Transcripts For MSNBCW AM Joy 20200118

Information has been pouring out almost daily. House democrats detailed more. You know, parnas of the 11 egor wing of the crukraine conspirac who trump claims not to know but hes pictured with every member of trump world. He sure gets close to the family for someone trump supposedly doesnt know. First, Rachel Maddows sitdown interview with parnas was the interview of the week. Coming up ill talk with rachel herself about that interview but here is a preview of what he told rachel. He was somehow both employed by and employing Rudy Giuliani who helped carry out the scheme to get the president of ukraine to announce an investigation into joe bidens son. Parnas has been indicted on Campaign Finance violations for allegedly funneling russian money into political campaigns. He turned over documents to the House Committee still investigating donald trump. Those documents will make it a lot harder for Senate Republican to refuse to admit new evidence or call witnesses in the impeachment trial even as they are hell bent on acquitting the president. He implicated almost everyone in trumps circle starting with the man at the top who still is denying any wrong doing despite the growing mountain of evidence against him. President trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all of my movements. He i wouldnt do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president. And then theres the guy who would take over if trump were to be removed from office. Vice president mike pence. Parnas explained how he used pence as a bargaining chip to try and pressure the ukranian president into announcing a biden investigation. In the conversation i told him that if he doesnt the announce t was the key at that time because of the inauguration, that pence wouldnt show up, nobody would show up. Unless he investigated an investigation into joe biden no officials, particularly mike pence would show up. The day after that meeting you had. This suz wasnt the 12th. I believe it was the following day that in fact, Vice President pences visit to the inauguration was cancelled. Well, it was after my phone call. You believe that Vice President pence knew what he was knew that his trip to the inauguration was contingent on those investigations being announc announc announced . Again, i mean, i know he went to poland also to discuss this on trumps behalf so he couldnt have not known. So according to parnas, mike pence knew about the get biden scheme too, which of course pence denies and he also denies knowing parnas. Right . Parnas told rachel that attorney general william barr also knew what was going on in crew yan. Do you know if mr. Giuliani was afterin contact with mr. Barr specifically about the fact that he was trying to get ukraine to announce these investigations into joe biden . Absolutely. Mr. Barr knew about that . Mr. Barr had to have known everything. Giuliani tell you he had spoken to the ukraine . They were all best friends. I mean, barr was attorney general barr was basically on the team. Of course the Justice Department says of course thats 100 false. What else are they going to say . And theres former National Security advisor john bolton who they really want to testify at the impeachment trial. When they say that mr. Bolton may have things to say about this, did mr. Bolton know that Vice President pence was supposed to secure that agreement that zelensky would announce these investigations . I know mr. Bolton was definitely involved in the loop because of the firing of ivanovich. They started butting heads. And then he explained how former secretary of Energy Rick Perry was allegedly working in tandem with giuliani. I dont know what extent he knew about me but definitely he knew about rudy because he was told he called rudy on his way there to ask him what to discuss and rudy told him that to make sure to give him the message. Mr. Giuliani told secretary perry what you need to convey to the ukranian government is they need to announce an investigation into joe biden. Absolutely. There was another conversation that perry called after the inauguration telling that he spoke to zelensky and hes going to do it. Parnas also told rachel that the secretary of state mike pompeo was privy to the plan to remove ivanovich. Then rudy came back and he told them, go speak to pompeo. Rudy went to speak to pompeo. They got into it. So the trump lackeys implicated by parnas extend beyond the Investigative Branch too. He had this to say about the republican Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee devyn nun es. Does it strike you inappropriate a he would be one of the lead investigators. I was in shock when i saw nunes sitting up there and i text my attorney, i said, i cant believe this is happening. Because . Because they were involved in getting all this stuff from biden. And surprise, the new documents released last night by House Democrats show that nunes and his staff communicated extensively with parnas about ukraine aid. Trump lawyers also knew about the pressure campaign. Parnas mentioned trumps personal lawyers who represented trump during the Mueller Probe and jay sekulow as well as White House House pet. He got rudy on the phone and basically they came up with the situation that said that because i worked for rudy and because i worked for victoria, and because rudy worked for the president we have threeway privilege and that basically pat was going to be writing a letter to congress saying nobody is cooperating and that would protect us under the same order and he would follow up with that. Again, this was the president of the United States so i thought, okay. Of course it all comes back to trump. When you say that the president knew about your movements and knew what you were doing, are you saying specifically, i want to sort of drill down on that, that the president was aware that you and mr. Giuliani were working on this effort in ukraine to basically try to hurt joe bidens political career . Yeah, it was all about joe biden, hunter biden and also rudy had a personal thing with the manafort stuff. The black ledger and that was another thing that they were looking into, but it was never about corruption, it was never it was strictly about the hunter biden and joe biden. And so to sum it all up im going to use a famous quote by mr. Sondland, everybody was in the loop. The trump world and the republicans defending it will try to tell you this man is nobody who knows nothing and no one but the pictures do not lie and Rachel Maddow herself on her Ground Breaking interview, you do not want to miss it. W, you do not want to miss it woman when you take align, you have the support of a probiotic and the gastroenterologists who developed it. vo align helps to soothe your occasional digestive upsets 24 7 with a strain of bacteria you cant get anywhere else. woman you could say align puts the pro in probiotic. So where you go, the pro goes. vo go with align. The pros in digestive health. And try align gummies. With prebiotics and probiotics to help support digestive health. I need all the breaks, that i can get. At liberty butchumal cut. Liberty biberty cut. Well dub it. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Wherever we want to go, we just have to start. Autosave your way there with chase. Chase. Make more of whats yours. Teaching kids and having kids of my own. I didnt realize that having kids would be the hard part. So we planned to start ivf treatments. Now im ready for someone to call me mom. At Northwestern Mutual, our version of Financial Planning helps you live your dreams today. Find a Northwestern Mutual advisor at nm dot com. Interview with parnas wednesday night. The largest audience many the 11year history of the Rachel Maddow show. I got a chance to talk with rachel and get her take on the interview moments after her show thursday night. Take a look. Rachel maddow, first of all, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for extra time. I feel badly about not letting you get into your car but also extremely happy that youre still sitting in front of me. Do not feel bad. The chance to be on tv with joy reid at the end of my life ill tally it up and wish for more. Youre the best. I got to tell you the interview, i have to congratulate you to start with. What an amazing interview. I want to just go through very quickly some of the things that struck me just from listening to both days of this amazing interview that you were able to get with parnas and the first of them was this description that he had of being in cult world around all of these figures as being like a cult. As i heard him describe it he remientded me of michael cohen. Did you get the sense this is a guy that is a every man type of person who was intoxicated of being around that type of power. Reporter mr. Parnas and mr. Cohen have one very important thing in common that theyre both facing very serious criminal charges and i think in that case i mean, im no lawyer but from cop shows i think its helpful to be able to say to the intended audience whether its the judge or the jury or the public at large if youre trying to make your case to them, listen, i was led astray, i was in an environment that felt normal to me at the time but now i realize it was a crazy cultish thing and the scales have fallen from my eyes and now i siee things as they really are. In my cop show version of how persons try to get themselves lean yens, thats one thing. Parnas was a