Transcripts For MSNBCW AM Joy 20190921

Ukraine to investigate joe bidens son according to people familiar with the matter. Urging vladimir about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani on a probe that could hamper trumps potential 2020 opponent. The Washington Post about an hour later matched that reporting saying the phone call between the two leaders is at the center of the whistle blower complaint. The New York Times reported a slightly different version of the story saying trumps conversation with the ukranian president regarding biden is only part of the whistle blower complaint. They have not confirmed any details that the complaint involved a phone call with a foreign leader. One thing is crystal clear, donald trump as both a candidate and as president has welcomed and even solicited Foreign Campaign help. And now hes doing it again through his personal attorney are y Rudolph Giuliani who couldnt seem to stop himself from admitting it on television 30 seconds after denying it. Did you ask the ukraine to investigate joe biden . No, actually you never asked fig about hunter biden, anything about joe biden . The only thing i asked about joe biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that the so you did ukraine to look into joe biden. Of course i did. You just said you didnt. You want to some ridiculous charge that i did it well im proud of it. Was dths trying to buy the 2020 election using military military aide as an incentive to pressure a country that remains under threat from russia which was so determined to control ukraine it invaded its territory and seized control of crimea and occupies it to this day. The New York Times says questions have emerged about whether trumps inquiry into the biden was behind a week long white house hold on military aid from ukraine. The United States suspended the military aid to ukraine in early july. Trump did not discuss the aid in that july 25th call with the ukranian president and kif did not learn about the suspension of the trade until august. But a lot remains unclear here. For one, why did that aid get held up . Did the president intend to use the delay to pressure the ukranian president to help him get dirt on biden . And back to the person who got ustion here in the first place, the still unnamed whistle blower, its unclear what recourse this person has now since instead of the normal process trumps acting director of National Intelligence took the whistle blowers urgent concerns to the white house first. And now the protection that theyre supposed to be afforded under the law is in the hands of that very same director of National Intelligence. And trumps con ciliary attorney general william barr, so is there anyone else that can protect this whistle blower . Congress maybe . Well, here was House Committee intelligence chair adam schiff on thursday. A lot of people have been speculating, does this involve a president ial communication, does it not and if it does doesnt the president have the right to be confidential. This involves an allegation of serious wrong doing. I want to say to the whistle blower if the whistle blower is watching you tonight that we are grateful for their courage in coming forward. We are going to do everything we can to make sure this urgent issue is addressed and that you are protected. Joining me now is johna mendez. Former cia chief of disguise and author of the moscow rules. Its good to talk to you again. Lets start with the time line on what we know happened between donald trump and ukraine. Theres this phone call between trump and the ukranian president. Dan coats announces his resignation. Dni coats interrupts a meeting on august 8th to tell the deputy dni gordon that she should resign. Deputy dni gordon does resign the next day. An august 12th this whistle blower complaint gets filed. Then in late August Donald trump with holds this Ukraine Military aid thats intended to protect them from russia. The house then launches an investigation into that and suddenly three days after that the hold on ukraine aid is lifted. What do you make of this whole series of events . And keeping if mind that this whis blower is a unknown person but this is what the media is putting together about what this complaint is about. Reporter i have to you this through the lens of someone who spent 27 years at the cia and the thing that caught my eye instantly was dan coats resignation follow by sue gordon. The fact that dan coats said into a meeting and said sue, youve got to resign and that she did truncating a career that clearly hadnt reached its zenith. This was clearing the decks h the Intelligence Community, taking the top man out and his deputy out, giving trump an opportunity to select and choose another acting head of a huge organization. The Intelligence Community, 17 separate organizations that report to trump and that is the heart of where the truth lies. Now theres an acting director in charge of that who of course has taken charge of this whistle blower information and refused to release it to the congress. And just to note, roll back just a little bit for people who dont understand what the director of National Intelligence is. It didnt exist before 9 11. Can you explain what it is and what it does. What the dni the director of National Intelligence does is he coordinates all the intelligence agencies and there are 17 of them. Most of them military organizations have their own. Theres nsa, theres ciadia is the department of army intelligence. Its this wide range of points of view and abilities to collect intelligence. And at the dni level they bring that intelligence together and come up with what is basically a product. Its not an easy job. And first of all, the person thats in it right now is acting. Right . So theres not even a person in the job perm nntly but would it have been appropriate for dni having gotten from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community this urgent whistle blower complaint to stall it out. I think it was about a month before anything was done with it. But in the interim, would it have been appropriate for the acting dni to take that complaint and pass it through the white house which seems to be the subject of the complaint beforehanding it over to congress and now handing it over to congress. It defies logic that you would take the charges and present them to the person thats being charged and ask them if they thought this was, you know, a proper process. Thats not how these things work. Its its so transparent what seems to be happening here and i cant believe that the American People cant see through this fog and this smoke and these mirrors and see whats pret few clear is happening. Let me read the acting dnis letter to the House Intelligence Committee which again under the law, the law of the land should have already received this whistle blower complaint. There should have been nothing standing between the congress and getting this complaint. This is the letter that the acting dni sent. Because the disclosure in this case did not concern allegations of conduct by a member of the Intelligence Committee or involve an intelligence activity under the dni supervision we determined after consulting with the department of justice that no statute requires disclosure of the complaint to the Intelligence Committee. Does that make any sense to you that this acting dni would first of all go to Donald Trumps man in the department of justice, his guy who is acting in every way, check with him and then determine that they do not have to follow this law . Does that letter make any sense to you sf. My understanding is that department of justice has no place in this process as as the law has been written. It should go to the ig at the dnis office and if he believes that it is urgent and it is critical, he forwards it directly to congress. I think i think the fact that he was acting and that he was new in that position and once he realized who the main subject of this this charge was, he probably hesitated when he should not have hesitated. I dont believe he should have hesitated. I have everyone i know who knows this mcguire seems to think really highly of him. Seems to me that hes in a position where he he wasnt able to show the kind of courage that say a dan coats would have shown. Yeah. And lets go now to the ak sul substance of what we are discussing here and this is what ukraine needs from us which is military aid that was held up. Suddenly out of nowhere it suddenly goes through when Mitch Mcconnell whos been mocked as moscow mitch suddenly out of nowhere backs the 50,3 million and it goes through. You have giuliani then pictured, and this is him at the Trump International hotel of all places next to a guy who is a ukranian businessman with whom giuliani has been working and you then also have and this is a report in the daily beast, im sorry to my producers. Im jumping around. Its from daily beast that ukraine has said theyre ready to investigate bidens son if asked officially and i asked a former u. S. Ambassador to russia about that and he said the United States is a powerful country. If a request just cant be ignored. What do you make of the substance of this, that it seems that donald trump is soliciting dirt on joe bidens family from a country thats at risk from russia . Yes, he is. You know, first of all, Rudy Giuliani shouldnt have should have no role in this scenario. Hes a civilian. Hes the personal lawyer of the president of the United States. He shouldnt be going out to foreign governments representing our government and then he comes back and hes at state Department Briefing them on where hes been and what hes done. He is hes in the wrong place and hes in the wrong position and donald trump, i cant believe that he doesnt pull him out of that position. In terms of what happens after that, it seems that our government, the weak links in our government are now being exposed. I dont believe who the people that wrote the rules that govern how Something Like this is handled ever thought that the president of the United States would be so corrupt that he could break through these barriers that had been set up. So now fruns, the Justice Department, which would be one place that you cod could look for a solution, the justice solution is not a department of justice anymore. Its Donald Trumps Justice Department. If you go to the to the Congress Looking for some reenforcements, you find that even though the house will will put