The president is doing things not only unconstitutional but blatantly immoral. And Lindsey Graham now. If theres a witness request by anybody im going to say no. Versus Lindsey Graham then. The idea of not being able to call witnesses is crucial. How would you like to do this show without guests . When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Were heading into the holidays. Congress is done for the year and for the decade. The president has been impeached for just the third time in American History and what comes next is unclear. The uncertainty exists right now because of the following sequence of events. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell before the house even voted to impeach donald trump went on trump tv to promise total coordination with the white house and trumps defense team in the upcoming impeachment trial in the senate. Mcconnell is basically like the fix is in, were just not going to pretend to go through all the pomp and circumstance. And then in response House Speaker nancy pelosi said, fine, im not going to send the ar articles of impeachment to the senate until you, Mitch Mcconnell, agree to set a fair trial. Fear is never a word used with me, you should know right away im never afraid and im rarely surprised. Today Speaker Pelosi invited President Trump to give the state of a union speech. Probably not by chance she begins the invitation, quote, in their great wisdom our founders crafted a constitution based on the administration of powers, three coequal branches acting as checks on each other. The state of the union will be the day after the Iowa Caucuses and will also probably happen after the president s impeachment trial. Although who knows really. Its also a reminder with what happened with the last state of the union. Speaker pelosi had just gotten control of the house. The government was already in the midst of the longest shutdown in the nations history when pelosi rescinded the invitation to the president and it was clear then and clear now pelosi has trumps number psychologically and the part of holding back impeachment probably comes to extracting some kind of psychological toll on the president. At one Level Holding back the articles does seem kind of petty or small or not really clear what the end game is. But on another level trump is someone so ruled by his grievances and very weird psychology essentially trying to restrain his behavior via psychodrama is one of the only tools pelosi or anyone has left. The uncertainty is still to be ironned out and driving the president nuts. This afternoon tweeting, quote, nancy pelosi is looking for a quid pro quo in the senate. Why arent we impeaching her . Okay, members of congress cant be impeached, but thats not the point. The president is clearly bothered if not tortured by this a lot. Until the next few weeks until Congress Comes back from recess hes just going to sit there and stew. Joining me now one of it house chairs whos been investigating him democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters of california. She is the chair of the House Financial Services committee. Lets begin with the speakers decision to with hold sending over the articles of impeachment and appointing managers until some guarantees of some kind of process from Mitch Mcconnell. How do you understand this move . Do you support it . Absolutely. We had a discussion about it, and its not that shes withholding, it is that we need to know what the rules are because we have to and she has to determine who the managers are going to be from our side. And a lot of that has to do with the rules that will be adopted by the senate. So what mcconnell should be doing is he should be working with the democrats in order to develop the rules so that they can make a very clear, very known exactly how theyre going to proceed with this trial. And so shes not withholding, shes ready to transmit as soon as we know what the rules are and how its going to be conducted. You came up quite a bit in the debate the other night the other day on the floor about democrat support for impeachment. One of the articles republicans return to time and time again is that some portion of the Democratic Caucus favored impeachment even before the ukraine facts came to light. You were one of them, you were name checked quite a bit and you responded on the floor. Yes. What is your feeling about having been sort of out front calling for this before this moment changed about what actually did happen among your colleagues who were not listening to you and then were . Well, first of all, when i started my speech i said that the rules of the debate did not allow me to cite all of the reasons why he should be impeached. However, there are many. I had began to notice him and Pay Attention to him during the primary campaign in the way he conducted himself, and then my staff and i did our own kind of investigatory work to the degree that we could, and we saw the connection between putin and our president and manafort and all of these individuals who were in this little group of people who were connected in some way to the oligarchs of russia, to the kremlin and to putin. And we thought somethings wrong with what were seeing. And then, of course, when they hacked into our dnc, and this president refused to condemn them, to call them out. As a matter of fact, he defended putin and said maybe it was him, maybe it was somebody else, and so ive known that this president was a danger to our democracy, that he was not standing up for our democracy and that he was aligning himself in ways that i thought would be d detrimental to us and disregarding the constitution altogether. So, yes, i started early, and i wanted to create this discussion. And i wanted to get more involved in investigating him. And