key fixer, had a key role in advancing the joe biden malfeasance allegation and trying to turn that into an announcement of an investigation by the ukranian government. He was also super super involved in the Marie Ivanovich must be fired smear campaign. I asked mr. Parnas if he believed the allegations against ivanovich and the allegations against biden that he helped effectuate and in both daises he said i realize they are not true but at the time i thought they were true. He apologized and he said he doesnt have to say that stuff. He could just say i dont know but i regret being part of it. He could just theres no reason for him to, you know, repent and recant on those things. Having those views of ivanovich and biden isnt going to help him either in his court case or in Public Opinion so i sort of believe him on that scale, but im trying to maintain healthy skepticism about all of it. Yeah, absolutely. And believe they were true and was willing to work with knowingly corrupt officials in ukraine who were saying we will trade you proof or evidence of joe biden having done something wrong but we want one thing very specifically. We want this one person gone, marie van siivanovich situation. Why couldnt donald trump just fire ivanovich . He had the power to do it but instead of just firing her there were all these steps that had to be gone through to smear her. It reminded me of these attempts to fire mueller. Donald trump has a problem getting done what he wants because people who are supposedly loyal to him dont do what he says. And he wont do stuff directly. I mean, his catch phrase is youre fired but he doesnt fire people directly. The closest he comes is firing people via his phone on twitter. He doesnt actually do it. He could have summoned Marie Ivanovich to his office and said youre fired. He could have directed for her to be fired in a way that was, you know, ive lost confidence in you and i dont mean to explain myself. He could have done any of those things. Instead people would tell him bad things about vivanovich and he would rage behind closed doors and say you fire her to people who had no power to fire her and then it came through channels and filtering through the system as the president s wishes without anything real about why she was being fired. Ultimately people found ways to stop it. This whole tale sheds light on two things. As you said it sheds light on why they needed the smear campaign. They thought if there was a Public Smear Campaign in the u. S. Press about ivanovich that would both enable the president to potentially fire her by tweet and it might clear the way to sort of collapse all of the normal channels so that he could fire her regardless of whatever her ridiculous causes were. But the other thing that it sheds light on is the state Department Needs to turn documents over to the impeachment investigation. Republicans should be interested in this and the deep state conspirator yal republicans should be interested in that too. Got me thinking there were people inside the government who were working against the president s wishes. If the president was trying to fire an ambassador and unable to do it you guys should want to figure out what was going on in the state department when they were reacting to these outbursts that werent followed up on. You would think that congress would be interested in looking in their roan ranks because the other thing that was striking and kind of amazing to hear parnas talk about were actual le lekted and want to be elected members of congress who were shaw involved in this scheme whether it was devnunes or i wor if it complicates the senate. Names someone who was potentially in the know or briefed on whatever dirt they were bringing with joe biden. And the question with senator graham, the way parnas tells the sor story, it was high level effort to try to get this corrupt you cra ukranian a visa to come in so he could do a briefing on big bad joe biden to william barr and lindsey graham. Again, this is one of these interesting things about the state departments role here who is murky and more interesting all the time. He never came to the United States. That in person briefing never happened but did senator graham know that he was supposed to get that . Does that affect his thinking about this as a potential scandal whatsoever . Who about attorney general barr . I mean, there were a number of people who. Reporter brought into this scheme by the core players who one of the core players is now willing to name names about and if those questions would answer questions about how they see it particularly under oath i think wed all be further along in understanding the reality. You mentioned bill barr. What did you make of him saying hes afraid of the doj . Over the two parts of the interview his comments about william barr were among the things that kind of have stuck with me and kept me up. Not only was he describing william barr as being fully apprised of what was going on in ukraine and mr. Parnas said it was not at all surprising that the president on the phone with president zelensky said yeah, you need to do these investigation, parnas thought that was absolutely to be expected given the degree that given the degree of involvement that barr had of the scheme describing him as part of the team but then also once he arrested and charged federally in a department of justice federal indictment mr. Parnas came to believe and came to worry that mr. Barr was maybe the greatest threat to him not just because he was facing federal charges but because he believed and he thinks that other people in the president s immediate circle believe that president that turn general bill barr is essentially a weapon, is using the Justice Department as a weapon to enforce things for the president and to attack the president s political enemies and that is mr. Parnas stating his belief and his perception and should be taken just for that but it is chilling. Its chilling for anybody, we all live in a world where he is the top law enforce mts officer. Before i let you go, for the three people who didnt read blowout were talking more and more about the foreign corruption of our elections, how much of an eyebrow raiser was it for you for him to say ill get you dirt and get me out of my charges and this is the guy he turns to for help. Some of this has been publicly reported before that the reason he appears to have gotten involved is some sort of plan quid pro quo involving his case, hes facing very serious federal bribery and corruption charges. They have been trying to extradite him to the United States to face those charges for years. Hes hired the best legal help that money can guy to pro vent him from being extradited to face those charges. Hes perceived to be the kremlins man in ukraine. He is an Upper Echelon of organized crime. I mean, this is a powerful and connected guy and theres been reporting before as to how he ended up in this scandal but to hear somebody right in the middle decipher his handwritten notes and this trade that they were promising him that he could get his case dropped and in exchange he would help with these allegations against biden, i mean, that is thats i mean, thats a movie, number one, but the fact that we know that they did actually succeed in getting an audience with the attorney general of the United States william barr to talk about the case is again, chilling and it should be noted that while mr. Furtsash is fighting extra diagnosifight extradition he is still in vienna. Rudy giuliani still appears to be involved with him. So you know, watch the space. Watch the space. Absolutely. Well, i will say, first of all, thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the extra time. Of course. I think the senate could create the Rachel Maddow list of witnesses because youve put them all on the table and if they cant get witnesses they could play the entire interview with parnas. That might be the best case they could make in the impeachment trial. Anybody is free to use the material however they want. I do however, suggest real depositions. Thank you, my friend. Really appreciate you, rachel. How great is she . Come on. Coming up we love Rachel Maddow. Well done. William barr as we just mentioned is accused of being a part of the ukraine scheme. More on that. F the ukraine schee more on that when you shop for your home at wayfair, you get more than Free Shipping. 