together the evidence and forward it, the the senate will not will not allow it to go forward. What does that leave you . That leaves you maybe with the courts and the courts are very slowly but surely being filled up with trump appointees. This structure is being disassembled brick by brick. I believe its a little frightening. And we know that Andrew Mccabe was punished by donald trump, former fbi director by being fired such that he would lose his pension we know that donald trump drove out his first attorney general for having the nerve to recuse himself according to the law in every norm. So we know that retribution is possible. Very quickly, could this person potentially come forward . Could they be prosecuted if they just came forward and said this is what i saw and did and went to the press or went to congress directly . My reading of the the rules right now would tell me that that whistle blower should be very worried about being exposed as a whistle blower. There can be enough blow back to him that he would regret what he had done and he would stifle every other whistle blower that might have similar stories in the future or even tomorrow, theyre going to think twice before they try and bring them forward. Before i let you go i want to play joe bidens response to all of this. Wait a second. Not one single credible outlet has given any credibility to his assertion. Not one single one. And so i have no comment except the president should start to be president. Thank you very much for your time. Stay right there for if rest of you because we are going to continue with what the president is doing with that comment right after this break. With that comg after this break dramatic orch performance comes in lots of flavors. Theres the ampedup, overtuned, feedingfrenzyof sheetmetalkind. 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Donald trump was golfing during the time earlier this month when the white house said he wouldnt travel to poland for a world war ii commemoration because he needed to monitor Hurricane Dorian so it was mike pence who traveled to poland and took what was planned to be a president to president meeting with the recently elected leader of ukraine. So with ukraine at the center of the whistleblower complaint that is sparking fresh calls for impeachment, could pence be as much in the barrel as trump . Joining me now, joyce vance, former u. S. Attorney and msnbc contributor and National Correspondent for politico. I want to play for you senator chris murphy who was on with Andrea Mitchell on friday talking about the Rudy Giuliani part of this and i want to circle back to pence. Take a listen. Giuliani on behalf of the president has been very clear that hes trying to get the ukranians to meddle in the election. The president of ukraine also was concerned about why the security aid was being cut off and even if there wasnt this explicit promise made that if you investigate biden well give you your aid, that certainly was the impression amongst many in ukraine who couldnt help but connect these demands they were getting from the political representatives to investigate his opponents and the sudden surprising cutoff of security aid. So natasha, heres the thing about that quote and also what weve heard from both Rudy Giuliani and we just heard from mike pence. If there was if Rudy Giuliani was in theory making the pitch about investigating biden, it doesnt seem that there would be much reason for pence to do it as well. But pence said no, that he did not discuss joe biden during the meeti meeting. The answer to his second part it was but we with the president yesterday we discussed americas support for the ukraine and the upcoming decision the president will make on the latest Financial Support in great detail. So he talked about the money that was being with held by the Trump Administration. Any reporting on whether or not this was simply a bifurcation of resources, its pence thats there to deliver the message for money . Yeah, we dont have any reporting to that effect yet, but it would be shocking obviously if mike pence wasnt aware of the president s disdain for the ukranians and that goes back a long time. He thought they helped Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election and he has said to aids that he believes the ukranians have been against him. That factors in his admiration for Vladimir Putin. Putin is supporting the eastern ukranians in their fight and anything that the president does that undermines their security and their ability to push back against russia is essentially another aid to Vladimir Putin. Now, with regard to the military assistance aid, the timing on that is a bit unclear because the aid was held up in about july. The ukranians didnt really learn that the aid was held up until august so when President Trump had that conversation with the ukranian president on july 25th its not clear they knew at that point that the aid was being held up but the president did and so when he was talking to the ukranian president about his desire to see them look into joe biden, he knew that he had that stick. And the ukranians i want to emphasize, they seem to see right through this. A top ukranian official told the day by beast, we know exactly whats going on here. Its clear that the president is upset about his Campaign Manager Paul Manafort being in prison, you know, Paul Manafort w he joe biden is a threat to his presidency and his 2020 reelection campaign. So unless theres a formal request from the president to the ukranians will be public and the president has to justify asking for that the ukranians have said were not going to play ball here. I want to put up the timeline. This july 25th phone call between trump and the ukranian president that is what perhaps what triggered the whistleblower complaint. Then you go on. You have coats resigning. We just heard that was alarming. That raised alarms among intelligence professionals. Then the deputy dni told to resign, she does resign. Then the whistleblower complaint filed on august 12th. Then you have trump with holding that aid in late august but ukraine may not have even known about it. Then this investigation is launched in september and then you have the hold lifted with Mitch Mcconnell just now on this past thursday changing his mind and backing 250 million sorry. Thats separate from that. Sorry about that. So you have the hold lifted on september 12th. Let me go to you on this very quickly, joyce, because heres the question for mike pence. Mike pence has been sort of severed from all of the other questions that are relating to potential impeachment for donald trump, that the house is wrestling with right now, but if pence as natasha said wept in knowing why the aid was being held up. Went in and spoke to the leader of ukraine knowing what stick the administration had over them, and in that way was drawn in to this idea of using that stick to try to get what they wanted from ukraine, does he then face the jeopardy of perhaps also being drawn in to the questions of impeachment . You know, joy, i think the short answer, like natasha said is theres not any reporting on this yet and that should be really troubling to all of us. Because pence shows up on your timeline at a key point and we need to know the answer to that question because if the answer is yes, that pence was explicitly part of some sort of a scheme to either bribe or extort the ukranians then the American People need to know that and Congress Needs to take appropriate action. So the troubling question here is with the Justice Department thats apparently sidelined or per happened actively in cahoots with the white house who does that investigation. That falls to congress, congress isnt getting a lot of coop railt rati ration out of the white house and we need to call this what this is. This is a major threat to the rule of law. People in Congress Need to set aside their political affiliation and get to the bottom of this because we have a president and now possibly a Vice President both involved in criminal activity. We need some answers. Real quick question for you. But joyce, could Congress Protect this whistleblower, thats one, and number two, could william barr potentially indict this whistleblower because its not you know, we dont though whether donald trump knows this whistleblowers identity but if its come up hes already called this person partisan. Could this person face indictment and could Congress Protect them from it . Its a troubling question and rick said yesterday on Nicole Wallaces show that the country owes a debt of gratitude to the whistleblower, thats true. They came forward as a great personal risk. As long as they stay within the strict confines of activity that the whistleblower statute and the regs permit them to take they shouldnt be at risk. But we know thats not how trump world works. I think it will be difficult for congress to protect this person. I think congress will bend over backward to do that. You believe aits the Washington Post reported that an aide is reported as saying russia will be our friend and who cares about what happen to ukraine. So this is potentially trying to clear the ukraine issue so that the ties could then be relaxed. As we know Vladimir Putin is in the president s ear a lot more often than we are, you know, ever public aaware of. Sometimes we get readouts of phone calls with the president and putin days after the russians have already issued their version of the readout. So i think is definitely possible that we are seeing the influence here of putin on trump yet again combined with trumps already, you know, already ingrained hatred of the ukranian and their alleged help to Hillary Clinton in 2016. I think its a recipe for disaster. Thank you very much. Always gad to talk to you. Thank you. The state of new york is going after Donald Trumps taxes. Well tell you about that next. T were pretty different. Were all unique in our own ways. Somos muy diferentes. Muy diferentes. vo verizon knows everyone in your family is different. There are so many of us doing so many different things. vo thats why verizon lets everyone mix and match different unlimited plans. Sebastians the gamer. Sebastian. vo so everyone gets what they need without paying for things they dont. The plan is so reasonable, they could stay on for the rest of their lives. Aww, did you get that on camera . Thanks, dad vo switch now to verizon. New plans start at just 35. Thats our lowest price for unlimited, ever. The network more people rely on gives you more. A lot of folks ask me why their dishwasher doesnt get everything clean. I tell them, it may be your detergent. Thats why more dishwasher brands recommend cascade platinum. Its speciallydesigned with the soaking, scrubbing and rinsing built right in. 