of course the Mueller Report came out. It did not absolutely do what people wanted it to do, and it was only when he made the call to zelensky and the ukraine, the new president that people began to see oh, my goodness hes using the power of the presidency to try and get this new president to come up with a phony investigation on biden because of his son and the work he had done with a company there. And so this seemed to trigger a lot of belief that, yes, this man is dangerous. Theres something wrong with him. To abuse his power in that way absolutely flies in the face of the constitution of the United States. So i was right that something was wrong with him, that he did not deserve to be president , that he was potentially dangerous, that he didnt care about the constitution. When i came to those conclusions early and starting the discussion i wanted to sound the alarm that we better Pay Attention. And finally it came to that, and i really knew that it would because of his character, that he would not stop. And if hes exonerated by the senate when they do the trial, hes going to get even worse. And i tell you and i will predict hes going to bring putin into the white house for a meeting. Thats an interesting prediction. Let me ask a followup question on the investigation you talked about. Your committee subpoenaed financial records from Deutsche Bank. Thats right. The president went to court to stop Deutsche Bank from turning over some of those financial records. Thats right. That court case he lost in the district court, lost in appellate court. That case is now headed for the supreme court. Thats right. And i havent gotten a chance to talk to you what your expectation is of their case before the supreme court. Im extremely hopeful that based on what the lower courts have done that should in some way influence what happened in the supreme court. These are legitimate subpoenas. And for this president to try and block them, to fight against them, to not respond and he has been very unresponsive in every way he possibly cannot only to our subpoenas, but hes directed all those people who worked with him and around him not to respond to our requests, and so i think the supreme court, i really think that they will rule in our favor and say that theyve got to be in compliance and respond and answer those subpoenas. This is going to be a very, very interesting case to see how that goes down. Are you confident, finally, that there will be some resolution . I mean i asked Hakeem Jeffries whos also a member of leadership last night this question and im asking it to you. I asked him is this withholding essentially by the speaker of articles of impeachment as to now, is that temporary or indefinite . Meaning do you think that will be resolved and we will move to a trial in january . Yeah, i do. I do believe that. I think that the speaker is going to transmit the articles of impeachment over to them. And thats just a matter of trying to find out what the rules are, how its going to work. And please remember that the selection of the managers have a lot to do with that rather. Are there going to be witness snz who are those witnesses going to be . Who on our team is best prepared to deal with cross examining those witnesses . And so we need some information. Its not that this is just some kind of a petty play. This is real. This is substantive, and it makes good sense that we transmit the articles at the time that we understand what theyre going to do and how theyre going to do it. All right, congresswoman Maxine Waters, i hope you have a wonderful holiday. Thank you for your time. And the same to you and thank you. Joining me now for the political gray area on withholding articles of impeachment Michelle Goldberg and its interesting congresswoman waters made that point. Shes saying, look, this isnt some petty thing. If there are witnesses are not probably does play some role in drafting but it does seem to me pelosi has the numbers and its driving him crazy. I dont think its petty because theyre not talking about holding them indefinitely, right . I mean, if we werent going into this break it would probably be just a few more days. Although it does matter donald trump is going to be sort of dangling uncertainly in that time. And the reason it matters is because Mitch Mcconnell has basically talked about how hes going to fix this trial. And they want to make it very short, call no witnesses and essentially acquit him as quickly as possible. And the weird thing is that in some ways pelosi and trump are both aligned in wanting an actual trial, right . This is the play, good point. So what pelosi has done is hang back and let trump demand a trial, demand to call witnesses so that when theyre kind of making this decision in january, its that much harder for Mitch Mcconnell to shut it down. Its a great point because Lindsey Graham a while back was like im going to call rudy giuliani. By all means. And Chuck Schumer started saying this line that none of the president s allies would defend him under oath. They will defend him but not under oath and that what theyre trying to do is essentially bait trump into pushing mcconnell into having witnesses. Yes, and if youre acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney youre not going to prison for donald trump no matter how loyal and slavish these people behave on cable news, on trump tv as you put it. I think youre right its the baiting of trump. He keeps going on we never had any witnesses. You can be a member of the public and say okay you did want have any witnesses in the house, you keep complaining about that, well lets have some witnesses in the senate. Chuck schumer has named the four people. Theyre people who worked for you. If you did nothing wrong, send your chief of staff to make