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 but in my mind im still 25. Thats why i take osteo biflex, to keep me moving the way i was made to. It nourishes and strengthens my joints for the long term. Osteo biflex now in triple strength plus magnesium. But maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. Because there are options. Like an unjection™. Xeljanz xr, a oncedaily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. Xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. Xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections like tb; dont start xeljanz if you have an infection. Taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra can increase risk of death. Serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. As have tears in the stomach or intestines, serious allergic reactions, and changes in lab results. Tell your doctor if youve been somewhere fungal infections are common, or if youve had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. Needles. Fine for some. But for you, one pill a day may provide symptom relief. Ask your doctor about xeljanz xr. An unjection™. Turns out that parnas tie runs deep in the battleground state of florida. Coming up in our next hour well take a closer look at the connection between parnas and the governor of florida ron desantis but up next parnas interview revealed just how dangerous william barr really is. More a. M. Joy coming up. Really is more a. M. Joy coming up. This commutes been pretty rough, huh . Its great actually, ive been listening to audible. Its audiobooks, news, meditations. Gotta go hey you know, i do think its weird youve started commuting when you work from home. Ill be in my office. Download audible and start every day off right. Doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Yeah. Only pay for what you need with Liberty Mutual. Only pay for what you need with Liberty Mutual. Con Liberty Mutual solo pagas lo que necesitas. Only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. When we see you enter through our doors. We dont see who youre against, or for. Whether tomorrow will be light or dark. All we see in you, is a spark. We see your kindness and humanity. The strength of each community. The more we look the more we find the sparks that make america shine. Mr. Parnas came to believe and came to worry that mr. Barr was maybe the greatest threat to him not just because he was facing criminal charges but because he believes and he thinks that other people in the president s immediate circle believe that attorney general bill barr is essentially a weapon, is using the Justice Department as a weapon to enforce things for the president. And to attack the president s political enemies. One of the biggest bomb shells from the interview is the implication of attorney general william barr. Parnas said it was virtually impossible for barr not to have known about the pressure came pain on ukraine saying he was basically on the team. And parnas suggested that hes speaking out now because hes afraid of barr who incident tally oversees the district of new york the very court that investigated charges against parnas. Joining me is glen kushner. I saw his tweets and weve got to talk to glen. Let me play you the part of rachels interview in which parnas implicates william barr in the whole scheme. Here it is. Do you know if mr. Giuliani was ever in contact with mr. Barr specifically about the fact that he was trying to get ukraine to announce these investigations into joe biden . Absolutely. Mr. Barr knew about that . Mr. Barr had to have known everything. I mean, its impossible. Did giuliani tell you he had spoken to the attorney general about ukraine . Not only giuliani. Victoria and joe, they were all best friends. Attorney general barr was basically on the team. To which you tweeted, glen, parnas just accused bill barr of criminal complicity in the zelensky bribery. The conflict of interest is staggering the dojs credibility is on life support. This travesty must end. Is there any way for barr to be forced out of the chain of command in this prosecution . Well, barrs superior is president. Do we think that president is going to force bill barr to step away from whatever hes doing in connection with the Parnas Fruman investigation . Heck no. And here is the problem. I mean, usually when prosecutors meet with potential cooperating witnesses, right . The parnass of the world were assessing their information to see if its truthful and if its helpful to our prosecution. Im quite sure stny prosecutors have sat down and gotten all this information. Some of the information we now know they must have gotten was what lev parnas told rachel. Bill barr is in on the dirty ukranian deal. Now, if they sign him up as a cooperating witness and they use that evidence, who do they end up bringing down . Bill barr. Whos overseeing the lev parnas prosecution . Bill barr who oversees everything that goes on in the Southern District of new york u. S. Attorneys office and the 93 other u. S. Attorneys offices in the country. Bill barr needs to have his doj hall pass revoked because of this dramatic conflict and one of other thing about the bill barr piece, joy. The way we assess if a cooperating witness is telling us the truth or just throwing lies in the mix to dirty people up for his own benefit is we look to see what other people have said about the same thing. Who corroborates supports and affirms lev parnas claim that bill barr is in on the dirty ukranian deal . How about President Trump in his phone call to zelensky who says i need you to look in the bidens and you know whos going to help you out, my man bill barr, the attorney general. Parnas and donald trump corroborate and confirm one another and they make it clear that bill barr is in the loop like everybody else is in the loop. Who dislodges bill barr other than the American People come november of 2020 . Theres no good answer to that question. And im glad you brought that up because in the trumps claim perfect phone call he says talk to rudy and talk to bill barr and bill barr we know has mounted and instructed one of his underings to mound this investigation that seems to track with what trump wanted done and meanwhile youre right. Theres no way to dislodge him. We dont have an independent counsel statute. This sounds like the job for a special prosecutor. But a mueller type prosecutor would report to bill barr because the former ken starr that law is expired. I think what the founders envisioned is potentially a corrupt and criminal president. We have impeachment. There would be ways to deal with that if we had a law abiding president. I dont think they ever envisioned a corrupt criminal abusive president supported by a corrupt criminal and abusive attorney general. And thats why come january 2020, we need to wrestle this thing to the ground. We need to form a commission that is equal parts,neuriumberg trials and truth and Reconciliation Commission and we need to hold all of these people accountable. I think trump crime commissions has a nice ring to it. These corrupt men have exposed the flaws in our system. And i mean, a previous attorney has gone to jail. Here is another part of this interview in which parnas talks about being afraid of william barr. Take a listen. Right now the scary part and thats what i keep mentioning and people dont understand theres a lot of republicans that would go against him. The only reason, if youll take a look and you know very well because youve been following, the difference between why trump is so powerful now and he wasnt as powerful in 16 and 17. He became that powerful when he got william barr. People are scared. Am i scared . Yes. Because i think im more scared of our own Justice Department than of these criminals right now. We should note that the doj put a statement its 100 false. Thats their satatement. This guy, william barr has his fingers on so much of this. He controls the prosecutors that are prosecuting parnas, he controls even i mean, you look at the Jeffrey Epstein case he controlled the prison. He controls so much and he has so much power and trump as empowered him so much and hes deelting with various russian entities that we dont know that are murky. He has good reason to be afraid, no . He does, because here is the catch 22 for parnas. If he is actively involved with discussions with the prosecutors in new york to see whether he wants to come on board as a former coop ray tor, a coope. Those will remain secret so he wouldnt be able to tell his story publicly. That must be part of the motivation for getting his story out because think about it, if he had been dealing with the Southern District of new york prosecutors behind closed doors, giving up bill barr, trump and others and all of a sudden something happened to him like happened to epstein, well, all of that information would then be put under wraps by bill barr the same way we really havent gotten to the bottom of what happened to epstein and so i think this was a smart move and maybe for his own personal safety this was lev parnas only play to get the information out to the American People so he doesnt get epsteined. And the reality is that he theres no guarantee he will get to testify in the senate trial. Barr it seems slow maybe we dont know what his role was in how slow it was to get all this information. Hes had this the whole time. He was initially he had Donald Trumps lawyers, he had john dowd and he said to rachel he fired dowd because they were telling him to keep quiet. There seem to be a lot of people trying to slow down or stop him from talking. Theres this recent ledder that the chairman sent over and this letter is january 14th of 2020 just a few days ago and heres what we learned about just how intimately donald trump knows lev parnas because weve seen on an endless loop, donald trump dont know him, maybe a picture, never met him. Lets see what this let every tells everybody is the truth about the relationship between donald trump and lev parnas and ill read this sentence rel quakely. On october 2nd, 2019 jay sekulow, trumps lawyer informed President Trumps former attorney, john dowd that he had discussed with President Trump the issue of representation and that President Trump consents to allowing your, mr. Dowds representation of lev parnas. Jay sekulow, his lawyer, President Trumps lawyer, went on record and said ive spoken in great detail with the president about lev parnas, your relationship with him and the president consents to let one of your old lawyers, mr. Dowd, represent him. So i got to tell you, if President Trump standing up and looking at the camera and saying i dont know lev parnas, if hes being honest to himself and he thinks he doesnt know parnas then we better talk about the 25th amendment because hes unfit. Why is he letting his lawyer he had to give his consent for his lawyer to represent this guy and hes saying he did this for a stranger and hes going to represent trump in the senate. Lawyers are obligated by our rules of ethics not to perpetrate a fraud in court in an impeachment or against the American People. Who is going to enforce any of these laws . Thank you very much. More amaril. M. Joy after the br. M. My grandfather used his legal degree and his knowledge to help people that were voiceless in his country. That put a fire in my heart. It made me realize where i got my passion for social justice. Bring your Family History to life like never before. Get started for free at ancestry. Com thouwhich is Breast Cancer metastthat has spreadcer, to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. Ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr her2 metastatic Breast Cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. Ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. Patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. Ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs that can lead to death. Tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough, or chest pain. Before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant. Common side effects include low red blood cell and low platelet counts, infections, tiredness, nausea, sore mouth, abnormalities in liver blood tests, diarrhea, hair thinning or loss, vomiting, rash, and loss of appetite. Be in your moment. Ask your doctor about ibrance. Coming up, my super panel will examine the upcoming impeachment trial. More a. M. Joy after the break. When you shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. So you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. For small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. Shop everything home at wayfair. Com the good news . Our comfort lasts all day. The bad news . So does his energy. Depend® fitflex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. Because, perfect or not, lifes better when youre in it. Be there with depend®. Breathe freely fast, with vicks sinex. My congestions gone. I can breathe again ahhhh i can breathe again ughh vicks sinex. Breathe on. And with the sXfinity Stream app, screen is your big screen. Which is free with your service, you can take a spin through on demand shows, or stream live tv. Download your dvrd shows and movies on the fly. Even record from right where you are. Whether youre travelling around the country or around the house, keep what you watch with you. Download the Xfinity Stream app and watch all the shows you love. I think ken starr is a lunatic. I really think that ken starr is a disaster. I hated the way the president handled it. It was a long and terrible process. I think that ken starr was terrible. Good morning and welcome back to a. M. Joy. When donald trump called ken starr a lunatic during the impeachment of bill clinton decades ago he probably didnt anticipate eventually needing starrs services in an impeachment trial of his own. But thats what it came to this week as donald trump announced his version of the dream team for his Senate Impeachment trial. It includes ken starr and tv defense attorney Alan Dershowitz. Both of whom represented Jeffrey Epstein in his lenient plea bargain in florida in 2007. Also among trumps impeachment defense team, pam bondy. Who faced scrutiny for declining to investigate Trump University after receiving a campaign donation. The dream team will be led by white House Counsel Pat Cipollone and jay sekulow. Both named by lev parnas for being in the center of the ukraine inquiry. I was brought to john dowds house and he got jay sekulow on the phone and also rudy and basically they came up with this situation that said that because i worked for rudy and because i worked for victoria and because rudy worked for the president , we had threeway privilege and that basically Pat Cipollone was going to write a letter to congress that nobody was cooperating and that would protect us under the same order and he would followup with that. Again, this was the president of the United States so i thought, okay. So, yeah, kind of a weird amalgamation of characters. These are the people defending trump in front of the United States senate. Which might have Trump Supporters nervous if the senate was planning a real trial of the president , one with witnesses and evidence and jurors who hadnt already decided to acquit. Joining me now is neil katia. Thank you for being here. Ken starr is an interesting choice. Not only did he prosecute the impeachment of bill clinton for lying about a sexual affair. Hes had some weird sort of issues in his past regarding Baylor University pushing him out because of his sort of or push for light treatment of someone accused of a sexual offense there. And hen he also said that donald trump exhibited poor judgment in a tweet when he, essentially, threatened ambassador Marie Yovanovitch when she was testifying. Ken starr said i must say the president was not advised by counsel in deciding to do this tweet, extraordinarily poor judgment. He said the president follows my instincts, sometimes we have to control our instincts. Talk about your thoughts on ken starr that donald trump turns to as his counsel. Im not going to like join the chorus of those who say because trump has hired ep seen thes lawyers, thats somehow bad. I think its dangerous thing in this country to attack the lawyers for the clients that theyve represented in the past. We dont want to incentivize great lawyers not to take hard cases because of fear of personal attacks later. I think if i were trump, id be worried about hiring ken starr because of all the things starr said 20 years ago. For example, he said that president clinton abused executive privilege, and, therefore, should be impeached and removed from office for it. And what everyone thinks about what clinton did, its nothing compared to the abuses by President Trump, its 100 times worse and on steroids. Every time starr gets a defense for trump, hell be compared to starr of 20 years ago. And with dershowitz, his defenses are frankly silly. Yesterday he went on tv and saud abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. I dont think youll find anyone to agree with that view, it is what impeachment is about. If you have any doubt, look at what a congressman in 2008 said, he said what a high crime and misdemeanor is, its when a president puts his personal interest above those of the American People, that congressman in 2008 was. Mike pence. Its fair to say that just representing a bad guy is not anything that people should criticize a lawyer for, because that is what lawyers are supposed to do, and even bad guys deserve a defense. Thats true. What people are pointing to and what i find weird is that donald trump seems to have picked from two buckets of attorneys that he thought best to work with. One was dershowitz im sorry, was with Jeffrey Epsteins lawyers and the other prominent voices on bill clintons impeachment. Those are the two places he seems to have gone, but florida. Thats my comment, not yours. Dershowitz, hes claiming that the constitution was written by men who didnt think abuse of power was an impeachable defense, but another thing he said which i think is weirder, im not really trumps lawyer. Here is Alan Dershowitz not being clear on whether he is Donald Trumps lawyer. Here it is. I think it overstates it to say im a member of the trump team. I was asked to present the constitutional argument that i would have presented had Hillary Clinton been elected and had she been impeached. I am part of the legal team, a specialized role. My specialized role is to present the constitutional argument. The same argument i would present if Hillary Clinton had been elected and she were being impeached. If hes if he is not the president s lawyer, then is he a witness . And if hes a witness and hes only going to present an argument like a witness, doesnt that mean that the democrats now get to call the witness to match him, right . Totally. The whole thing makes no sense. This is like pregnancy, you either are or arent. Youre either a lawyer for a client or youre not. The simple test is do you share Attorney Client privilege with the person or not. If dershowitz is saying no, thats fine, anything said to dershowitz can be discovered in the process of a real trial proceeding. It seems like hes saying hes a witness to arguing this is not an impeachable offense. If so, absolutely, i think the democrats should have a similar witness. I can think of lots of different people who would qualify for that role. I dont think you get to have a witness with and call them kind of member of the legal team. That doesnt seem to work. I think its now worth asking, i hope reporters who have access id love for him to come on the show id love to ask him if hes being retained because if hes not Donald Trumps attorney he cant take a retainer. Which means, as you said, hes a witness, hes sort of a jonathan turley. And jonathan turlly testified as a witness then the democrats could argue, fine thats your witness. We want ours to be and they can name any member of Donald