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Thats why were working on ways to improve it. So plants. Can be a little more. Like plants. Senator cori booker, confirming his Campaign Manager wrote a memo to the staff telling he may be dropping out. We need to raise 1. 7 billion to be in a position to build the organization we need to compete for the nomination and we can do it but if we dont we dont see a legitimate longterm path forward. Booker has managed to gain significant traction in iowa, but he lags behind in the polls. Booker already a guest on politics nation with al sharpton tonight and tonight the fight to get Donald Trumps tax returns and the bizarre and unprecedented response from his attorneys. S attorneys. [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this, this, and even this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair while i clean. [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. Award winning interface. Award winning design. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. Our most awarded luxury suv. Now the manhattan d. A. So this is a never ending hunt of and its the hunting of the president. Its actually gotten constitutional proportions. So a president cannot possibly be subjected to every how does he do his job with this and hes doing a great job but how do you do it. Thats the reason why you cant indict a sitting president because the president s got to be able to do his job and if a political witch hunt starts trump attorney and royal footman Rudy Giuliani who i will remind you was once an associate attorney general during the reagan administration, and was the u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york continues to pawn the unheard of narrative that donald trump because he is president is literally above the law. This view of president ial power hinted at throughout the careers of men like attorney general william barr who is now in his infamous and unsolicited audition letter wrote that president s cannot be investigated for actions theyre permitted to take such as firing officials who work for them based on their subjective state of mind. Now just the official view not just of giuliani and barr but trumps legal team. Sitting president s are immune from all criminal inquiries until they leave the white house. Meaning even criminal investigations are off the table. Just the investigations. The lawsuit was filed in response to a subpoena to trumps Accounting Firm seeking eight years of trumps tax returns as part of the investigation into hush money payments made if advance of the 2016 election. Joining me now to discuss this claim is Timothy Obryan and professor at the new school. Luckily we have a law professor on hand. Lets play once again the President Trump famous i could shoot somebody quote. Do we have it . Okay. Okay. Well keep moving. We know that President Trump said i could shoot somebody in the middle of 5th avenue and nothing would happen to me and what he said was i wouldnt lose any votes but what were now seeing is his lawyers are saying effectively and this is from the maddow blog, this is the maddow blog quote. Trumps attorneys are of the opinion that if the president did stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody there would be no way to hold him accountable so long as the president is in office. Its an argument that a sitting president is not just immune from prosecution but no government oversight. Is that not a king . No, thats a dictator. Just to be clear, i think it literally is a dictator because its a level of above the law that says no accountability whatsoever which which is not what the constitution says. Weve had this discussion, joy, i wont go back over it but remember that there are legal scholars that argue well, actually if the president shot someone in the Street Congress would impeach him. I think the problem we have with our system is theres a real question about whether the republicans would agree to impeach under any circumstances. I mean, the kinds of things that weve been seeing come up in the news over the past three years are things that would have led to a bipartisan impeachment inquiry and thats not what were seeing. Yeah, let me play because speaker of the house bwho gets lot of abuse on social media from democrats on not being in favor, not advocating for impeachment, here she is on all Things Considered and this was on friday. And this was post the news of this whistleblower coming forward and expressing real Grave National security concerns about this president. Take a listen. Our founders could never suspect that a president would be so abusive of the constitution of the United States that the separation of powers would be irrelevant to him and that he would continue any president would continue to with hold facts from the congress which are part of the constitutional right of inquiry. I do think that we will have to pass some laws that will have clarity for future president s. The president should be indicted if hes committed of wrong doing. So i i noted that the three words in that for future president s. The idea that one would have to pass a law for future president s to make sure that they dont abuse the constitution and abuse the law and ignore congress. But that essentially says that this president will be allowed to do it and then there will be some preventative measure in the future but wasnt what the founders anticipated was this could happen and impeachment is written into the constitution as a remedy. Absolutely. Whatever side of the argument about criminal indictment, any legal scholar is on, everyone says that the remedy is impeachment and so if if congress and the problem with what nancy pelosi is saying right now is, what shes saying is the constitution and a founders said we have oversight as congress. Its our job, its our job under the constitution and yet, for political reasons, we will not uphold the principle and we will not use what everyone agrees, every legal scholar agree Social Security an indisputable way in which we hold the president accountable. Thats astounding. Yeah, and tim, you know, the way that donald trump as our trump whisperer here, the way hes been able to work this game of being automobile to cheat and still win is by aggressive pushback against the rules and by corrupting other people. Right . The history is that hell just corrupt other drn at this point donald trump has so stacked the courts in his favor, a federal judge and the first name is morris son england jr. And our producer can lack up who appointed him, just overturned a law in california that would have required trump to disclose his tax returns in order to be on a president ial primary ballot. Thats gone. Trump has sued a lot. House ways and Means Committee are investigating him. House oversight committee, his own Accounting Firm to make them not turn over his texas returns and california. The late Wayne Barrett who was one of the first reporter to dig into donald trump said that donald trump is a user of users. Donald trump is a guy who pulls people in like roy cone, people who are used to manipulating others and then is able to manipulate them himself. He did that in new york politics and real estate for decades. I think whats interesting now is hes on this National Stage and hes surround by a group of people who wanted a group of people and probably never anticipated someone entering that vacuum like donald trump who is not only happy to accumulate the power but had absolutely no sense of having any boundaries around it including whether or not he was breaking the law. And the person, judge morrison is a Bush Administration appointee and we know the Bush Administration is the first time i heard this unitary executive. This is a belief that the president has absolute power and that no one can check that power even the article 1 power congress. Do we have the sound byte of donald trump saying we have this article . Because donald trump seems to have been told because i doubt hes ever read the constitution. Hes somebody whos been learning on the job, but hes not been able to focus on things that require team work, but Foreign Policy, National Security, and then the parameters of his own office, hes run right in that direction. Yeah. The unitary presidency isnt a new concept. Looking at the nn presidency, trump is the full blown realization of that. Its monarchy. Well get more of their wisdom and more a. M. Joy after this break. Wisdom and more a. M. Joy after this break lets be honest, you need insurance. But its not really something you want to buy. Its not sexy. Oh delicious. Or delicious. Or fun. But since you need both car and home insurance, why not bundle them with esurance and save up to 10 . Which you can spend on things you really want to buy, like ah well i dont know what youd wanna buy cause im just a guy on your tv. Esurance. Its surprisingly painless. So, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. 