightning fast as the house process is, the senate process may be slow because i think there will be a lot of demand from democrats to do a real trial. >> fair. i got to fit in a break. and i have a silly question to ask david before i go to break have that okay with you, john? >> absolutely. you're the boss. >> well, david, are you going to

be using that same room 20 years from now? >> yeah, i'll be be doddering m way in. i hope after donald trump this never happens again. >> i certainly don't wish anymore natural trauma as we've zrused around here. the potential trial, in all seriousness, the potential trial of a sitting president because of things they've done or suspected to have done is not a good thing. it's not a positive. it's nothing to take joy in and it keeps everyone quite busy in these fields. but, yeah, it's serious so we don't wish that again. but i do wish both of you another good 20 years and 20 more after that. thank you, gentlemen. coming up, democrats accusing bill barr of taking over the justice department also for trump's person gain. it relates to impeachment a lot more. i have a very special guest on that. and later, susan rice from the obama administration is on the beat. e from the obama administration is on the beat. >> as i do it, it seems like six

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there's a fair amount of troublesome evidence and bad news for president trump on ukraine, but there is one place in washington where trump still sees his world view loudly affirmed. troublingly, it's the justice department where attorney general barr has given credence to his favorite conspiracy theories from contacting foreign governments about the origins of the russia probe. barr opened a criminal probe into the russia mueller probe, a move so controversial, barr's now appeared making a rare television interview appearance to push back against criticism. >> that's completely wrong and there's no basis for it. i act on behalf of the united states. john durham, who's the u.s. attorney for connecticut is in

charge of the investigation and i understand he's making great progress. but he is in charge of the investigation. i'm not doing the investigation. >> ah, someone else is in charge. but the buck actually stops with barr, as he himself has not only said, but said under oath when it suited him. when there was all that blowback over how he handled the mueller probe, waess quihe was quick toe that he, with the deputy attorney general, are the people who make the ultimate decisions. >> he sent his report to the attorney general. at that point, it was my baby. >> but it was you who made the charging decision, sir. you made the decision not charting president. >> in this case it was the -- you know, the attorney general and the deputy attorney general who decide on the final decision. >> so, when is it his baby and when is it is not we're get into that as a new profile of barr's making some waves, including reporting on something he said when he was ag two decades ago

when he said the bush white house appreciated the independence of the justice department and there's a difference between being a governmental lawyer and representing an individual in his personal capacity versus what you do at doj. i'm joined by emily. that's from her thorough piece in the "new york times" entitled "who is bill barr in". it looks at how established republicans thought he was one of them and he's not. >> i think when bill barr was appointed attorney general, we were coming out of sessions and then there was an acting attorney general whitaker. and whitaker was kind of a hack and not able to stand up to trump and maintain the independence of the justice department. you have barr who has george h.w. bush on his resume. that stands for moderate republicans. and i think there was a desire on the part of a lot of people to imagine that he was going to be a really professional

independent attorney general. >> and so you've been doing this reporting. why? why is this who he is? >> well, i did this reporting partly because before barr was chosen, he wrote to me this striking memo. this is july 2018. and he is talking about how, in his view, the president alone is the executive branch. and he was making that quite extraordinary statement in the context of criticizing mueller's investigation. mueller an old and really good friend of his. barr says at the beginning of his memo, i'm in the dark about a lot of the facts and then he just goes after mueller. and i thought to myself, why? is this a job audition? what is behind this? and then it turns out in the reporting i did recently, when you go back to barr's record in the '80s and '90s, you see that he already had this quite -- quite remarkable theory of executive power. and also a deep faith in conservative values that make someone like trump who is

apointing so many conservative judges a very appealing president to serve. >> that theory, as you lay it out, goes against one of the conventional wisdoms in the resistance among some people who criticize trump, which puts him out as someone who doesn't understand anything and is outsmarted. what you're suggesting is that donald trump, at least on the one vector he cares about, which is doing what he wants, understood bill barr better than people who had spent years working with him. i think that's a fascinating incite y insight you have in your piece and i think it's supported with an exchange with senator kamala harris. at the time this question was pose and mr. barr dodged, there wasn't republican reporting that they were trying to get a biden probe, right, that would involve giuliani and barr. and look at his inability to say anything that any attorney general should be able to say. take a look. >> has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an

investigation of anyone? yes, no please, sir. have they suggested? >> i wouldn't say suggest. >> hinted? >> i don't know. >> inferred? you don't know. okay. >> what's interesting to me about that goes back to a quote that you put up earlier when barr was reflecting on his service as attorney general for george h.w. bush. he put a lot of value in the fact that nobody in the bush white house had asked him to take any specific steps or asked him to launch a particular criminal or civil inquiry, he said. and so that it's quite striking to see that now he's unwilling to say that this presidency is following those same rules. >> do you have enough evidence to conclude that a criminal investigation of the mueller probe is an abuse of the doj? >> i don't think we know that yet. i want to have faith in john durham, i love in connecticut,

he's my u.s. attorney. he has a reputation for being very careful in these kind of matters. he spent four years investigating charges against the george w. bush cia and in the end he brought no charges. so i want to see where this leads. but, you know -- >> people would tharg one goes the opposite direction, that when he gets a mandate -- i'm not trying to give you a hard time, i'm just discussing the concept with you. when he gets a mandate he might be someone who figures out, as many people in government do, what the end game is looking for. and that was not, as i understand, a mueller special counsel-type probe. that was make sure we look into this to make sure we get to a place with we don't charge the cia. that was the bush public position. >> it's true if you're thinking about it in purely partisan terms that could seem more suspicion. i want to give him the benefit of the doubt and thinking he took his investigation where the evidence led. i do wonder about this interview that barr gave in which he's trying to distance himself from this investigation because he,