Trumps cabinet who are also not his attorneys, right . Absolutely. This whole idea that the republicans are trying to have a senate trial with no witnesses is absurd. Weve had two impeachments of the president in the past, andrew johnson, in which there were 41 witnesses that testified in the senate. And bill clinton, in which there were three witnesses that testified in the senate, and a whole slew in the house in the investigation before the impeachment trial in the senate. Here the president has said im not going to give a single witness, a single document to the house, which no president in our entire history as done and now turns to the senate and says you didnt have any of my witnesses in the house, now you cant get them later on. The whole thing is its one of those shell games. And, you know, ultimately the people who suffer are the American People at the end of the day, because we cant find the truth out because the president is so scared. Hes so scared of any witnesses coming forward and telling the truth to the American People, including members of his own cabinet. And that tells you all you need to know. Indeed. And now he has the witness whos called himself, apparently, alan dershowi dershowitz. Thank you very much, appreciate your time. Joining me now is curt bar dell low. Jill winebanks, former prosecutor. Legal analyst, maya wiley. And elly mustal. Thank you for being here. I want to go back to what neil katyal talked about. The absurdist argument of Alan Dershowitz. Not the one he says hes not trumps lawyer, thats just weird. The one he says abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. Ill play it for you now. Abuse of power, even if proved is not an impeachable offense. Thats what the framers rejected. They didnt want to give congress the authority to remove a president because they abused his power. They have to prove treason, bribery or other crimes of misdemeanors. Im arguing on behalf of the constitution, im arguing for a terrible precedence to be set for future president s here. Im going to the lawyers first. Make sense of that argument. I have to remain silent because you cannot make any sense out of it. It is an absurd argument. It is the standard we impeached in the house. Three out of four said that is an impeachable offense. The articles against Richard Nixon included abuse of power. It is clearly what was intended by our framers. Its what the federalist papers say, and its the thing that makes sense. Other high crimes and misdemeanors are exactly that. It isnt under the federal statutes that they were talking about. Bribery isnt under the federal statute because there was no federal bribery crime when the constitution was passed. It was whatever people thought it was. Indeed. Maya wiley same question. Hes saying unless you have actual treason or bribery and other crimes and misdemeanors but those cannot include abuse of power. Does that make any sense to you . No. I any neil katyal was dead on, jill is dead on. I just want to share first of all, andrew jackson, the president president of the United States to face impeachment and have a trial andrew johnson. Im sorry, andrew johnson. He was being impeached for abuse of power. There was no criminal offense underlying his impeachment. So thats number one. But the second is i want to pull out an argument that Alan Dershowitz made during the Mueller Probe, which was that even if donald trump went to putin when she was a candidate and said, hey, putin, you know what, id be a great president for you, because i dont agree with sanctions against russia, i dont agree with the magnitsky act so you help me, i help you, were good. Alan dershowitz wrote that would not be impeachable. When you hear him make this argument, he is literally saying that even if everything mueller found he could prove in a court of law, donald trump would not be impeachable. Nothing he does is impeachable according to the Alan Dershowitz. Im three for three, it falls to you elly, you break the threeway tie . You are the justice correspondent for the nation, sir. Of course its an absurd argument. I would like to point out Alan Dershowitz i also went to harvard law school. I feel hes so far past the point he should be considered a serious person. Because he stopped making serious legal arguments a decade ago. Be okay. This is not theres no abuse of power . This is not if the glove doesnt fit you must acquit argument. This is double murders dont matter if you score touchdowns s argument. Theres a reason Alan Dershowitz was the constitutional lawyer during that trial. And i want to contrast. Val demings, hakeem jeffreys, silvia garcia, jason crowe. So nancy pelosi, has come at this like there is going to be a serious trial. And donald trump came at this like this is an episode of law and order he has the reality tv team of lawyers, puck from the real world would make the argument that Alan Dershowitz is making right now. That brings me to former republican strategic guy, curt bordello, this lands in your lap. It is like the reverse of the oj trial where the dream team were the defense lawyers and the prosecutors were this hapless bunch of people who, you know, couldnt figure out what to do. And in this case its kind of reversed. You have Pat Cipollone, jay sekulow whos named as being part of the scream. Patrick fillburn. Al Alan Dershowitz, pam bondi, jane raskin. Heres a picture of pam bondi with lev parnas. Shes one of the many florida pals fooled up some how with lev parnas. Here she is asking about being pictured with him in photographs on the today show. So now we have multiple pictures of President Trump with lev parnas. His family members with lev parnas, his top associates, youre even in one of the photos. It also includes an electronic calendar entry by parnas of a breakfast meeting with President Trump just days before parnas was arrested. Does the president still maintain he does not know who lev parnas is . I havent spoken to the president this morning, but i can tell you as a former Florida Attorney general in a state with almost 22 million people, we took pictures constantly, constantly with thousands of people. And clearly lev parnas liked to take pictures with a lot of people. Curt, why give us the thinking behind we love having you on the team, welcome to being a new member of the msnbc family. We like having you because you can explain how these folks think. Why would you cast, as your legal team, pam bondi, who has past scandals with trump having received money from his foundation that was supposed to be helping charity but was giving her money. Shes in the photos with lev parnas herself. Why cast this group of people, two of Jeffrey Epsteins lawyers nothing wrong with lawyers should take clients but its a weird story line for him to have to deal with. Why . I think, joy, if you were to go to the fox news audience and ask if theyve seen on the air any of the pictures with lev parnas with just about everybody in the trump orbit, i bet the answer is minimal. So i think that trump is doing and what republicans are doing is relying on the fox news audience to continue carrying the day. They have the mindset, if it isnt broke, dont fix it. It seemed to work in the mueller trial with all the talk about how the Mueller Report would hurt the presidency of trump, and it ended up falling flat. Theyre using the same tactics theyre using then right now. Theyre banking on the fact that they see this solely as a television production. The characters they cast in this trial show they perceive it to be will outdo the serious, substancive, legally correct Team Nancy Pelosi put together. And theyre hoping that democrats dont realize theyre fighting a different battle. Democrats right now are in a knife fight, its a street fight, thats what theyre up against. Its not about roberts rules of orders, Senate Policies and procedures. Because trump believes if thats a direction democrats go, theyll win that argument. Trump knows if he loses a fraction of that fox news audience, hes done for. Everything rides on keeping the republicans in line, thats why he put together this fox team to defend him in prime time. His audience is not just the fox news audience. Its people like this senator whos in trouble poll wise, Martha Mcsally in arizona. Shes fighting to keep the seat after being appointed. And shes one of the people trump has to keep on line in terms of witnesses, et cetera. Here she is this week. Should the senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial . Youre a liberal hack. Im not talking to you. Youre not going to comment, senator . Shes now raising money off that. So is that what the point is, to get all the senators who were in trouble on their reelects to act like that . Youve seen, joy, over the course of the trump presidency, republicans have begun to adopt more of the trump characteristics than push it away. Despite the clamoring weve heard, we dont like whats going on, theyre disgusted by trumps tactics, but at the end of the day they continue to adopt his posture, tactics, rhetor rhetoric, they believe thats the only way to survive. They would rather tie themselves to trump and have that be the first line of their policeman n obituary. And that fear has infected the whole republican party. Theyre trying to mimic what trump has done. Despite the midterms 40 republicans got shellacked. Despite the red wave never materialized. I guess thats the difference between this and previous impeachments. It was a genuine