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Five million kids now using ecigarettes. The fda said juul ignored the law with Misleading Health claims. Now juul is pushing prop c, to overturn san franciscos ecigarette protections. Say no to juul, no to big tobacco, no to prop c. It is a very, very dangerous time, and theres really no oversight that can fix it, theres no judicial means to stop him. The only way is through impeachment, and i think this report just puts the onus really front and center in front of the house of representatives to take those articles up. That was former Justice Department spokesperson matt miller on the Rachel Maddow show with me last night making clear that of all the potential impeachable offenses against donald trump, it really doesnt get any worse than what was revealed by a National Security whistleblower this week. Trump, not just per the whistle blower but also according to his own attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is literally doing the same thing the Mueller Report says he did for russia, soliciting help for a reelection from a foreign country, in this case, ukraine, a country that has part of its territory under Russian Occupation right now as we speak. In an op ed for the Washington Post, former acting solicitor general neil cottal and james conway, lawyer and husband of Kellyanne Conway wrote that if trump did that it would be the ultimate impeachable act, unlike the allegations of conspiracy with russia before the 2016 election, these concern trumps actions as president , not as a private citizen, and his exercise of president ial powers over Foreign Policy with ukraine. Moreover, with russia, at least there was an attempt to get the facts through the mueller investigation. Here, the white house is trying to shut down the entire inquiry from the start, depriving not just the American People, but even congressional Intelligence Committees of necessary information. And yet, on friday, when House Speaker nancy pelosi was confronted with all of the outrage surrounding trump and the whistleblower complaint that his administration continues to withhold from congress, in violation of the law, by the way, she still didnt budge. You are describing potential acts of lawbreaking. And many people will hear that and say, if congress does not pursue impeachment, does it forever change the standard of what is acceptable behavior by any president . I dont know about lawbreaking. I said, we dont have the information. I dont want to suggest that i said that, because we dont have the information. And while others may speculate, i have to go on the basis of the law and the facts, and thats where decisions will be made. So, why, even with peoples heads literally exploding, that trump is now committing the same collusion Robert Mueller and his investigators found, but this time as president , why wont democratic Leadership Support his impeachment . Now, as ive said before on this show, it comes down to the numbers, to the question of whether pelosi has the democratic votes to get an impeachment through the house and the fact that the speakers clear, sole concern is keeping the House Majority in democratic hands, and that means her only focus is those conservativeleaning House Democrats who won in trump districts, and whether they will give her the votes. Even now with trump defying congress, defying the law, and in the position to meet out retribution to this whistleblower through his con ciglary in the Justice Department, attorney general william barr. We on the show reached out to a number of conservative democrats, some of whom are on the record opposing impeachment and some who are not either way, to see if they would come to the show today, come on the air and answer the question of whether on this issue that is about National Security, which presumably is important to them and their rightofcenter constituents, whether they would now give their party the votes on impeachment. They all declined to come on the show. And by the way, any moderate or conservative democrat whos willing to explain to our viewers why they dont support the House Judiciary Committees impeachment inquiry, in the face of alarms about our National Security raised about the president of the United States from within the Intelligence Community, they are always welcome to come on this show and explain their opposition. They can actually call in right now, because the question is, if National Security is not compelling enough to garner enough democratic votes for impeachment of this president , if defying congress and defying the law are not enough, well, then, what is . Joining me now is nbc political contributor timothy l. Obrien, msnbc contributor and former u. S. Attorney barbara mcquade, jeff houser, founder and director of the revolving door project, msnbc contributor and former u. S. Attorney joyce vance, and jill wine banks, former assistant Watergate Special prosecutor. Im going to start where i ended, with Jill Winebanks. In the case of richard nixon, when impeachment was upon him, it doesnt seem to me that the primary question was whether or not impeachment would change the configuration of the United States house of representatives, but that seems to be where we are now. So, in your mind, does that mean that the entire process here, whether or not the presidency becomes essentially a monarchy is this really, literally, now in the hands of some 20 or so conservative democrats, or should the speaker simply ignore them, override them, and proceed forward to impeachment . I think the speaker should proceed, not because of the reasons youre saying but because she may lose a lot of standard, base democrats who are fed up and who think that if we as democrats cant stand up to the lawless nature of this presidency, then whats the point of being democrats . We have the power now. We have the House Majority now, and we are empowering donald trump to continue his lawless behavior, and were sending a message to any future potential criminal president s that its okay that you can get away with it, and thats wrong. During watergate, we did have bipartisan support. It was a different era. We didnt have fox news creating a bubble, and there were people who agreed on the facts, and the facts were very clear, as they seem to be here. Now i want to hear all the facts, but i think you have a pattern now of total stonewalling by this administration of congress. Congress is being stonewalled and cannot get its constitutional responsibility fulfilled until they get the documents that they have asked for, the witnesses they have asked for. We need that. You have a whistleblower who wants to come forward. Let him come forward, or her. And you know, by the way, just for our audience, just to remind you, the first president impeached, Andrew Johnson, was impeached for denying congress, just that alone, on one law. Jeff houser, i want to go to you on this because youve written about learned helplessness among the Democratic Party, which is not just the Opposition Party in the house its not just the Majority Party in the house, its actually the Majority Party in the country. So, the majority of the country when polled says that they believe donald trump did what mueller said he did, right, that he did commit these offenses that he did include with russia, that he is corrupt, he is lawless and so that is not the question. The majority agrees with that. But you have and im going to go back to these democrats for just a moment, because you know, its fine to criticize the speaker for this, but shes not alone in opposing impeachment. There are some conservative democrats and im going to read a couple op eds. This is before the whistleblower thing came out. Heres max rose of new york, from a conservative district in new york. And he wrote an op ed, why i oppose trump impeachment. He writes, i fear the Democratic Party is now at risk of repeating a similar baitandswitch mistake that republicans have by focusing on impeachment instead of infrastructure, Health Care Costs and putting people to work with livable wages and benefits. This is another new york rep, anthony ren deedisi, who oppose impeachment. He writes i think its a mistake for us to pursue impeachment. Voters in my district are pushing to get something done on infrastructure, on Health Care Costs, you name it, and i think its going to be a distraction over the next few months and is not a winning message for 2020. Jeff, these guys are essentially saying that their voters want them to do deals with donald trump. While you have someone in the Intelligence Committee saying that donald trump is a potential threat to our National Security and thats been said for quite a long time. You have 1,000 districts attorney saying he committed a crime in terms of obstruction of justice. How do you square some democrats being dead set against holding this president accountable and preferring to get him somehow to sign laws that they think Mitch Mcconnells going to pass with them . Democrats are always afraid of doing something that will contribute to a backlash against them. They think doing things will backfire, and so they try to do only the most modest steps, only the most obviously super popular steps and they never think they can take control of politics and change peoples minds. Whats amazing is that democrats keep talking about how they should talk more about health care. And of course, they passed bills and Mitch Mcconnell wont give them a vote, and thats why those message bills about democrats ideas on health care are going nowhere. But we also know that President Trump has bragged about how he is undermining the Affordable Care act. Undermining the law of the land is a, as you mentioned earlier, the type of thing that Andrew Johnson was impeached for. So if democrats want to have a conversation about trumps lawlessness and also want to talk about health care, they have an obvious opportunity to do so. They can talk about how trump is violating the law of the land, the Affordable Care act. But right now nancy pelosi and the Democratic Party, including but not limited to moderates, is unwilling to take any risks and are seen as the public as a capital claiting Political Party that is timid and doesnt believe their own rhetoric about trumps lawlessness, and i think that breeds cynicism and is ultimately bad politics as well as bad for the country. I want to come to the table. I have two people who know donald trump, first of all, we have the advantage of that on our panel, but also understand the politics of this and youre a political consultant, so you can understand sort of that dynamic. It does feel that democrats general strategy writ large is hide in the curtains, that maybe if people dont see us, maybe if were really quiet and really nice, then maybe republicans will be nice to us and let us do things. And then they run into the brick wall of people like Mitch Mcconnell who says, you will do nothing, you wont even put a Supreme Court justice on, you get nothing. The other side doesnt come back toward them. They simply belittle them and further marginalize them, even when they have a majority in the house. And so, is there a risk that democrats at this point look like theyre hiding in the curtains from donald trump, rather than confronting a clear risk to the country . I think within the democratic base, i think a large majority of the base is frustrated, is angry because they want to see the democrats be stronger, they want to see the democrats fight. Now, thats not to say that some democrats arent doing that, but they want to see it as a whole happen. They want to see leadership do this. Now, i