the presidency into a dictatorship, after his friend and ally sean hannity gave him repeated chances to deny it. we will play it all in a moment. judge for yourself. president biden telling donors off camera, he is not sure he would be running for re-election if donald trump weren't. but retracts that when reporters ask him about it later. >> would you be running for president if trump wasn't running? >> i expect so. look, he is running. i have to run. >> the former president responding in iowa. >> president biden says he is running because you are running. do you have any comment? >> i doubt it. i doubt that. they don't want me to run. everybody wants to run against biden. president biden speaking this hour as the deep partisan divide over gop demands to restrict the right to asylum at the border tanks aid to ukraine and israel in the national security supplemental budget, after senate republicans storm out of a classified briefing with secretaries of state, defense and the director of national security. ♪ is not. good day. what a day in washington. i'm andrea mitchell. there is breaking news on capitol hill. recently ousted republican speaker kevin mccarthy saying he is leaving congress at the end of this month to, quote, serve america in new ways. >> today i am driven by the same purpose that i felt when i arrived in congress. but now, it is time to pursue my passion in a new arena. while i will be departing the house at the end of this year, i will never, ever give up fighting for this country that i love so much. >> joining me now is reporter ryan nobles, "washington post" national deputy editor phil rucker and assistant manhattan district attorney catherine christian. ryan, what drove mccarthy's decision to leave congress so quickly? >> reporter: i think this was not too much of a surprise. we know that kevin mccarthy's presence still looms large over the republican conference, even after his ouster as speaker of the house earlier this year. basically, it got to a point where kevin mccarthy, as he said in his own words, felt he would be more useful to whatever cause he is promoting, outside of the halls of congress than inside the halls of congress. so he is going to leave at the end of the year, which is going to create a vacancy for house republicans that will shrink their already slim majority. of course, they just got rid of another member from their conference, george santos, last week. we are now getting a better handle on exactly how long it could potentially take to replace kevin mccarthy. the governor of california, once he resigns and not until, has two weeks to call a special election. then within a certain window of time -- according to what we are being told here, 126 to 140 days -- they need to call that special election to replace kevin mccarthy. it is very likely that kevin mccarthy will be replaced by a republican. his district is a republican stronghold. there's going to be a significant amount of time where that seat will be vacant and republicans won't have that vote. george santos' seat as well is going to be a significant amount of time. i believe the governor has called that for march 13th. republicans are finding a situation where they are already having a very difficult time passing a basic piece of legislation. there is still an enormous amount of dissent within their own rank. this is going to make it more complicated, to lose another member, especially as prominent as kevin mccarthy. >> ryan, former republican congressman fred upton is joining us now. there's so many questions to ask. when i said, why is he quitting now, i mean now, because it's creating that gap when key things, the supplemental, to say nothing of everything else at stake, as we head into the rest of december and january. >> reporter: right. that's a great question. i think part of it is timing. within the next couple of days, he would have been forced to file for re-election. he had a deadline approaching that he needed to make clear in terms of what his future is. that still doesn't answer the question, why doesn't he just complete his term as a member of congress and stay in office until the end of 2024 and allow the next member of congress to come in his place? that would allow the seat to be held in republican hands for at least the next year. that's the move that nancy pelosi made, even though she was not longer a leader and no longer speaker of the house. she decided to stay in office. she's now found a comfortable position here as speaker amerita. the situation is different with kevin mccarthy. nancy pelosi still very much is beloved with her conference. kevin mccarthy has created a lot of enemies. he is an enemy of a lot of other members. he called for ethics investigations into those that have asked for him to be removed. he has threatened primaries against some of those who removed him as speaker of the house. there was this level of tension that existed with kevin mccarthy in the room. i'm told every time he walked into a conference, an internal conference, there was a group that would look to him to see how he would handle a situation. that overshadowed the work of mike johnson. he is not particularly close with the new speaker, mike johnson. if it had been someone else, like patrick mchenry who he was very close with and even perhaps been jim jordan, someone he developed a relationship, maybe perhaps there was a role for him to play as a back bencher but someone with influence over the current speaker and someone that could mentor that speaker. that relationship doesn't exist with mike johnson. that's also part of the calculation. a lot of this is speculation. we don't know exactly the reason why he decided to step down. that's some of the data points you can point to as to why this is happening so quickly, especially given the margins between democrats in the house of representatives. >> to reinforce your point, fred