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 then reiterated that he is not impartial, despite the fact that he will literally have to swear to be impartial when he takes a special oath before the impeachment trial. The solemn constitutional duty. But mcconnell basically now is okay, the fix is in. Were just not even going to pretend to go through all the pomp and circumstance. Then in response House Speaker nancy pelosi said fine, im not going to send the articles of impeachment to the senate until you, Mitch Mcconnell, in the senate agree to set some guarantees for a fair trial. When asked if she is too afraid to send the articles over to Mcconnell Pelosi told politico today, fear is never a word used with me. I should know right away im never afraid and im rarely surprised. With all this still unresolved today Speaker Pelosi invited President Trump to give the state of a union speech february 4th. Probably not by chance she begins the invitation, quote, in their great wisdom our founders crafted a constitution based on a separation 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 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 The government was already in the midst of the longest shutdown in the nations history when pelosi rescinded her invitation to the president and sent trump through the roof. Remember that . It was clear then and clear now pelosi has trumps number psychologically. And ive got to say it appears to me that part of holding back the impeachment probably comes down to extracting some kind of psychological toll on the president. At one Level Holding back the articles of impeachment does seem kind of petty or small or not really clear what the endgame is. But on another level trump is someone so ruled by his grievances and very weird psychology that essentially trying to restrain his behavior via psychodrama is one of the only tools pelosi or anyone has left. The uncertainty is likely to be ironed out. It is still 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. And for the next few weeks until Congress Comes back from the recess hes just going to sit there and stew. Joining me for more on what happens next in the impeachment of President Trump one of the house chairs whos been investigating him, democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters of california. She is the chair of the House Armed 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 it 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 democrats 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 fanlee and papadopoulos 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 detrimental to us and disregarding the constitution altogether. And so yes, i started early, and i wanted to create this discussion. And i wanted us 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 started the discussion, i wanted to sound the alarm that wed 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 court case is now headed for the Supreme Court. Thats right. And i havent gotten a chance to talk to you since that happened about how you interpret the Supreme Court granting cert on that petition and what your expectation is of their case before the Supreme Court. Im extremely hopeful that based on what the lower courts have done that that should in some way influence what happens 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 that he possibly can not only to our subpoenas but hes directed all of those people who work with him and around him not to respond to our requests. 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 theyve got to respond and answer those subpoenas. This is going to be a very, very interesting case to see how that goes down. Yes, it is. Are you confident, finally, that there will be some resolution . I mean i asked hakeem jeffries, whos also a member of leadership, this question last night 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 that with that, rather. Are there going to be witnesses . Who are those witnesses going to be . Who on our team is best prepared to deal with crossexamining those witnesses . Right. 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. Be well. Joining me now for more on the political gray area on withholding articles of impeachment two people who have been following this very closely, New York Times columnist michelle goldberg. And and its interesting congresswoman waters made that point. Shes saying, look, this isnt some petty thing. Theres a legitimate question about what the trial looks like if there are witnesses or not. And i guess its true. If there are witnesses or not probably does play some role in drafting of the managers in terms of personnel. But it also seems that pelosi has his number and knows this will drive him crazy and one of the ways you deal with donald trump, its a sad state of affairs but it is what it is, but its you that deal with psychology. Right. 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. Its just kind of a check of the calendar that has led it to be this long stretch of time. 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 already basically talked about how hes going to fix this trial. And what they want to do is make it very short, call no witnesses, and essentially, you know, 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 you heard noises from somebody like 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 essentially is 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 just said in his tweet last night when he attacked pelosi, we were wronged in the house. He keeps going on, we never had any witnesses. You dont have to be a lawyer. 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. Mick mulvaney. If theres a guy who should be exculpatory it should be the guy whos literally your chief of staff. 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. Im like take your time. Go longer than christmas and new years because number one theres something to that. I agree. Number one, they should be doing that. Its a serious issue. Number two, yeah, because trump is losing his mind over this. And one thing, pelosi gets lots of praise from liberals about how shes handled this. One thing thats annoying know and i keep tweeting about 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 into impeaching him. Anyone including nancy pelosi thinks thats the case i dont think she believed it then. What she was trying to there was a school of thought even now some people today oh, hes going to be acquitted and this is going to help him in the election. Whether it helps him in the election is not a hatter. Hes clearly not enjoying this. That 6page letter this week was deranged even by deranged trumpian standards. As was the trump rally which was sort of unhinged even by i dont feel like ive been impeached yet. Unhinged. Facts dont care about your feelings. As it goes to the senate theres an oped today from jeff flake, former republican senator who, you know, sort of mildly would criticize the president , then he retired. And you know, its fine. It is what it is. All these people kind of when theyre out of the game they want to like get high and mighty. But he does have this line. He addresses it to his Senate Republican colleagues. And its just a simple point thats so obvious. He says my simple test for all of us what if barack obama had engaged in precisely the same behavior. I know the answer to that question with certainty and so do you. And thats just irrefutable. Theres not a person on earth on earth i dont think who can i think its refutable in the same way you showed that clip from Lindsey Graham talking about how you needed witnesses for the clinton impeachment. I think in their heart of hearts they do not believe republicans should be held to the same standard as democrats. Right . They cant make that argument publicly, but in a way that was the subtext, and i wrote about this. That was the subtext of them going on and on about the 63 million votes, someone think of the 63 million, lets have a moment of silence for the 63 million. Right . Iran herniate in that is that 63 million deserves a degree of deference that the 65 million who voted for Hillary Clinton dont. Right . 