want to go back to what your guest just said, because he made some excellent points and i couldnt agree more with what he said. So, in terms of infrastructure, President Trump right now is singlehandedly blocking one of the most important Infrastructure Projects in this region, which is the access or now its been changed to gateway project. Its a project that would relieve congestion, put tens of thousands of people to work, help small businesses, help minority and womenowned businesses because the Participation Rate thats required for that project is 30 minority and womanowned businesses, and he is singlehandedly blocking that project. It would literally help so many people as well as relieve congestion in this region. The private sector has even stepped up and put money. The state of new jersey, state of new york. Hes blocking it. And hes going to continue to block it because hes doing it out of spite. So, this notion that, somehow, hes willing to do a deal when hes blocking something right now on which he can do a deal that republicans and democrats support in this region is a ridiculous notion. Its been infrastructure week for, i dont know, how long . Every week is infrastructure week. Every week is infrastructure week. And infrastructure week is really us finding out the latest criminal act that the Trump Administration has undertaken. And so, this notion that theyre going to compromise in any way i do think that, yes, of course we should be talking about health care. Its an important issue. But the notion that democrats should be passing more laws how many more laws can we pass . There have been gun laws passed, there have been Health Care Laws passed. Theres been so many things and they just stall with Mitch Mcconnell. And if they dont stall with Mitch Mcconnell, they get blocked by the president himself. So, this is a ridiculous argument. And so, i think that in terms of what democrats should be doing in terms of the base, what we should be doing, voters, is putting pressure on those democrats who are saying these things, right . Because theres no reason why we cant talk about health care and also hold a criminal president accountable. And so, we need to put pressure not just on speaker pelosi, but on these democrats that are, in fact, lobbying or advocating to her to stop this process. Right, because what were not seeing behind the scenes, tim, is that its clear to me that leadership is not being lobbied to impeach, theyre being lobbied not to. And these, you know ive talked about the Democratic Partys sort of a chess board. And for the speaker, the front line of the chess board, the pawns, right, the sort of semidisposal players, are all the people who win in liberal districts. Shes even said it about herself, a liberal loses, another liberals it going to win. But the back part of the board where the nice pieces are, the knights and the castle, those are conservative districts because they took it from the other side, they didnt take it from their own, and if they lose, they fear it will be replaced by republican, and thats all they care about. But in this case, donald trump is beating democrats in the impeachment fight just by saying things out loud. Yeah, im going to get help from a foreign government. What are you going to do about it . They do nothing. Yeah, im going to take money from the military, military children, ill take their minute me and the militarys still going to vote for you. What are they going to do about . A party at myanmar lago. Im going to make them stay at my resorts, what are you going to do about it . Nothing. Im going to lock little kids up, what are you going to do . Nothing, so isnt he essentially kind of already winning the war . To stay with your analogy, the democrats are looking at this as a chess board. Republicans see it as a knife fight. Theyre not even trying to play chess. Theyve been playing politics at the electoral level and in the congress by simply trying to rip the spine out of anybody who opposes them. The democrats are trying to figure out whats the right thing. I honor that, but as long as they sit back and are more concerned about appearances or not upsetting the table, republicans are going to run circles around them, both electorally and when it comes to donald trump. And this is right where donald trump lives. He is a profoundly lawless individual. And if any opening is given to him where he can selfdeal, hell self deal. You put up the op ed earlier by neal and george that was in the Washington Post and one of the graphs in there i thought was most striking is they rightly pointed out that the framers were worried about selfdealing. And a president that selfdeals to such an extent that it undermines the national interests. You now have a clear example of the president of the United States selfdealing in the ukraine to get a foreign country to undermine a political opponent to his benefit, even though the congress has already said we should support this government and this nation militarily. Thats a clear undermining of the national interests, and trump is just selfdealing that circumstance. What more proof do they need . Yeah. And i want to go back to our lawyers for this on a second. On the constitutional questions here. Before i do that, let me play speaker pelosi. This is around friday, talking about donald trump and what the founders envisioned regarding the presidency. Take a listen. Our founders could never suspect that a president would be so abusive of the constitution of the United States, that the separation of powers would be irrelevant to him and that he would continue any president would continue to withhold facts from the congress, which are part of the constitutional right of inquiry. I do think that we will have to pass some laws that will have clarity for future president s. A president should be indicted if hes committed of wrongdoing. So, lets set that aside. Then you have justin amash who tweeted congress doesnt need this legislation to hold a president accountable and its not even good policy to allow a sitting president to be indicted. Moreover, the constitution already provides a remedy. Its called impeachment. Im available to serve as speaker, if i can be of help. Thats not even shade, thats a read. Joyce vance first on this. Would it even be helpful to attempt to pass a law that a future president could face indictment for doing the things donald trump has already done, which, a, means trump gets off the hook, but the next president , somehow, is going to be subject to a law that Mitch Mcconnell would probably not even let on the floor. Joyce. You know, i think that there will be a time to talk about passing future laws, but this isnt that time. This is the time where we need to figure out what do we do in this incredibly critical moment of constitutional crisis. And ill torture your analogy a little bit further, joy. I mean, we all recognize whats happening right now is deadly serious. Its not a game. But one of the questions that we have to deal with is what country do we want to live in after 2020 . Do we want it to be a chess game or do we want it to just devolve into pure knife fight . And i think the answer is, if we want to have any semblance of a democracy going forward, we need to address this president s misconduct in this moment and leave for the future the question of how we keep it from happening again. This is really clear at this point, and nancy pelosi is correct when she talks about the president not doing things that the constitution requires him to do. The constitution gives congress this ability to engage in oversight. Heres how this should have worked. When a Whistleblower Makes a complaint in the Intelligence Community and the Inspector General in the Intelligence Community makes a finding that its an urgent complaint, then it goes directly to congress. Theyve got seven days, the dni has, to send it over to congress. What happened here is a violation of that process and the interjection of bill barrs department of justice in an effort to keep that from happening. If there was nothing to this complaint, there would have been no reason to forward it. The fact that the white house and the Justice Department are in the mix tells you that theres something truly frightening, truly reprehensible involved in this. Congress has to engage in oversight now as opposed to worrying about the future. And barbara, its hard to do that when the Trump Administration has essentially declared that it doesnt have to follow subpoenas, it doesnt have to follow the law to hand over this whistleblower complaint, it cannot be even investigated by anyone, including criminally or by congress, and theyre willing to go to the mat, and now theyve stacked the Supreme Court in such a way that maybe they could prevail on saying that the president is essentially that he cannot be overseen by the article one power. So, what then is left for the house to be able to do if they dont impeach him . One of the things that the framers absolutely envisioned was the idea that we needed checks on each branch of government, and each was to serve as a check on the other. I think that, eventually, if President Trump is too aggressive in stonewalling congress and the courts from scrutinizing his behavior, he is going to find that itself to become an impeachable offense. One of the articles of impeachment against president nixon was his obstruction of congress. And so, at some point, one hopes that at least the house would see that as an impeachable offense. You know, weve accused sometimes the Republican Party of putting party over country. I think that it could be said that nancy pelosi is also putting party over country if shes worried more about the results of the 2020 election than about the big picture of holding a president accountable, looking historically at this as opposed to the instant gratification of the moment of the 2020 election. Where is the greater responsibility . And i believe it is in holding a president accountable so that we set that baseline for future presidencies. Go ahead, terry. You wanted to jump in. Because i think this is really important, and barbara raised a really great point. We people need to stop talking about this in terms of politics because this is not politics. I see all these anonymous quotes in newspapers from democratic consultants referring to the politics, the politics. All that does is reinforce a message that if, in fact, impeachment were to proceed that it would