trump s other attorneys played a role in shaping cohen s 2017 testimony. house judiciary chair jerrold nadler is threatening to hold former white house counsel don mcgahn in contempt if he doesn t testify before congress today. he has been directed by president trump to defy the congressional subpoena. nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker has more. reporter: president trump is directing his former white house counsel don mcgahn to defy a congressional subpoena to testify. the white house cites justice department opinions going back four decades that say senior officials like him have absolute immunity from testifying. the president speaking out. i think it s a very important precedent and the attorneys say that they are not doing that for me, they are doing that for the office of the president. reporter: mcgahn sat for more than 30 hours of interviews with special counsel robert mueller. democrats say he s a key witness on obstruction and accusing the
twitter. you ve seen it in terms of congress and the oversight powers but also basically trying to make sure that none of his folks have to testify. and it s all part of the broader strategy of saying, hey, look, it s sort of everyone against us, all the elites, all the institutions against us, again, fits into what president trump has done from the beginning. they think it s an effective mechanism. you saw a lot of this in last night s speech in pennsylvania, one of the great battleground states for this race. axios got a preview of a poll showing the one issue americans care most about. what is that? it s funny. we all get so obsessed about robert mueller and russia. you go back to 2018 ask any democrat and any republican who ran, what was the topic that drove the most votes and moved the most voters, it was health care. a new poll this morning, whether you re a democrat, republican, independent, the number one issue is not what most of us are usually talking about, it s health c
rather from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 851 of this trump administration. a couple of big stories have dropped just in these past few hours. tonight we learned don mcgahn who s the former white house counsel, one of the leading voices in the mueller report and now a private citizen will ignore a subpoena to testify tomorrow morning before the house judiciary committee. the white house apparently told him not to show. tonight the democrats are threatening what they are calling all enforcement mechanisms, more on that later. another big story late today, federal judge ruled against trump in his fight to keep his financial records that would include tax returns out of the hands of congress. and michael cohen is both in prison and in the news. we ve learned he testified that one of the president s attorneys encouraged him to make false statements to congress. but let s go back to former white house lawyer now private
on going to impede the truth. no one is above the law including the president of the united states and we expect mr. mcgahn to come before the committee and testify. according to nbc news during a leadership meeting in house speaker nancy pelosi s office last night, several democrats all argued for launching an impeachment inquiry if mcgahn fails to testify. impeachment was raised in a separate weekly meeting last night among democratic leaders and committee chairs. pelosi who is wary about calls to open impeachment proceedings reportedly told her members we always said one thing will lead to another as we get information. we still have unexholocausted avenues here. tore more on this later on this morning david ciciline will join morning joe . trump s speech last night touched on several topics cluing
i m yasmin vossoughian alongside nbc news white house correspondent jeff bennett. we ll start with the fight over the trump administration s stonewalling of democratic investigations escalating. the white house has directed former counsel don mcgahn to defy a congressional subpoena to testify before the house judiciary committee this morning. in a letter to chairman jerrold nadler, white house counsel said the justice department has quote advised me that mr. mcgahn is absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters occurring during his service as a senior adviser to the president. he went on to say the president has directed mr. mcgahn not to appear. a lawyer for mcgahn said the former white house counsel would respect the president s instruction and not appear today. chairman jerrold nadler says the committee will still meet this morning adding mr. mcgahn is expected to appear as legally require and if he did not testify quote the first thing we re goi