the case. I mean he did such a great job on tv a few weeks ago. I think the holding back of the articles as someone who wanted a slower process and a bigger process im delighted by this. You talk about its not indefinite, but take your time. Go longer than christmas and new years because number one theres something to that. They should be doing that its a serious issue. And two, trump is losing his mind over this. Pelosi gets lots of praise from liberals how she handled this. Earlier this year when she was being dragged kicking and screaming she was like trump wants us to impeach him. She went on tv and said hes goading us to impeach him. I dont think she believed it then. There was a school of thought even some people today are saying oh, hes going to be acquitted and its going to help him in the election. Hes clearly not enjoying this. That 6page letter this week was deranged even by deranged trumpian standards. So was the trump rally. I dont feel like ive been impeached as it goes to the senate theres an oped today from jeff flake, former republican senator who, you know, sort of criticized the president and its fine, it is what it is. When theyre out of the game they want to get high and mighty, but he addresses to his Senate Republican colleagues and its a simple point so obvious. He says my simple test for all of us what if barack obama had engaged in the same precise behavior, i know the answer to that question and so do you. Theres not a person on earth who can i think its refutable in you showed that clip from Lindsey Graham. I think in their heart of hearts they do not believe republicans should be held to the same standard as democrats. They cant make that argument publicly, but in a way that was the subtext of them going on and on but the 63 million, lets have a moment of silence for the 63 million. As inherent as that, that 63 million deserves a degree of deference that the 65 million who voted for Hillary Clinton dont. So saying of course they would do this to obama, but obama was a democrat. Thats the difference. When they often talk about executive power as well. I actually interviewed the Trump Campaign advisor the other day and i asked him if president Bernie Sanders or joe biden says next year iran investigate ivanka trump and don juniors it would be fine but the democrats need a very clear messaging strategy over this period which is this trial is rigged. Use trumps favorite word, it is rigged. Lindsey graham said it openly i dont plan to be an impartial fair juror. Rules going back to 1868 say you have to be an impartial juror. Or at least you have to pretend he goes on fox and says we will be coordinated and wont change. So the jurors are telling people live on tv were going to coordinate with the defendants. I think every american understands thats mad. Theres new polling out today that shows 51 support impeachment removal. Thats quite high. Abcs poll has 70 but thats still a Strong Majority we should have witnesses. I think they went down because it sounds like if you still say it on a nonpartisan basis, of course we want witnesses. They will realize at least the Senate Republican message is no witnesses and then that happens in polling sometimes before the messaging machine catches up and then do you believe the crowd size in the inauguration in that polling everybody believes it and the photo they say no. Theres new reporting tonight that suggests trump was sold the bizarre ukrainian Conspiracy Theory which in part by Vladimir Putin himself. That story coming up in two minutes. R putin himself. That story coming up in two minutes. dog barking Music Building experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. Looking around here i see tablets, laptops, printers, smartphones. Theyre all connected to the internet. Theyre all connected. Can your network handle all those devices . Sometimes. Comcast business runs on the nations largest gigspeed network. So you can get the bandwidth you need to power all of your devices at peak performance. If all of my devices could have that kind of speed, i would be dancing get started with secure 35megabit internet and one voice line for just 64. 90 per month. Call today. Comcast business. Beyond fast. And an investigation into 2016 but an investigation. He does not say 2016 in his call to the ukrainian president. He says something specific, he says crowd strike and the server. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. They say crowd strike. I guess you have one of your wealth yr peop wealthier people, the server. They say ukraine has it. That refer tuesday an absolutely nuts Conspiracy Theory. That the hacking of the National Democratic committee and Hillary Clintons campaign was actually a false flag inside operation pulled off by the dnc themselves to themselves along with ukrainians in order to frame russia. Now, its not only not true, its nonsensical. First crowd strike is an American Company with a russianamerican cofounder. Theyre the ones who did the forensicwise the dnc to find out who hacked them. Theyre based in california. Its not owned by ukrainians, the server is not in ukraine. I could go on. But the Washington Post has this new piece based on 15 interviews with government officials, President Trump himself started bringing this very crazy Conspiracy Theory up as early as july 2017, his first year in office. A time when this nutty idea was very hard to even find on the internet. Where did he get this idea . According to the Washington Post, quote, the blame he cast on a rival country led many of his advisers to think that putin himself helped spread ukraines culpability. One senior white house official said trump even stated so explicitly at one point saying he knew ukraine was a culprit because putin told me. In fact, go back and watch