be a political process. And so, youre telling voters that its a political process, and it is not. It is a process that is laid out in the constitution. It is a mechanism for holding a criminal president accountable, a mechanism that has been used. It is a responsibility. And that is how it should be discussed. And so, the other issue is we have a lot of democratic representatives, pundits, consultants, all talking about it in this way, and then all thats happening is reinforcing messaging, arguing within the frame of republicans, and that is problematic. And you made a point earlier before we came back in that when it came to passing the Affordable Care act, meaning getting 30 Million People health care, that was doesnt in contravention to the politics with people knowing they were going to lose their seats and pushed through by leadership, despite knowing that this could cost them the house. Weve talked about this example before. But famously, when the Voting Rights act and the civil rights acts of the 1960s were in play, Lyndon Johnson was warned by his own staff that if you pushed this legislation through, the democrats are going to lose the south forever. And he said to them, well, then whats the presidency for . There are moments in the United States and in the history of the United States when political courage should come to the floor and people should stand up for the law and whats right and i think democrats right now are failing that test. And Jill Winebanks, there was sort of the story of there was a fear that nixon would actually start a war to protect himself and to cling to power by any means necessary. We now have a president who has sent military forces to saudi arabia at the request of the kingdom. That really is still sticking in my mind from listening to James Dunford say that last night. And this is what donald trump had to say about the saudis and his support for them, reminding you that the crown prince of saudi arabia is accused by our own Intelligence Services of being behind the murder of a u. S. Based journalist with a bone saw. But heres what he said about his friends, the saudis, recently. Saudi arabia pays cash. Theyve helped us out from the standpoint of jobs and all of the other things. So now theyre under attack, and we will work something out with them. But they also know that, you know, im not looking to get into new conflict, but sometimes you have to. You know, the prospect of war for oil was bandied about and it seemed fairly clear in the invasion of iraq after 9 11, which they had nothing to do with it, and the occupation of iraq, but now donald trump is literally saying were going to go to war for oil, at the behest of the prince, at behest of a foreign prince. And so, where does that leave any of us . Where does that leave congress, if essentially, the man being allowed to wield the ultimate power as commander in chief is somebody who does not in his own mind, in the mind of his lawyers, have to live under the law . This is all a virtual circle, because what it does is it leaves in place a person who is lawless for no reason. It gives him the power to do things to deflect. Donald trump has always first denied i didnt do it but then he says, but if i did, its totally legal. And then he goes on to deflect to someone else or blame someone else or to start an investigation of someone else. We cant allow it to happen. I agree completely with basically all of the comments that have been made, but particularly tims last reference to lbj. Its time for the country to be the first order of business. And i think that when nancy pelosi says lets pass a law that allows indictment, number one, the office of Legal Counsel is not law, and it doesnt say there cant be indictment. I do not believe thats a correct opinion and that a court might overturn it, so thats not the answer. But its also an evasion of the constitutional responsibility and duty of congress to hold a president whos lawless accountable. They have the power to do that. They must take that action. And right now, our National Security is in danger, the selfdealing is evident. Everything that was meant to be in the alternative, not as instead of indictment, but an alternative, is impeachment, and it must be taken. Im going to give jeff quickly the last word on this. What would you tell both the moderate to conservative democrats who are holding this whole thing kind of hostage in the party, sort of like a little mini tea party, and the house leadership regarding this issue, if you could speak with them now . Speaker pelosi said that we should impeach donald trump at the ballot box, but i think that ignores the fact that over the next 15 months or so, donald trump has all sorts of opportunities to undermine the fairness of the next election. Were talking about the military before an election. He sent the military to the southern border of the United States to protect the United States from a caravan of refugees who were, you know, victims of the unrest in central america, who posed literally no National Security threat. So we know that trump is willing to use the military as a prop to try to influence voters. He did it in 2018, and god only knows what hell do in 2020. So you need to do impeachment now to prevent even worse behavior than what we are seeing already, which is obviously pretty terrible. All right, were going to end this here, but jill, i need to know what your pen is. Its a whistle, which is both for in honor of the whistleblow whistleblower, but its also a whistle to Alert America to take some action now and congress to take some action. All right. Barbara mcquade, timothy obrien, tara, jeff hauser, Jill Winebanks will be back. Thank you all. Next up, what weve learned from congress attempts to grill trumps most loyal minions, one of his most loyal minions. Thats next. E of his most loyal minions. Thats next. As a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. At liberty butchemel. 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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Howd he get out . a camera might figure it out. That was easy glad i could help. At xfinity, were here to make life simple. Easy. Awesome. So come ask, shop, discover at your xfinity store today. Did you tell the president you were going to deliver the message . I cant comment on private conversations with the president , who reserves executive privilege. Im sorry . I can read you the statement i said the white house has directed that i not disclose the discussions with the president or his advisors reclaiming my time confidentiality. Youre not going to stonewall me in my questioning. This witness continues to obstruct this committee by refusing to answer questions. I ask that you would judge him in contempt in these proceedings. Corey lewandowski, the first witness in the democrats impeachment inquiry, struck a smug, combative tone at the House Judiciary Committee hearings on tuesday, and democrats, frankly, struggled to handle his continued grandstanding, his eyerolling and his refusals to even read back what he told Robert Mueller. It was such an obvious struggle that this person said the democrats looked utterly bloodless. Well, that changed in the last 30 minutes when the democrats counsel, barry burke, was given his shot at questioning lewandowski and quickly sobered things right up, capturing the former Campaign Manager and fixer in a lie. I dont ever remember the president ever asking me to get involved with Jeff Sessions or the department of justice in any way, shape or form ever. Okay, so that was not true, was it . I have no obligation to be honest with the media because theyre just as dishonest as anybody else. I have no obligation to have a candid conversation with the media just as they dont cover me accurately. You admit that on National Television you were lying there. What im saying is they have been inaccurate on many occasions and perhaps i was inaccurate that time. Maya wiley is professor at the new school and Jill Winebanks. Lewandowski, maya, even used the break in the hearing to tweet out his senate run. He was so contemptuous of those senators, he was outright sdpikably rude to congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee. It was shocking to watch him treat this member of the house of representatives, a black woman, to see him belittle her. It was really shocking to watch and almost unbearable. Rick wilsons quote on it in his piece was, he said, the gop always plays directly to the fox news cameras, which clearly that was happening there. Trumps enablers spent every one of these hearings building a tv drama for their team with their imaginary deep state boogieman, butheremails conspiracymongering and tableflipping ant yits. How is it that democrats dont understand thats why jim jordan, matt gaetz tear their hair out, spit and caper on stage . Its because the republicans understand these hearings are a reality show. The peechts are a show being put on to show the American People the information that the People Holding it want you to know. But instead, the republicans keep taking over the show. Yes. The fact that the democrats seemed both unprepared for a hostile witness Corey Lewandowski had made quite clear in the leadup to the hearing that he was going to be hostile, that he was going to refuse to answer questions, and they seemed unprepared for it. And i think they didnt have copies of the Mueller Report available to them how . They didnt have and as barry burke demonstrated, when you have a hostile witness, what you are prepared for is when they made inconsistent statements, right . Which he did he didnt have a deposition like lawyers like to have. What he had was the public record, and Corey Lewandowski on television. He did the homework and he came prepared. And note how he questioned. He said, isnt it true that on this date you said this. That was not true, wasnt it . And the reason thats so important is because what lawyers are doing is testifying. Right. If you do it right, what youre saying is i know youre going to not want to read the language of the report, youre not going to want to answer the questions, so what im going to do is say what it says for you but in the form of a question. Yeah. And as he demonstrated, thats what pulled it forward. But i think the other thing is, and others have pointed this out, members of congress do not have the time to prepare the way lawyers prepare. Right. Or the way staff can prepare. And that