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. The president has unlimited power. When the president is a republican. Of course. But on the point about you said any person on earth. I actually interviewed a 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 jr. , that would be fine . That is the line theyre going to take if you push them because theyre shameless. But i think the most important point is democrats need a messaging strategy over this period which is this trial is rigged. Use trumps favorite word. It is rigged. The jurors have said that theyre not Lindsey Graham said it. Openly. I dont plan to be an impartial fair juror. As you point out rules going back to 1868 say you have to be an impartial juror. Or at least you have to swear to it. Pretend. Thats the thing thats so mcconnell goes on fox and says we will be coordinating with we wont pretend. So the jurors are telling people live on tv that were going to coordinate with the defendants every american understands thats mad. And theres also new polling out today that shows 51 support impeachment and removal. Again, thats quite high. And 70something want witnesses. Abcs polling had still a Strong Majority like we should have witnesses. I think it went down because it sounds like if you just kind of say it on a nonpartisan basis of course we want witnesses. Then they get the message people realize the republicans message or at least the is that the republicans message is no witnesses. Then a whole bunch i love when that happens. That happens in polling sometimes, like before the Message Machine catches up. Witnesses sound and then the messaging oh, no. Do you believe the crowd size at inaugurtrumps inauguration bigger than obamas . Then they see the photos and have a Great Holiday. You too. Theres new reporting tonight that suggests trump was sold the bizarre ukraine server Conspiracy Theory which in part led to his impeachment by Vladimir Putin himself. That story coming up in just two minutes. S. As soon as the homeowners arrive, well inform them that Liberty Mutual customizes home insurance, so theyll only pay for what they need. Your turn to keep watch, limu. Wake me up if you see anything. [ snoring ] [ loud squawking and siren blaring ] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. 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 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 forensics for the dnc to find out who hacked them. Theyre based in sunnyvale, 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 russian president Vladimir Putin himself helped spur belief of 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. Right . 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 . Where is 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 im joined by the former u. S. Ambassador to russia michael mcfaul, msnbc analyst. What went through your head when you read the Washington Post article and you read those quotes from senior officials including one saying the president told them putin told me . This is a pattern. This is not news. Weve known it. And thank you, chris, for going back to helsinki. And thank you, chris, for unpacking that phrase 2016, because when you dig into it as you just did you realize how incredibly crazy this story was. And that reflects i think on the president , that he could believe such a crazy story. But there is a pattern here. Remember in helsinki he stood right next to putin and said there was no interference, 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. Remember that story . When he said oh, world war 3 might start in montenegro. That sounded a lot like putin disinformation. And there was even this incredibly obscure story about revisionist history about what the soviets did in afghanistan that even for me as a stanford professor that follows this stuff pretty closely id never heard until donald trump said it. And i dont know for sure but that sounds like another crazy Conspiracy Theory, and the author is most likely Vladimir Putin. Again were hypothesizing here but were hypothesizing based on evidence in front of us. Right . The evidence. We know they talk and World Leaders talk all the time. And thats fine and they should, even if they have adversarial relationships they should talk. I want to wholly endorse talking, two World Leaders. Is it your hypothesis putin is just kind of feeding him this stuff . Basically oh, you should ask about the server, the servers not there. Is that the kind of thing that would happen in a conversation between two World Leaders . 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 Successor Organization to the kgb, has acquired. And he takes good measures. Hes a former counterintelligence officer. After all, he understands the weaknesses and strengths of his interlocutors. And theres a record of President Trump, candidate trump, businessman trump spinning conspiracy theories, as he did about my former boss, barack obama. So im sure he has decided this is a way to use leverage and to make the president look bad and to pull the president toward 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 in 2016. The gopled Intelligence Community 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 crowdstrike and the server and i just think that we need to have the facts out there because again this is also classic putin. Its disinformation 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 what is 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 Barack Obamas relationship with Vladimir Putin and how do you understand this president s relationship with Vladimir 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. His briefing sessions that i did with him were always very rigorous. And number two, when we went into those meetings, president obama always had his advisers with him. The president 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 one on one 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. Thanks for having me. Up next the brazen hypocrisy of senator Lindsey Graham on impeachment and the efforts to boot him out of office next year. His challenger in the great state of South Carolina joins me next. 