trump and putins infamous Helsinki Press Conference from july 2018. At the time everyone reacted to trump refusing to back his own Intelligence Community on the question of whether russia had interfered with the election, but listen to it again. There he is having just met oneonone with putin. They just had a conversation continually dropping a word which would come to be associated with this utterly debunked ukraine Conspiracy Theory, the server. You have groups that are wondering why the fbi never took the server. Why havent they taken the server . I want to know where is the server and what is the server saying. I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but i dont think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server. Where are those servers . Theyre missing. Where are they . None of thats true, by the way. Theyre not missing. For more on this by joined by michael mcfaul. What went through your head when you read the Washington Post article and you read those quotes from senior officials saying the president said putin told me. This is a pattern. This is not news, and thank you, chris, for going back to helsinki. And thank you, chris, for unpacking that phrase 2016, but when you dig into it you realize just how incredibly crazy the story was. And that reflects i think on the president that he could believe such a crazy story. But there is a pattern here. He stood next to putin and said i dont believe my Intelligence Community. By the way in helsinki there was also a story about me and several american colleagues. Putin told him that we allegedly in the some crazy theory had broken russian law regarding the wrongful death of Sergei Magnitsky and he wanted to interrogate us. The president believed him. The president believed him about montenegro. That sounded a lot like putin disinformation, and there was even this incredibly obscure story about revisionist history, about what the soveiate that sounds like another crazy Conspiracy Theory and the author is most likely Vladimir Putin. Again were hypothesizing here but based on evidence in front of us. We know they talk and World Leaders talk all the time. I want to wholly endorse talking, two World Leaders. Is it your hypothesis putin is just feeding on this stuff. Oh, you should ask about the server, the server is not there . Is that the kind of thing that would happen in a conversation between two world lead snrz. Ive been in meetings with Vladimir Putin many times when i served in the obama administration. He definitely pushes the envelope. He likes conspiracy theories. He likes to talk about secret information that only the fsb, the Success Organization of the kgb has acquired. And he takes good measures. Hes a former Counter Intelligence officer. After all he understands the weaknesses and straights of his interlockteres and theres a record of candidate trump, businessman trump spinning theories as he did about my former boss barack obama. So im sure he has decided this is way to use leverage and to make the president look back and to pull the president towards his side against people like you and me who are committed and trying to talk about facts. Theres an interesting story that relates to this in politico that the senate panel that looked into the russian interference and also ukrainian interference, alleged, came up short. Some republican senators recently questioned whether kiev tried to sabotage Donald Trumps campaign. Looked into the theory and found scant evidence to support it. Rachel maddow reporting the release of that part of the report is now being held up by the dnis office. Do you think that should come out . Of course i do because theres no theres no there there. We know the stories that have been spun out of control to say that theres a conspiracy. As you rightly pointed out theres no evidence whatsoever about crowd strike and the server and i just think that we need to have the facts out there because again this is also classic putin. Its information throwing out there to suggest there are no facts, there is no truth, its all relative. And then whataboutism . You throw it out there so were chasing this other weird thing. And whats surprising to me is that the president of the United States and many of his defenders are willing to chase these crazy theories. Anything that can be put on the record to disabuse us of those theories i think would be very welcome. How do you understand this relationship with putin . President obama met with him many times. First meeting was in july 2009, i was there. I think hes got a pretty good understanding of his motivations and what drives him. But president obama also has a commitment to facts and evidence and hypotheses tested with evidence. And number two when we went into those meetings president obama always had his advisers with him. Even obama is not capable of knowing everything about everything with respect to foreign policy. Thats a good idea. Its a bad idea to go into a meeting with Vladimir Putin oneonone for anybody, and i would say especially for somebody like President Trump whos eager to seek his favor. Remember thats the context within which theyre meeting. I think thats very dangerous. Michael mcfaul, thank you so much. Up next the brazen hypocrisy and the efforts to boot him out of office next year. His challenger in the great state of South Carolina joins me next. E great state of South Carolina joins me next grandson wow. grandfather that was me, seventy years ago. vo some things are worth preserving. You can choose the National Park foundation to get two hundred and fifty dollars from subaru when you get a new subaru, like the all new outback. vo 2 get 0. 