preparation is critically important. And i think the third point, which is also incredibly important, is dont bring a knife to a gun fight, and they didnt even bring the knife. So, this whole question of contempt. And when you have a witness like Corey Lewandowski saying, i have no legal argument that any court will recognize to say that i dont have to answer your questions he wasnt a staff member of the white house at any time, on any of the things that he was being asked questions about, and yet, he said that those conversations were privileged. Right. Well, no, and theres no court that will find it was privileged, but they werent prepared to use their inherent contempt powers. Right, yeah. Which they absolutely should have done, if for no other reason, to demonstrate, you will not walk into our house and disrespect us. Yeah, and you know, i think that last point i want to pick up on with jill. Because number one, yes, once the actual lawyer was doing the questioning and some of them are lawyers, but it was a long time ago. Now theyre in congress. When barry burke got his turn, all of a sudden the hearing got real for lewandowski. All of a sudden he wouldnt eye roll and make jokes anymore. Suddenly it got real for him. So, are the lessons that the democrats should take away from this, number one, just let the counsel do it . Thats what roy cone was. He wasnt in congress. He did the questioning. Let the lawyer do it. This is what was done when Brett Kavanaughs hearing took place, right . His principal accuser was questioned only by the lawyer, not by the members. Why dont they just do that . That is a very good question, and i would answer it, they should. They passed rules that allow a staff member to question. And lets go back to watergate. Part of the success of the watergate hearings was that staff did the questioning, and they are experts at it. Barry burke is a trial lawyer. He knows how to ask questions. Maya is correct in how he phrased it and why that worked. Thats what we need more of. We also need the members to consolidate the fiveminute segments, because five minutes is not enough time for even the most skilled lawyer to get a question and answer and followup in. You need more time than that. So, at least consolidate or expand the time. I mean, who said that theres a fiveminute limit . Who said that the staff members, each side gets one half hour . Why cant it be an hour each . Why cant it be two hours each . Who is setting these arbitrary time limits . A narrative needs to be developed so that people understand what the facts are. And no question that barry berke made it the case, showed Corey Lewandowski to be the liar that he was, made him answer questions because he phrased them in a way that the question didnt even need an answer. It was already apparent. And we need to do much more of that. The new rules are good, but i think they could use a little tweaking to help in future hearings. The other thing that i would change is i think i would have delayed this hearing. They knew he wasnt going to be cooperative. They should have waited until there was a ruling from a court about two things. One is the grand jury secret material. Thats before a court now. If they had had that material, they would have had even more to cross examine lewandowski on. And the other is if they had had a ruling from the court thats in the mcgahn case about having to testify, because he cant get away with these claims of executive privilege if a Court Follows the u. S. V. Nixon case during watergate, which makes it clear that you cant use executive privilege to protect against a criminal conversation, and thats what this was, was a crime to have had this conversation, so it needed to be answered. Yeah, or maybe like in the nixon era, they should have let the senate have the select committee, because if this had been in the Senate Judiciary committee, he would have gotten Kamala Harris in his face instead of a bunch of members of congress stymied by him. He would have gotten perhaps his Rear Quarters handed to him, rather than being able to play games. Maya wiley, Jill Winebanks, thank you both for being here. Coming up, we will tell you about the latest thing that donald trump has done to put your health and maybe even your life at risk. Hooray its saturday. Thats next. T risk hooray its saturday. Thats next. [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this, this, and even this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair while i clean. [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. Fine. No one leaves the table fine well sleep here. Its the easiest, because its the cheesiest kraft. For the win win. 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A new Station Wagon with powerassisted steering, powerresistant brake system and all of the other standard features, plus, these options come with bucket seats and console, equipment package, automatic transmission, 2. 5liter engine, air conditioning, am fm Premium Sound with cassette, heavyduty suspension, all steel belted tires and california emission oh, my god, remember the original price is right with the rack and pinon steering and all of those california emissions standards, which every shiny, new car came with . Well, those are gone. At least for now. This week the Trump Administration gutted californias authority to set its own auto emission rules, which are stricter than federal guidelines and have protected air quality in cities like los angeles since the 1970s. But on friday, california and 23 other states fought back, filing a lawsuit against the Trump Administration. With more than 20 of the countrys Greenhouse Gases coming from vehicles, loosening emissions standards threatens to aggravate the driving forces of global warming. By the way, heres a reminder of what los angeles looked like before the 1970s and those strict emissions rules. On another note, if youre enjoying saturday morning brunch right now, you might want to appreciate the bacon your plate while you still can. The department of agriculture finalized a new rule this week, allowing Pork Companies to perform their own food safety checks while limiting the role of federal inspectors. Mm, mm, good. The move also requires limits on the speed or rescinds limits on the speed of production lines and the number of pigs processed per hour. Critics say the deregulation introduces high risks for contamination and disease, arguing that a massive outbreak of foodborne illnesses is nearly inevitable. Eat up. Up next, the backtoschool ad thats unlike anything youve ever seen before. E anything youv ever seen before every day, visionaries are creating the future. So, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. The United States Postal Service makes more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. As the gun debate over as the debate over gun reform rages on with no progress in sight, Congress Remains in a Holding Pattern over laws that could have shielded the 228,000 students who have been exposed to gun violence at schools since columbine. The message that america has failed to protect its children was delivered in a gutwrenching Public Service announcement from sandy hook promise, the Advocacy Group founded by parents of the victims in the 2012 sandy hook shooting. Now, a warning to our viewers, this psa intentionally contains graphic content related to School Shootings and gun violence. Heres a second to pause. All right, now lets go for it. This year, my mom got me the perfect bag for back to school. These colorful binders helped me stay organized. These headphones are just what i need for studying. These new sneakers are just what i needed for the new year. This jacket is a real musthave. My parents got me the skateboard i wanted. Its pretty cool. [ screaming ] these scissors will really come in handy in art class. These colored pencils, too. These new socks, they can be a real lifesaver. I finally got my own phone to stay in touch with my mom. Wow. Well, joining me now is brandon wolf, a gun reform activist and survivor of the 2016 pulse nightclub massacre in orlando. I have to get myself together after watching that. Ooh. Brandon, you testified this week before the house ways and Means Committee about your ordeal and what you want to see happen. Let me play a little bit of that testimony now. I remember gunshots, confusion, the rancid stench of blood and smoke. I remember the hair standing up on the back of my neck, my heart pounding as i crouched on the bathroom floor. I remember the faces of terror on those people trapped there with me, a panicked sprint for an open door. And i swear, i can still hear every single one of the 110 rounds that man pumped into the club. Brandon, we know how the democrats on that committee feel about gun reform. What did the republicans say to you . You know, they talked a lot. First of all, its really nice to see you, and i just wanted to congratulate you on some president ial twitter harassment. I think that means youve really arrived. But in terms of the committee and the faces on it, you know, i was encouraged by the conversation around gun violence prevention. I was encouraged by the conversation on hate crimes and, you know, all the avenues that we can take to push back against hatred and violence. But what i challenged them was, talk is cheap, right . We need action. We actually need something to change. Its one thing to sit in hearings. Its one thing to tell survivors of Mass Violence that you feel their pain. Its another thing for you to actually do something. I had a moment with republican congressman kelly, whos the Ranking Member on that committee, and he said, you know, i go into communities and i ask them, what are you doing to make your Community Safer instead of waiting for me to do something about it . And to him, i said, we have been doing something. For decades, weve been rallying, weve been protesting. Weve been trying to make our communities safer. Weve been begging for our leaders to do the things weve elected them for, and were just waiting for you to join us and you can join us any time. So, i thought it was encouraging to have the conversation, but im ready to see some action. Youve been quite busy this week. You participated glaad had an lgbt president ial forum in iowa on friday, and ten democratic president ial nominees showed up, which is good news. All of them probably should have, but at least ten of them did show up. I want to play Amy Klobuchar