mystery what was going to happen with bill clinton because there were ahgrh him for the affair and lying about the affair. For republicaichard nixon it to republicans turning on Richard Nixon. You now have lev parnas saying he had breakfast with donald trump. And then the evidence turns up to back him up. He has his calendar, which says breakfast with trump at 12 00 to 1 00 p. M. , then you go to trumps schedule at that time and it shows that donald trump was, in fact, headed to a restaurant and event space here in new york having, you know, gotten there between 10 00 and 11 00, so the time is slightly different but he did have breakfast in new york. You have evidence on the table, jill, but that is not seem to be what scares these republicans. It seems to be the optics of in any way stepping away from trump. It does. And evidence and facts matter. Thats what we have to hope for. Thats what todays jills pin is, stop closing your ears and eyes to the facts. We have to get out the evidence. And it is very frequent that new evidence is presented in a trial. So there is nothing wrong with saying that lev parnas should testify. Theres nothing wrong with introducing all the documents that are now publically available and the American People are going to be outraged if the senate closes its eyes and ears to these facts. Because they are real. And thats what matters in a trial, ultimately, are the facts. And i still remain an Eternal Optimist that there will be some republican senators who will say, these facts are really appalling. They really show what the president did, that he act d against our National Interest and he should be convicted. Can you imagine republicans being able to get away with doing a trial without these witnesses that are obvious that Rachel Maddow brought forward just in that interview . Youre seeing the republicans are getting so desperate they realize they might have to call witnesses. Theyre trying to find ways to scare the democrats in other ways. I think to curts point about how this is really a knife fight. The democrats cannot be scared so when ted cruz and rand paul threaten, if you call john bolton then were calling hunter biden. Then hunter biden can take one for the team. Call hunter biden, joe biden, ray ray biden. At the end of the day i want bullt po bolton and Mick Mulvaney. And bidens did nothing wrong. Were trying to diffuse a bomb in our country and john bolton and Mick Mulvaney have part of the answers. Im willing to sacrifice what i have to sacrifice to get them in the chair. Would you agree, you have bolton, pence, mulvaney, pompeo, hard to get through the trial without speaking . One thing true of the American Public is they get that a trial means witnesses and its hard to explain to the American Public no matter what the public thinks thats why were seeing 37 of independents and 39 of republicans agreeing that there should be witnesses. And that should be a problem, particularly for senators who are in close races. I would say to ellys point, id actually say give them nancy pelosi and adam schiff. They want the witnesses for the prosecution, let them have them. I would pay money for adam schiff to be a witness so he could better elevate the arguments that the house managers are bringing, based on the evidence hes seeing. Im not a lawyer, i can tell you what i know. They think they want adam schiff to testify. They dont want adam schiff to testify. Adam schiff would be the worst thing that could have happened to the republican party. Put him on the stand, do it. Youre living in the post oj trial world. Americans know what a trial is supposed to look like. Okay. Yes, i agree with all of you on that. Great panel. Thank you guys very much. Up next the absolutely bonkers, bananarama developments of the trump worlds efforts to oust Marie Yovanovitch. mom were you planning on mowing the lawn today . [thunder] son no. burke saved by the bolt. Seen it. Covered it. At farmers insurance, we know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum vo get a quote today. Tmobile 5g is here. And its nationwide. While some 5g signals go only blocks, tmobile 5g goes miles. Beyond the big cities to the small towns. To the people. Millions of americans can have access to 5g on tmobile. This is just the beginning. Tmobile, the first and only nationwide 5g network. Some things are too important to do yourself. Get customized security with 24 7 monitoring from xfinity home. Awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Call, click or visit a store today. Around 1 00 in the morning, she called me again and she said that there were great concerns, there were concerns up the street, and she said i needed to get come home immediately. Get on the next plane to the u. S. And i asked her why. And she said she wasnt sure, but there were concerns about my security. I asked her, my physical security . Because sometimes washington knows more than we do about these things. And she said, no, she hasnt gotten that impression that it was a physical security issue but they were concerned about my security and i needed to come home right away. Back in november former ambassador to ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, revealed there were unspecified questions about her personal safety at the end of her tenure in kiev. Now because of the damming evidence released by lev parnas we have a better understanding of why. According to the evidence released, whats app messages from robert hyde that implied that yovanovitch was being surveilled. Quote, they are moving her tomorrow and shes next to the embassy. New Text Messages released last night. Suggested hyde, this wannabe congressman, was passing information on he received from another trump supporter about yovanovitchs whereabouts. Since this has come to light, ukraine has opened an investigation. And now secretary of state mike pompeo has finally agreed to have his department investigate too. Joining me is michael mcfaul, former ambassador to russia. These messages from hyde to parnas, one of those messages was, they are willing to help us if we, you would like to have a price. Guess you can do anything in ukraine if you have the money is what i was told. When you read that and combine that with trump saying that Marie Yovanovitch was going to go through some things, does that sound like a threat to you . It sounds very threatening. We dont know if its real, we dont know if this guy was some drunk at the bar, right, obviously. But that language is very threatening. People are assassinated in ukraine. I had friends of mine killed there. You can get things done for a price. Im glad you played that clip, joy, because i think a lot of americans forgot about just how i remember listening to it, ive known ambassador yovanovitch for three decades now, shes a colleague and friend of mine. When she said that, it was really jarring at the time, but it didnt make any sense, right. Security, she says, what threats are not physical Security Threats . Now we have more context to it, and, of course, it needs to be investigated. Does it make sense to you why it seemed that, you know, the whole crew of giuliani trumps whole crew he had operating in ukraine, trump could have just fired her. Why not just fire her if he was displeased with her . He had the power to do it. Why or t why torment her . I dont know. Its reprehensible activities. Maybe they needed further excuse. Remember we learned they thought they fired her many times and it seems there must have been a struggle between President Trump seeking to fire ambassador yovanovitch and the state department was rightly saying, hey, whats the cause . So maybe there were having another cause about some physical threat to her that she had to get home right away. Again, theres still lots of dots that are not connected here. Wouldnt it be great if secretary pompeo testified and told us what went down there. Theres another piece thats important here. It was always mysterious in the impeachment trial in the house why yovanovitch had to be removed. Yeah. At least it was for me. Now its crystal clear. It was Yuri Lutsenko making that demand a quid pro quo because yovanovitch was so critical of the way he was operating in the prosecutor generals office. And lutsenko, remember, was hoping to stay on after the election of president zelensky. Remember he was appointed by pa pereshenko not zelensky. He needed to get her out of the way to keep his job. Now we know that was the quid pro quo, i wont investigate the bidens unless you remove yovanovitch. By the way, the Trump Administration did remove yovanovitch. So one of their arguments about military assistance, nothing happened, it was a few weeks. Well, in this quid pro quo they did take that action, which was not in the interest of the United States. The president claimed he did not know lev parnas, never met him. Did not know about surveillance. You have the robert hyde character, congress wannabe, supposedly involved in the surveillance saying parnas and other people involved with him were conmen and scum bags. Everybody is denying everything. Is it possible that the secretary of state was unaware what was happening to his ambassador in the state department and who was involved . Well, what underlines how he must have known is the clip you just played. You know, when i was a u. S. Ambassador in russia, i had to deal with physical threats to me, including death threats. These are difficult, horrible times and happened, by the way, my