that will be a challenge for them in terms of how to respond to that. also in the court of public opinion, the white house clearly in that document yesterday laying out both a constitutional argument but also a political statement and saying in some ways, look, the president is not being treated fairly here, if you re going to impeach him, if you re going to go through this process then he needs to have due process, he needs to have the right to have counsel present and be involved in the interviews that you want. that might bolster his case among people who are wavering in his base or others who are traditional supporters of president trump while also potentially forcing the hand of the democrats to either have a discussion about that vote or move on without these witnesses that they dearly want to question. kristen welker, from what you ve learned, what about white house yielding at all on masha yovanovitch, the former ukraine
before, in the court of public opinion, people begin to wonder what is this white house hiding, why are they not allowing these officials who were directly involved with this call and these negotiations between the ukraine and the u.s. to appear before the public and answer these pressing questions. jeff, it is a bet. nancy pelosi has said there is enough in what the president has said himself and the rough notes, the rough transcript, whatever it is, there s enough to go on just there. but they need or want to have witnesses. and they wouldn t be subpoenaing these witnesses if they didn t want them. they don t have the luxury of going true an extensive court battle, as they learned when the mueller report was released. time is running out of them. that s right, democrats want to get this done quickly because they don t want it to bleed too far into the presidential chain ne campaign next year. they will certainly be hampered by the fact that the white house isn t cooperating.
welk welker, robert costa and now msnbc political and lest claire mccaskill is here. joe has the morning off. claire, great to have you. thanks. i want to get your opinion on this. nancy pelosi saying she s inclined to steer the democratic congress away from impeaching president trump. she said, this is not i don t think we should go down that pass because it divides the country worth it. the spack now using is what she
are fervent about impeachment will continue to push. those who know her, know this is not a speaker of the house, have subtly gone sowno rush o impeachment. shes in she doesn t want to rush to anything. break down this administration. expose them throughout 2019 and 2020 and go into 2020 election with a real case against the president that s been built over time, not rushed through some proceeding. kristen welker, for those who believe that president trump it would probably frustrate him to hear he s not worth something and would argue that at this point. like, wait a minute, i m not worth impeachment? i ll going to tell you why. just to be at the center of
global economy that helped sustain him in the 2015 campaign they re still there. he s railing against big banks and companies in the same way president trump picks a target and so isn t elizabeth warren and going up against the tech companies. you re right. i think the question for a warren, for a kirsten gillibrand is a whole lot of people cast a vote for him and he s got an army of people out there who still like what they see. kristen welker, please come back. thank you. what a pleasure to be here.