answering your question during that forum. When you think about what happened at that pulse nightclub and you think of those innocents in there, just out for the night, and you think of this criminal that went in there, someone that wanted to do them harm, someone that wanted to do them in, simply because of who they loved. I am from a proud hunting state. And by the way, so is iowa. And i look at these proposals for universal background checks, for the assault weapon ban, for magazine limits, and i say, do they hurt my uncle dick in the deer stand . They do not. What is it going to take, in your view, brandon, to get something to go from great rhetoric, which is almost all coming from one party, and another partys intransigence . How do we get from here to meaningful gun reform of the kind that you have been pushing for . You know, i think telling our stories is really important. I think sharing my story i was the first person who was directly affected by pulse to have the opportunity to testify before congress. We need more of those moments. But im getting closer and closer to the point where, for me, the answer is to get rid of the politicians that are currently in office that dont have our best interests in mind. You know, i think about, we have a president in donald trump who cant keep his mouth shut for five minutes, and yet, he seems to be at a loss for the right words to get gun reform over the finish line. We have a Senate Majority leader in Mitch Mcconnell, who from my view should probably just resign if hes not actually interested in doing his job. And so, im at a place where, if these leaders do not want to do the thing that we are paying them to do, the thing that we all agree needs to happen over 90 of americans believe that we need universal criminal background checks that bill has been on Mitch Mcconnells desk since february, and we havent seen any action on it. If our leaders dont want to do their jobs, if theyre not interested in passing meaningful reform, then we need to replace them in 2020 at the ballot box. Yeah. Does it surprise you that walmart very quickly that walmart and nascar are doing more than elected republicans . It doesnt surprise me, because the country thats where the country is. Thats where americans are. You know, thats where we need to be. It seems Like Congress is about 20 years behind the rest of the country on this issue. Always great to talk to you, brandon wolf. Thank you very much for being here. And ill see you next week in california. See you next week. More a. M. Joy after the break. Next week. More a. M. Joy after the break. The calling for everything. The searching for id cards. Its like youre stuck in the 90s. Thats why esurance makes it simple with an app that has everything you need because thats how we live nowadays. Rad. Your id card is on a bodacious tiny future tv. Wow youre really committed to this whole 90s thing, arent ya . No, im just saying whats in the script. Thats true. Everything were sayings in the script. When insurance is simple, its surprisingly painless. You get more than yourFree Shipping. Ir, you get everything you need for your home at a great price, the way it works best for you, ill 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. Thats what you get when youve got wayfair. So shop now so, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. The United States Postal Service makes more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. Nyquifor your worst cold andrful relieflu symptoms, on sunday night and every night. Nyquil severe. The nightime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, best sleep with a cold, medicine. Why accept it frompt an incompyour allergy pills . E else. Flonase sensimist. Nothing stronger. Nothing gentler. Nothing lasts longer. Flonase sensimist. 24 hour nondrowsy allergy relief on guns especially, i hear a lot of the other candidates saying, well, there seems to be consensus and compromise on being able to do these few things, and it sounds like Mitch Mcconnell and donald trump are at least pretending to be interested. Well, [ bleep ] that. Donald trump and Mitch Mcconnell pretending to be interested in something that is literally a lifeordeath issue for 40,000 americans thats how many are killed every year through gun violence is simply not enough. Next weekend, i will be at the community exsocial impact summit in california, a forum that will bring young activisted together to discuss some of the most pressing social issues ahead of the 2020 election, including gun reform. Joining me now is Chloe Cheyenne rogers, founder and ceo at communityx. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me, joy. I know that similar to brandon, gun violence is a personal issue in your own history. Can you tell us a little bit about that . Yeah. So, i was actually inspired to found communityx because of my parents, specifically my dad, who is africanamerican and as a survivor of an extreme case of Police Misconduct and discrimination that left him permanently handicapped with a bullet fragment still lodged in his spine. The year before i was born, he was living on the south side of chicago in hyde park, heard a loud bang on the door, went to go see what it was. By the time he got there, a group of plainclothed Chicago Police officers began to raid my grandmothers home and opened fire on my dad over a dozen times. Wow. Thats a harrowing story. And so, how do you get from that to deciding that tech kind of is the way that you can make a difference, that that is the kind of activism that you want to do. Yeah, so i graduated from Howard School of business with a fulltime offer to google. I spent a couple of years at google and got a lot of experience in the tech space and decided that it was time for me to leave and really merge this tech activism together in order to form communityx. So at communityx, our mission is to unite humanity and mobilize the world, and we do so by creating digital and inreallife experiences within the social impact space that connect people around shared causes and movements. How do you do that in a way thats different than, for instance, twitter, saying you can make a hashtag, you can combine together, group with other people who have similar goals and activist ideas . So, our space is specifically for social impact and activism. The data that we collect is specifically related to that. So, we allow our users to say, hey, i care about gun control, the Climate Crisis and womens rights. We take that data, import it into our core algorithm and suggest other allies, locally, nationally and globally that that person should connect with based on their interests. And do you feel that activism that is strictly digital can connect with activism thats on the ground . Thats been one of the criticisms of social media, that its all in the digital space, that it doesnt get to the activism thats marching in the streets. Thats right, and i think thats why we also have the inreallife component at communityx, our social impact summit next friday in santa clara, california. And there, well be bringing together different activists across the space in real life to talk about some of the most prescient issues that those people are facing in their communities today. So what can people expect . Im going to be there. Ill be talking with you, interviewing you in a longer form and talking with brandon and other activists. What do you expect people to get out of this forum . Our yoeng activists will have an opportunity to tell their stories. We have some of the young strikers from the Climate Crisis that gathered yesterday coming to share the work that theyve been doing and all of the coordination that went into that mobilizing and also to talk about how our platform in tech can be helpful in accelerating that work forward. And do you think well, i mean, were out of time, but at the end of the day, do you think that what youre doing can actually move forward and lets say make Something Like gun reform actually happen . Is this the way we can do it . Because its young people youre connecting together. Yeah, genz is not only the most digitally native generation but also the most socially conscious generation in human history. So i think if we can bring those things together, we have an opportunity to make a big difference. And chloe is super smart. My husband sits on your board, is fully supportive, so full disclosure, were big fans of yours. Congratulations on what youre doing. Thank you to Chloe Cheyenne rogers. See you next week. More a. M. Joy after the break. More a. M. Joy after the break. Every day, visionaries are creating the future. So, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. The United States Postal Service makes more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. Ecommerce deliveries to homes were pretty different. vo everyone in your family is different. Thats why verizon lets everyone mix and match different unlimited plans. So you only pay for what you need. Switch now to verizon. New plans start at just 35. Thats our lowest price for unlimited, ever. The network more people rely on gives you more. Award winning interface. Award winning design. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. Our most awarded luxury suv. Your business is up and running, but is it going beyond fast . Comcast business gives you high speed internet. We also have Solutions Like powerful wifi that gives your entire business more coverage and automatic internet backup that can keep your business running. And it all starts with our gigspeed network. So give us 10 minutes. If we cant offer you faster speed or better savings than your current internet service, well give you 300 dollars for your time. Call now to get your comcast business 10 minute advantage. Comcast business. Beyond fast. Thats our show for today. A. M. Joy will be back tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Up next, alex witt with latest, who is also giving me restaurant tips. Its the commercial break that are the most interesting to us, but ill get you an email with all of that. Good day to you, joy, and all of you out there. Thank you so much. Of course, youre watching msnbc here from the World Headquarters in new york. High noon in the east, 9 00 a. M. In the west. Welcome, everyone, to weekends with alex witt. Whistleblower firestorm. The president lashing out after new information surfaces. A phone call that critics say could become an abuse of power. On july 25th