9 on a new outback during the subaru share the love event. We need a solution. Ut their phones down. Introducing. Smartdogs. The first dogs trained to train humans. Stopping drivers from liking. Selfieing. And whatever this is. Available to the public. Never. Smartdogs are not the answer. But geico has a simple tip. Turn on do not disturb while driving mode. Brought to you by geico. The calming scent of lavender by downy infusions calm. Laundry isnt done until its done with downy. The idea of not being able to call witnesses is crucial. How would you like to do this show without guests . What if you sat here and read transcripts based on questions you asked, your ratings would go down. Could probably spend an entire hour just documenting the hilarious hypocrisy of republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on the impeachment trial process. He was famously a house manager during the clinton impeachment, and hes done basically a 180 on literally everything he said then on what constitutes an impeachment offense. Senator dpram is up for reelection next year and likely understands it plays well in a state where trumps Approval Rating is 52 . Politico reports rates the seat as republican and a rather interesting tidbit, senator grahams favorability rating was at 38 earlier this month, which is music to the ears of his likely democratic opponent jamie harrison. Hes the son of a single mother whose fam received food stamps and welfare as he grew up as a kid and went onto go to yale and georgetown university. And hes now running for senator grahams senate seat and he joins me now. Mr. Harrison, its good to have you. Lets start on this question of impeachment. What do you make of the flipflopping that the senator has done in his stances about witnesses and impartiality and the like . Its so sad, chris, to look at Lindsey Graham where he was and where hez now. Listen, at the end of the day senators take an oath to defend and protect the constitution of the United States, and very soon theyll take another oath of office of being an impartial juror. In my house we were taught you have to have strong values and integrity and that you kept your promises and you stood by your oath. But right now what were seeing with Lindsey Graham is that his word is like mud. There is no value. He doesnt keep it, and he wont keep that promise to the people of South Carolina, and he wont standby his oath of office. His oath of office and the oath hell take very soon. Do you understand, lots of republican senators apologize for President Trumps conduct. A lot of them do genuinely support him. I think some of them do genuinely like the guy. Senator graham was a really cutting critic of President Trump for a long time and now probably his most senatorial defender. What do you make of that . What is your understanding is why has been so outspoken in the president s defense . Well, part of it, chris, is Lindsey Graham is in for it for Lindsey Graham. Hes not doing it for President Trump or the people of South Carolina. Hes doing it for himself. He wants to be relevant. For him being relevant in washington, d. C. Is the most important thing. For me being relevant in South Carolina is the most important thing. There are people in this state suffering every day. There was an article today that talked about North Charleston being the city with the highest rate of evictions in the nation. Theres so many things, we have rural hospitals closing. Thats why we are building a movement focused on the people of South Carolina. This is senator we have who hasnt been back home in the state in almost three years to do a town hall, and so im asking everybody, you want to join me to send Lindsey Graham home, join me. Go to jamie harrison,. Com because we are building a movement to change the leadership we have in the state. Where are the votes, where the issues you think you would contrast with the record graham has amassed particularly in the trump era . There are so many issues. For health care, here we have four rural hospitals that are closed over the past few years. We have 12 counties in this state that have no ob gyns. Almost 300,000 people should have health care but republicans with the support of Lindsey Graham and you know how he came up with this bill, in a barbershop sitting with rick santorum. This guy is not someone we can take seriously. There should be a big flashing sign above Lindsey Grahams head that says voters beware. This guy doesnt keep his promises, standby his oaths and doesnt come to deal with the issues people are dealing with here in South Carolina. Im going to be different because im going to be focused like a laser on issues of South Carolina and making sure the American Dream is available for all of us. Thank you so much. Still ahead a huge smack down for trump as a major evangelical publication calls for him to be removed from office. Thats coming up. But first tonights thing 1 thing 2 is next. But first tonights thing 1 thing 2 is next. Mom, why do we always come here for the holidays . How did you find greatgrandmas recipe . Were related to them . Were portuguese . I thought we were hungarian . Grandpa, can you tell me the story again . Behind every question is a story waiting to be discovered. Behind every question man 1 vo proof of less joint pain woman 1 oc this is my body of proof. And clearer skin. Man 2 vo proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis. Woman 2 vo . With humira. 