first year in moscow was the year that ambassador stevens was killed. We were on high alert about any kinds of threats against any ambassadors. And in the clip you just played, they used the word, your security is at risk. So if the secretary of state did not know about that, he wasnt doing his job properly, but that came from the state department. And the question, of course, is what was the Security Threat they were talking about that was so scary, so immediate that foggy bottom, the state department back in washington was saying ambassador yovanovitch you need to get on the next plane now. That sounds like an imminent threat and maybe this is tied to it. We need to connect those dots. We need to know what the threat was. Mike pompeo should testify in the senate trial, i think that would be helpful. Ambassador michael mcfaul, thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Coming up, he said she said, whats behind the latest show down between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. W down between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders when you shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. So you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. For small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. Shop everything home at wayfair. Com hi dad. No. Edont try to get up. Hi, im julie, a right at home caregiver. And if id been caring for toms dad, i would have noticed some dizziness that could lead to balance issues. Thats because im trained to report any changes in behavior, no matter how small, so tom could have peace of mind. Well be right there. We have to go. Hey, tom. You should try right at home. Theyre great for us. The right care. Right at home. To take care of yourself. But natures bounty has innovative ways to help you maintain balance and help keep you active and wellrested. Because hey, tomorrows coming up fast. Natures bounty. Because youre better off healthy. Natures bounty. Just between us, you know whats better than mopping . Anything at the end of a long day, its the last thing i want to do. Well i switched to swiffer wet jet and its awesome. Its an allinone so its ready to go when i am. The cleaning solution actually breaks down dirt and grime. And the pad absorbs it deep inside. So, it prevents streaks and haze better than my old mop. Plus, its safe to use on all my floors, even wood. Glad i got that off my chest and the day off my floor. Try wet jet with a moneyback guarantee who controls the present controls the past. That famous line from George Orwells 1984 could describe this story from the the washington post. It made original alterations to this crowd at the 2017s womens march. Signs referencing womens anatomy were blurred, as well as some signs that were critical of trump. What a weird story as the Resistance Continues today with womens marches being held in several cities across the country. Though the numbers may be smaller than in 2017 we hope their role in the trump era will be recorded properly and correctly in history. More a. M. Joy after the break. Y more a. M. Joy after the break. Have you spoken to senator warren since the debate . Have you resolved anything . No, we havent spoken. Have you spoken to senator sanders since the debate . I dont have anything else to say on this had. I have said all im going to say on this. You can keep asking the question but im not making an additional comment. The pact between Bernie Sanders and larn endelizabeth w ended in a big way this week when warrens Campaign Said sanders volunteers were making warren into an e llite cyst. And then Elizabeth Warren said Bernie Sanders said a woman couldnt be elected at all. And sanders denied it on tv during the debate. While warren was cool about it on air, she let sanders have it on an open microphone. I think you called me a liar on national tv. Lets not do it right now. You want to have that discussion, well have the discussion. You told me all right. Lets not do it right now. Okay. And then theres one more aspect to this mini war. Sanders supporters have used a tactic in calling warren a liar and bad friend for telling her side of the women cant win story besieging warren and her supporters on twitter with snake emojis. Joining me now is brittany pack cunningham, cofounder of campaign zero. During the Obama Administration brittany was appointed to the Ferguson Commission and president obamas task force on 21st century policing. Also janine driver and erin haynes. Thank you all for being here. This is a great panel to talk about this. Im going to start with you janine, i know you do a lot of public speaking that has to do with kind of women operating in the work place. Yes. When i saw the both on during the debate, warren was cool about it, shes like bernie is my friend im not getting into it, after ward she rolled up on him, were not going to handshake, you called me a liar. Thats feels to me how women have to operate in the working environment. Most of us want to deal with it afterwards instead of going for it. The fact that Elizabeth Warren came forward, scared her body, she said i think you called me a liar on national tv you go back to all the political arm get ags when it comes to deception, no one calls someone a liar like this and she said, wait did you call me a liar. This is indicative of someone that is telling the truth. If she was lying its unlikely she would confront him in that moment. The story story was ability a multiple tiered break down in the nonaggression pact between these two. At some point they had to fight it out, thats politics. But the way this alliance has broken down, has it surprised you the way that it how quickly its happened and how harshly its happened . Good morning, joy. I mean, look the gloves are off with 16 days to go until the iowa caucuses. And i think, you know, its interesting that the conversation has shifted to gender now that really the formidable candidates of color are really out of the race. Look, we are getting down to the wire here with primary voting about to get underway. And these campaigns are looking to differentiate themselves and better or worse, gender is a way to do that in this country. Brittany, you know that is a good point. It reminds me of the fact that one of the challenges Hillary Clinton had, when i would go around the country and talk to women, particularly younger, white women, there wasnt an urgency that we needed a woman president , and same for black voters who were here nor there on Kamala Harris until she was out. Is that what were seeing, maybe not just gender members . I think were seeing that. And were seeing this electability conversation is turning into a self fulfilling prophesy. When people start that conversation i hear them doing one of two things, masking their own bias, and theyre worried someone wont vote for a person of color or woman or theyre unintentionally or intentionally validating the worst biases in our society, the idea that a woman cant win, a person of color cant win are things we ingest all the time. So that electability conversation can actually really start to infuse all of our thinking if were not really careful. The thing about the this dust up between the two of them is that scandals hurt you more when they seem plausible. Bernie sanders does have a sort of physicality, you know, when he talks. A shaking your finger at Hillary Clinton, shaking your finger, sho shovey weirdy. His physicality could be, yeah first of all, i think bernie is lying. He slouches forward anyway, but here he turtles. If you look at his eye level, when he makes the denial, his shoulders come um like a little kid getting caught. This is trying to hide in plain sight and many of us dont know what to look for. If you look for this out of the gate. The strongest denial is saying no. Women in particular i think we want to believe human beings. He literally said, well, as a matter of fact i didnt say it. Thats nine words, unnecessary. Did you vote for donald trump in the last election . Absolutely no. Did you dress up as an easter bunny on easter . Absolutely no. Absolutely is not the stronger denial. Youre playing with me here. At least youre getting the know. And bernie has numerous hot spots lie yars like to say well, and laugh. Were focussed on the laughter and its supposed to send a message it isnt serious. It is serious. If he said it, which i believe he did, he would have been better to own it. Barack obama wrote a book years ago, he tried cocaine and marijuana and never touched the stuff again. We never talked about it when he was president after that. He did the opposite. With the two of them on stage, with the cnn moderators pushing them to fight it out, thats what everyone was expecting, it was sanders who said, i didnt say that. He put her on the spot. It was the moderator who then turned around and said to senator warren, well, when he said that to you, just sort of ignoring what he did. What do you make of the fact he chose that moment, basically, to call her a liar . I dont know exactly what happened in that meeting. But i do know i have felt and experienced that very same moment that we watched Elizabeth Warren experience where you hear somebody articulate a moment, memory, experience, very differently than how you experienced it. You give them that look like she gave him and later on youre clasping your hands because youre so deeply frustrated that this is a conversation you have to have. The truth of the matter is, for