himself, flew to both britain and italy looking for evidence to support this investigation. and we know from the italian prime minister that barr was asking him questions that go back to a kind of unfounded conspiracy theory that donald trump has about some italian participation in the origins of the mueller investigation. that all seems pretty fishy. >> yeah. at what point do people -- you talk about the benefit of the doubt or just keeping an open mind, which we all try to do. at what point does the public look at this and say donald trump has privately and publicly demanded the abuse of these powers, foreign and domestic, to go after his rivals? it seems that what's coming into focus is outsourcing some of it and getting ukraine to try to do it. and they are accelerating that probe. demanding that barr do it and for a while it hadn't happened. and now the "new york times," your paper, breaks this incredible story that they are doing it. that the criminal predicate for investigating the russia probe is saying that someone like comey or mueller or someone else with enough authority to be important to investigate committed a felony.

>> right. and what's troubling about that is we know that these people were in a very fraught moment, right? these are the months surrounding the election. they have reports that somebody working for trump is talking to the australian ambassador, australian embassy ata sheas. they had reason to be concerned. the notion that we would go back and say that these same intelligence agencies and their bosses committed a felony, that seems troubling. >> as you say, the investigative predicate is they were worried that trump the candidate, then, before they knew more, would do the very things that trump the president has now openly admitted to, welcoming foreign collusion, and that many officials around him accused him of doing a foreign bribery plot that might lead to his impeachment. if anything, they look more clair voy yant than felonious. we'll see where it goes. i always appreciate you coming on the beat. i'm glad we got you in two segments tonight. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> thank you.

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with the power of your voice. that's simple, easy, awesome. say nba league pass into your voice remote to check out a free preview. don't miss out. there have been bombshells all over the capitol today. a current national security official who was actually in listening on the infamous ukraine call testifying all about the concerns in realtime about donald trump's plot.

there have been several officials and diplomats who testify now against the sitting president confronting what they see as an attempt to hijack foreign policy for his gain. there's also been concerns raised by ambassador susan rice. she's played critical roles and recently rice has been cutting loose a little bit and letting people know exactly what she thinks, even departing from diplomatic terminology. >> it seems like six days a week i just put my head in my hands. this is bat [ bleep ] crazy. >> you have to understand benghazi to understand trump. >> i said it damn it finally. he's a piece of [ bleep ]. >> said it twice. well, ambassador rice joins me here on "the beat." and i just sat down and played her that comment. >> everything she touched turns

to crap national security wise. it does bother me the person who lied about benghazi is still velerant. here's her greatest hit, the iran nuclear deal, iraq -- >> i think the american people have come to judge lindsey graham by his own actions and words and i don't need to add anymore. as for the white house' actions rice weighed in on her view on the unfolding ukraine scandal. >> i've never heard of any president before this one, democrat or republican who would basically hold hostage the united states interest in a key partner like ukraine in supporting them against russian aggression for personal, political gain. so this is really an extraordinary development and an extraordinary breach of the powers of the presidency. it's a blatant abuse. >> rice is on "the beat" as part of her book tour for tough love, a new book in which she writes

about foreign policy challenges including surveying in that obama administration, and dealt with many issues including syria. and i asked her about trump's withdrawal of forces there. >> i think it's a strategic catastrophe, the president's decision to withdraw a very small number of u.s. forces in syria supporting the kurds. the biggest beneficiaries are putin, iran, and assad along with turkey who now are controlling territory and our bases we abandoned. >> as for president trump rice says quite clearly she thinks he's abusing his powers and she's also optimistic about the ability of americans and our system to counter all of that. >> we have a president who's broken every rule, norm and several laws, it appears and i think it's appropriate that it be investigated and that the investigation lead where it does. i think we've seen ample evidence of behavior from blatant lying to obstruction to

abuse of power. but the most troubling thing to me, ari, is that we have a president unlike any of his predecessors at least in our lifetime that seems to be using the office for purely personal gain even when it comes to the most sensitive national security decision making. i think the hope lies in the american people, in the american voter. >> in the american voter. susan rice gets the last word on that. but when we come back, we have another development internationally that relates to impeachment after this. internationally that relates to impeachment after this it looks like jill heading off on an adventure. jill has entresto, a heart failure medicine that helps her heart so she can keep on doing what she loves. in the largest heart failure study ever, entresto was proven superior at helping people stay alive and out of the hospital. it helps improve your heart's ability to pump blood to the body.

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the witness who gave last week's bombshell testimony in the ukraine probe ambassador bill taylor today was back at work in ukraine. nbc was actually there reporting he got quite the quote rock star reception and also featured the ukrainian president, that's the same leader on the receiving end of pressure from the trump administration. nbc's ana sheckter asked president zelensky all about it. >> did you feel any pressure from president trump? >> and i have no answers about -- there's no more answers. i've said already, no, that's it. thank you very much. >> no more answers but thank you for asking the question. zelensky clearly not interested in talking about it in that form in that way, which itself suggests there may still be issues between these two

countries in what has become an open foreign policy cries. and also led to what we're going to track for you coming thursday which is the coming floor vote. i'll see you back here tonight 6:00 p.m. eastern. "hardball" with chris matthews is up next. star witness. let's play hardball. good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. powerful new testimony from an army lieutenant colonel who listened live to that notorious july 25th conversation between president trump and ukrainian president zelensky. it delivers a striking blow to the president today. shattering one of his main lines of defense. in a sworn deposition house investigators heard from lieutenant colonel