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And that provision was apparently a nonstarter for trump. The white house could have issued a public veto threat and raised the prospect of an imminent Government Shutdown in the days before democrat moved to impeach the trump. In the end democrats agreed to drop the offending lines and now the trump is in love with the bill. His tweet this morning, quote, i will be signing our 738 billion defense spending bill today. It creates space for border wall funding, repeals cadillac tax on health plans and everyone is happy about the smocking thing especially this guy. Thats thing 2 in 60 seconds. S. Thats thing 2 in 60 seconds if you were on twitter this morning you might have noticed an odd word trending, smocking. That was thanks to our president butchering the word smoking in a tweet he later deleted. Clearly the man just think its spelled smocking, but he is apparently raising the smoking age to 21, which i think is probably a good thing. Although not everyone is so excited about it. Take the senator from texas ted cruz who made his feelings about the bill pretty clear in a video he posted last night on twitter which look like one of those old beer commercials with the most insufferable man in world. So now our soldiers at ajt you can be drafted to go into war, you can be sent to the front lines, you can face machine gunfire. But god help you if you want to have a smoke. And this pile of trash belongs in an ashtray. Belongs in an ashtray. Doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. pirate girl ahoy excited squeal, giggling panting gotcha man ah girl nooooooooooooo man nooooo girl nooooo. vo quick, the quicker picker upper bounty picks up messes quicker, and is two times more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. man and pirate girl ahoy laughing vo bounty, the quicker picker upper. Billions of problems. Morning breath . Garlic breath . Stinky breath . Theres a therabreath for you. Therabreath fresh breath oral rinse instantly fights all types of bad breath and works for 24 hours. So you can. Breathe easy. Theres therabreath at walmart. Quitting smoking is freaking hard. St, like quitting every monday hard. Quitting feels so big. So, try making it smaller. And youll be surprised at how easily starting small. Can lead to something big. Start stopping with nicorette the front page of the Seattle Times and residents woke up to this morning. Quote, inquiry finds state lawmaker engaged in domestic terrorism. Thats a pretty memorable headline. Probably want to read that article. A 108page report commissioned by the Washington Statehouse of representatives found that state representative matt shay had been involved in not one, not two but three Armed Conflicts against the u. S. Government. Starting in 2014 with the standoff between rancher bundy and the bureau of management workers in nevada the report found that matt shay put out a social media call for militia members that resulted in, quote, turn out of approximately 115 armed members. And fast forward to idaho, Veterans Affairs workers were headed to the home of a veteran deemed ineligible to purchase firearms by a health care professional, and the report found shay participated in an operation that, quote, resulted in the use of armed militia members who blocked access to the Veterans Home and prevented the lawful retrieval of the guns. In 2016 when bundys sun amon led the take over of an oregon life refuge matt shay, quote, created a detailed military style operation plan entitled operation cool reality. Shays full ideology has been on full display for years now. Just last year he admitted to authoring an absolutely crazy document titled biblical basis for war which is basically a manifesto for christian holy war. Quote, if they do not yield kill all males. When that document came to light mat shea said it was just a summary of sermons on war in the bible, no big deal. But that is not how the republican sheriff of spokane county described the document. Quote, its a howto with of the christian identity arian nations movement. It was not until last night when that report was released that Washington State republicans decided to finally cut ties with shea calling on him to resign. Better late than never i guess. Better late than never i guess spread a little love today spread a little love myy way spread a Little Something to remember philadelphia cream cheese. Made with fresh milk and real cream makes your recipes their holiday favourites. The holidays are made with philly. May your holidays glow bright their holiday favourites. And all your dreams take flight. Lease the glc 300 suv for 439 a month with credit toward your first months payment at the mercedesbenz winter event. 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Text a friend. Call a cab. Share a ride. Whatever you choose to do, go safely, california. In poll after poll the biggest base of support for President Donald Trump comes from white evangelicals and yet many, many, many people have noted the inherent contradictions in people who prioritize biblical righteousness supporting someone as flagrantly godless and morally incontinent as donald trump. And yesterday that contention hit a snapping point for one of the most important publication in the evangelical world, christianity today. Published an editorial yesterday calling for the president s removal in the senate after his impeachment and saying, quote, to the many evangelicals who continue to support mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record we might say this, remember who you are and who you serve. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off mr. Trumps immoral words and behavior and the cause and political exspeediancy. That editorial crash the magazines website yesterday and now has people asking is this the start of something or just a one off . To help answer that question im joined by reverend jim wallace, author of the book christ in crisis, and ruth graham, wrote a piece titled trump is freaked out by christianity todays support for impeachment. I like your piece and youre a fantastic writer. What do you see as the significance of christianity today publishing this . I think this was a huge deal. I was stunned when i saw this appear online on thursday. And its not so much that anyone whos reading christianity today would be surprised this is what the editors thought, but it was really surprising to see them put it so forthrightly and so clearly in print. I think one of the most important things about this is that it opens up space for the significant probably minority, but a significant share of evangelicals who know that there is something, you know, profoundly uniquely wrong with this presidency and who havent you know when they looked around to see who are the loudest evangelicals sharing their voices, their opinions on trump right now, its not institutional like christianity today, not even some of the leaders who were opposed to trump during the primary. These are the voices that have been sort of the loudest clearest voices on trump. Meanwhile theres a lot of conversations. You know, im part of them and i hear them. Conversations going on from among, you know, who know somethings wrong but they havent seen it articulated this forthrightly by such a respected publication and really using evangelical language to make the case against trump. You know, jim, i was struck by how forthright and courageous in its own way. This is writing something you know your audience doesnt want to hear. I was struck that the editor who penned it is actually retiring. It reminds me a bit what happens to Senate Republicans right before they retire. What do you make of it . Ruth is right. This is i think a crack in the wall of white evangelical support for donald trump, and this crack could grow. Ive just been on a book tour in 27 cities including evangelical colleges and churches. And i love, chris, the way you read that line. Remember who you are and who you serve. This isnt finally just about politics, this is about jesus and the religious right, people ruth mentioned they have cashiered jesus and sold him out for donald trump in a transactional political deal. But weve been having conversations ability jesus all over the country. Who he is, what did he say, what are the questions he asked . And i think the wonderful thing here is evangelicals could come back to jesus in this crisis. And when the media says evangelicals they mean white evangelicals, you know that. And evangelicals of color have been against donald trump racial bigotry is a deal breaker for the gospel and white evangelicals havent said that, and they should have a long time ago. You just used the word transactional and the president s response to this which hes very enraged. The funniest part of his tweet aside from calling christianity today e. T. Was saying hes going to stop reading it. And i i had this lovely image of trump waiting for it latest issue to come out and decline to read it. But that bad transactional nature is understood on both sides. Thats whats so weird and corrupt and it seems to me not to outstep my lane godless about this. Like this is just transactional. Yeah, its so hilarious to see i think the cover story this month is on the virgin mary as like the first christian. Christianity today is not a terribly political magazine. Im a subscriber and its much more engaged with spiritual cultural things and trying to theres some tension there. I truly could not imagine donald trump reading christianity today in his spare time. Do you see this, jim, fundamentally as essentially the corrupt politics that keeps a city machine together. Its not ideological. Its you get something and we get something and thats the deal . Its actually a foisten bargain. Jesus said how do you treat the immigrants and how do you treat me, who is my neighbor, and what is truth . So im really proud of what he did because it isnt about politics for him. Its about i love that line where he says the country is in great moral and political danger because of the grossly immoral character of donald trump. And he must be removed from office because of a moral imperative, and in fact a matter of faith this is matter of faith. We all have to see this, 2020 as a matter of fate. A test of democracy, yes, but also a test of faith. And i think theres some good news today that some people are rediscovering jesus instead of how hes been sold out for a long time. Im saying its time to come back to jesus. Final question for you, if you talked about creating space, obviously no group is monolithic. What does that space, what does that look like you think those conversations as we get into the Election Year . I just think there are a lot of evangelicals who know because of what they hear in church, because of what they see when they read the bible, that the Trump Presidency poses a unique threat, an allegiance to trump, you know, the kind of slavish devotion that some faction of white evangelicals have hoen for trump that is going to be profoundly damaging to the christian witness. Frankly, it may be too late in a lot of quarters but there may be some way to rescue that. I think there are some people who have been voting republican now for generations at least hoyears, and so its a big deal to break from that, but i think theres starting to be this kind of challenge where people are seeing something needs to change. Reverend jim wallace and ruth graham, thank you both for joining us. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Have a spectacular weekend as we head into the holidays. I know youre looking forward to splitting wood with your family as am i. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour as well. Very happy to have you with us. I do hope you have a Great Holiday season looking ahead, it is the friday before christmas. That should mean that we no longer feel like were right in the middle of a news cycle, right, but the news gods scoff at such niceties these days. They care not for our