marginalized people, women, people of color, there is no winning here. You are losing by carrying the additional cognitive burden of not speaking on it or youre losing because youre going to be called a snake when you do speak on it. Theres no upside for Elizabeth Warren here. Im sure she wishes she could have avoided it. The snake emojis, that was jarring to see happen at all. Any evidence that the way this played out is helping or hurting either one in particular . I think that remains to be seen. I think looking ahead to the caucuses we may see how it does play out. But i think this is an important conversation to have because Bernie Sanders is not the only voter in america raising this issue. I heard it myself on the campaign trail. The fact is in 2020 women and candidates of color are still running campaigns of belief. Senator warren brought up something that both she and Amy Klobuchar have talked about on the debate stage and the campaign trail which is that neither one of them had lost a race, neither had Kamala Harris by the way. Really as you mentioned, remarking the womens march this we could, the anniversary of the 19th amendment, the 100th anniversary this week. The fact that our political imaginations are not expanded necessarily to think about whether women can win the highest and best offices in the land is really an open question. It is extraordinary, the day of the womens march anniversary were still asking whether a woman can be elected president and people are doubting it still. Even some women. Thats really depressing. Brittany, welcome to the msnbc family. Janine and erin, thank you, thank you. More a. M. Joy next. , thank you. More a. M. Joy next all around the wind blows we would only hold on to let go blow a kiss into the sun we need someone to lean on blow a kiss into the sun we needed somebody to lean on all we need is someone to lean on everything your trip needs, for everyone you love. Expedia. My hands are everything to me. But i was diagnosed with dupuytrens contracture. And it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. Thought surgery was my only option. Turns out i was wrong. So when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. Like you, my hands have a lot more to do. Learn more at factsonhand. Com today. They get that no two people are alike and customize your car like you, my hands have a lot more to do. Insurance so you only pay for what you need. What do you think . I dont see it. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Floridas republican Governor Ron Desantis has been dodging reporters all week after he was named as someone with whom lev parnas exchanged taeex messages. Leave and igor furman were indicted for funneling funds during elections. Once parnas and fruman were arrested desantis returned their donation. Hes been insisting ever since he doesnt know lev parnas like. Although picture after picture proves otherwise. Including this picture released last night. Joining me is the Political Editor for the tampa bay times. Im glad youre here, steve. For a lot of people this story about all that was happening in ukraine is a new york ukraine story but its also a florida story. These guys live in florida, operate out of florida. What have you been able to find about the relationship between lev parnas and igor fruman and ron desantis. The governor and lev parnas were introduced in may at a proisrael event. We dont know how or who introduced them. I tried to ask him that question. But over the next several months they had several run ins over the course of his campaign for governor. There was fundraisers in the final days before the election, parnas and fruman were seen at several Campaign Events with Rudy Giuliani. And then, on the night of his victory they were there and Governor Desantis hugged them both. We had a photographer at the event. We went through our archives and found a series of photos of him hugging both of these men and then later found out they were vips at his inauguration. The governor says he knows parnas, barely knows fruman at all. Theres a lot of questions we dont know and the governor wont answer them, including why there were Text Messages between him and parnas that were included in documents turned over to impeachment investigators, according to the wall street journal. They clearly knew and were hugging the Current Governor of florida. Theyre pictured with pam bondi, the attorney general of florida. They seem to know donald trump, his kids, his soninlaw, on and on and on, have you in your political reporting history known of anyone in that position to be taking pictures with people at vvip parties and with top officials in the state of florida and not know any of these people . Just wind up in pictures with them . Thats a good question. I think weve seen in the social media era a lot of people trying to get selfies with they get access to these events and then they want a picture and use these photos to sort of portray themselves as powerful people or connected to powerful people. The woman who was arrested, cindy yang, the woman at maralago who penetrated there, she had a very similar story as well. So there are sort of ways these unsavory sort of unknown figures can get access to politicians by making donations. The difference here is we know that Governor Ron Desantis had several personal meetings with the individuals, had met them, had them at Campaign Events and they were vips at his inauguration. There was a memo i reported on several months ago, the night before his inauguration they were added as vips at this event. The Governors Office said he didnt know they were added. But there was someone within his organization who specifically added them. Very quickly, is there any evidence that some of this foreign money funneled into american elections is the money funneled to the Current Governor, ron desantis, by mr. Parnas . We dont know. Its funny, the indictment includes allegations out of nevada and also texas, but for all the money thrown around in florida by these guys, they also gave to rick scott, gave to a congressman, there are no allegations in the indictment related to florida. But we do know there was an insinuation of a multistate marijuana scheme that included nevada and there are some reports that they may have tried to penetrate in florida as well. As for the source of their money and any sort of wrong doing, there hasnt theres not any allegations thus far. We hate to do the what would have, i wonder in Andrew Gillum won a narrow race in florida and then was tied to somebody like this, i wonder how it would have gone to him. Because ron desantis, other than your reporting, has pretty much skated by the thank you for being with us. More a. M. Joy after the break. More a. M. Joy after the break. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. But in my mind im still 25. Thats why i take osteo biflex, to keep me moving the way i was made to. It nourishes and strengthens my joints for the long term. Osteo biflex now in triple strength plus magnesium. Sstop struggling to clean tough messes with sprays. Try clean freak it has three times the cleaning power of the leading spray to dissolve kitchen grease on contact. And its great for bathrooms just keep pumping the power nozzle to release a continuous burst of mist and make quick work of big jobs. It even works on stainless steel. It cuts through 100 of dirt, grease and grime. Available with easytoswap refills. To get three times the cleaning power, try clean freak from mr. Clean. Apps except work. Rywhere. Why is that . Is it because people love filling out forms . Maybe they like checking with their supervisor to see how much Vacation Time they have. Or sending corporate their expense reports. Ill let you in on a little secret. They dont. By empowering employees to manage their own tasks, paycom frees you to focus on the business of business. To learn more, visit paycom. Com some things are too important to do yourself. Get customized security with 24 7 monitoring from xfinity home. Awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Call, click or visit a store today. That is our show for today, a. M. Joy will be back tomorrow. Alex witt has the latest. Its a huge news day again. What happened to the weekend when they used to be normal . I dont know. When we could chat about fun things. Not any longer. Big news day. Yes. Thank you for the set up, ill see you tomorrow. High noon here in the east, 9 00 a. M. In the west. Welcome to weekends with alex witt. New deadlines on the hill ahead of the president s impeachment trial and fresh revelations about his madefortv legal team. More bombshell documents and pictures again from lev parnas. Loud and clear why women are hitting the streets in if cities across this country. Sharing their stories, why a prominent congresswoman and the wife on a president ial candidate are coming forward. We begin with uncertainty on capitol hill today after House Democrats dump another round of documents provided by lev parnas, the associate of Rudy Giuliani who has been indicted, accused of breaking Campaign Finance law and arrested this fall at a washington airport with a oneway ticket out of the country. This appears to tie devin nunes more closely to ukraine and gives more evidence to support the idea that former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was under surveillance. All this as the senate plans to continue the impeachment trial on tuesday. Heres a report from k