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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 he has now basically done a 180 on literally everything he said then about what constitutes an Impeachable Offense and how to run an impeachment trial. Senator graham is up for reelection next year and likely understands that defending the president plays fairly well in a state where trumps Approval Rating is 52 . A politico reports rates the seat as solid 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 family received food stamps and welfare as he grew up as a kid and went on to 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 he is now. Listen, in the end of the day senators take an oath of office to 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 character and values, 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 stand by 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. Think hes a model. Senator graham is someone who was really a cutting critic of Donald Trumps for a very long time and is now probably his foremost senatorial defender. What do you make of that . What is your understanding of why has been so outspoken in the president s defense . Well, part of it, chris, is Lindsey Graham is in this 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 a 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 jamieharrison. Com. Because we are building a movement to change the leadership we have in the state. Where are the votes, where are issues where 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 have closed over the past few years. We have 12 counties in this state that have no ob gyns. Thats a huge issue. Almost 300,000 people should have health care but the republicans with the support of Lindsey Graham have refused to expand medicaid. Its a huge, huge issue in our state. And Lindsey Graham has proposed legislation, grahamcassidy. 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, he doesnt stand by his oaths, and he doesnt come back to deal with the issues that people are dealing with here in South Carolina. Im going to be different because im focused like a laser on the issues of South Carolina and making sure that the American Dream is available for all of us. All right. Jaime harrison running for that senate seat. Thank you, chris. Thank you so much. Still ahead, a huge smackdown for trump as a major evangelical publication calls for him to be removed from office. Thats coming up. But first tonights thing one, thing two is next. With advil liquigels, you have fastacting power over pain, so the whole world looks different. The unbeatable strength and speed of advil liquigels. What pain . Motor . Nope. Not motor . Its pronounced motaur. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. For those who were born to ride, 1 in 5 people you meet wear yeah. That many but right now, is not the time to talk about it. So when youre ready, search my denture care. Poligrip and polident. Fixed. Fresh. And just between us. 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. Woman 3 vo humira targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. Its proven to help relieve pain, stop further irreversible joint damage, and clear skin in many adults. 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There was a standoff because democrats were initially considering language in the bill requiring prompt release of future military aid for ukraine. And that provision was apparently a nonstarter for trump. As the post put it, the white house could have issued a public veto threat and raised the prospect of an imminent Government Shutdown in the days before democrats 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 will include 12 weeks paid parental leave, gives our troops a raise, importantly creates the space for southern border wall funding, repeals cadillac tax on health plans, raising smocking age to 21 big. It is big. Not everybodys so happy about the smocking thing. Especially this guy. Thats thing 2 in 60 seconds. Point guard if you were on twitter this morning you might have noticed an odd word trending, smocking. That was thanks to our president completely butchering the spelling of the word smoking in a tweet he later deleted. Its not actually the first time hes misspelled the word smoking. 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 looked like one of those old beer commercials with the most insufferable man in the world. So now our soldiers at age 18, you can be drafted to go into war, you can be sent to the front lines, you can face machine gun fire. But god help you if you want to have a smoke. And this pile of trash belongs in an ashtray. Hantix can help yu quit slow turkey. 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Starting in 2014 with the standoff between Rancher Cliven Bundy and the bureau of Land Management workers in nevada the report found that matt shay put out a social media call for militia members that resulted in, quote, turnout of approximately 1500 armed militia members. And fast forward to 2015 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 wildlife refuge matt shea, created a detailed militarystyle operation plan entitled Operation Cold reality. But heres the thing. Sheas extreme 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 matt 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. It is a howto manual consistent with the ideology and operating philosophy of the christian identity Aryan Nations movement. Despite the fact that matt sheas views are well known, 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. Cut. Liberty mu. Line . Cut. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Cut. Liberty m. Am i allowed to riff . What if i come out of the water . Liberty biberty. Cut. Well dub it. 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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 expediency. 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. There is no real upside. 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 about 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 of course. 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 and recline to read it. It is so preposterous. 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. Which makes it is so significant. It has so mitch impact. Im a subscriber. It has so much impact. Im a subscriber. And much more engaged with spiritual, cultural things, and trying to engage with politics. Much like billy graham, engaged with politics but somewhat removed. There is 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. Its actually the worst kind of transactional. It is compromise with evil. Jesus said how do you treat the immigrants and how do you treat me, who is my neighbor, and what is truth . These are questions to assess. So mark, im really proud of what he did, because it isnt about politics for him. 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 shown for trump, that this 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 40 years, and so it is 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. May you split many logs. You too, my friend. Thanks. 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 holidays. I mean everythings got to happen some time, right . Why not now . It was only two days ago nancy pelosi impeached donald trump. She used the gavel to note that the articles of impeachment against President Trump had passed. It was two days ago. Today she invited him to deliver the state of the union address, which is awkward timing, but you know what, its also time for it. And while it is not unimaginable there might be some sort of drama or some