upton, look at this tweet. let me read this tweet from marjorie taylor greene. she tweets, now in 2024 we will have a one-seat majority. congratulations freedom caucus for 105 reps who expel our own for the other. i can assure you, republican voters didn't give us the majority to crash the ship. hope hopefully, no one dies. >> remember a couple things. not only is santos gone -- you will have a special election soon. they are not going to have a primary. it's just a general. both parties decide who the nominee will be literally in the next week or two, probably tom swazi on the democratic side, a former member from the district. he will likely be -- i would hall him a heavy favorite. you got kevin gone. it's up to governor newsom when he calls a special election. bill johnson from ohio is going to announce that he is going to resign to take over the president of youngstown state. that's three members that are going to be gone, through republicans that are going to be gone. that margin is only one or two, depending upon, of course, everything changes day to day. speaker johnson's got a very tenuous grip in terms of how he tries to proceed to get things done. for kevin, it wasn't a surprise he was leaving. i said so from the get go. he is not a happy camper. he has to go down that aisle to vote. he has a number of folks who voted to oust him. they are catcalling right there at the end on all of his votes. he is not on a committee. he doesn't get that magic minute where he can speak for hours if he wants to when he is yielded to just a minute or two. he wasn't going to be happy as a back bencher. it was pretty -- the writing was on the wall that he was going to leave. in fact, there was word even earlier this week that there was going to be a special party for him the end of next week celebrating his time in congress, which was a pretty early signal this would be his last couple days of votes. >> every vote counts. it certainly complicates speaker johnson's job. it is no love lost there. phil, mccarthy leaving comes after a public breakup with president trump. former president trump is also not denying he would rule as a dictator. this is in a fox news interview last night. let's watch. >> the media have been focused on this and attacking you. you are promising america tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody? >> except for day one. except for day one. >> meaning? >> i want to close the border and i want to drill, drill, drill. no, no. >> that's not retribution. >> i'm going to be -- i love this guy. you are not going to be a dictator are you? other than day one. >> we shouldn't call that a news interview. that was basically a maga ally and sometimes surrogate trying to help donald trump out by getting him off of the dictator meme that liz cheney had just said in recent days as her book has come out, phil. donald trump wasn't having anything of it. maybe he is joking, but he is not backing off of that. >> yeah. i would take what trump said there seriously. he plans to exercise his power to the fullest from day one. he for months has been signaling the way he would use that power if he were to win a second term, seeking retribution, using the department of justice to go against his political enemies and adversaries, as my colleagues at "the post" have reported, using his power on immigration policy and other areas. when he says he would be a dictator on day one, you know, the crowd there was laughing and applauding. but i think it's a deadly serious comment. there's an awful lot that a newly elected president would be able to do on day one by executive order and with the sort of coordinated muscle of the federal government behind him. >> exactly. catherine christian, there's a preview of what another trump term could look like. go to "the atlantic," this new edition, which has a lot of articles on things that he has said. a republican lawyer who is being speculated as his potential attorney general spoke about this and talked about kash patel who they had wanted to take over the cia and is considered a complete outlier of any institutional national security policy. this is what he had to say. >> we will indict joe biden and hunter biden and james biden and every other sleaze biden. >> we will find the conspirators in the media. we will come after the people in the media who lied about american citizens who helped joe biden rig presidential elections. we will come after you. >> it's department of justice. it's rule of law. it's the national security team, intelligence. it's all of the above. >> if you care about the rule of law, it's frightening. remember, the president not only appoints the attorney general, the president appoints the 93 united states attorneys who are throughout the country and puerto rico and guam. those united states attorneys are responsible for federal prosecutions within those states. they follow basically the policies of the department of justice. a president would appoint people whose job is not to prosecute crime and to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but to go after people who are perceived enemies. that's just not the rule of law. that's just not the united states of america that has the united states constitution that we all are familiar with. >> phil, catherine, thanks to both of you. ryan, fred, stand by. we will be back a little later. we are waiting for the president any minute. running out of time as we await new comments from president biden on the critical million teary aid for ukraine and israel. efforts to get that aid crashing on capitol hill in dramatic fashion. what happened and what it all means for the war against vladimir putin. that's next. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." we will be back in 60 seconds. we will be back in 60 seconds. a better plan would be verizon. 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too many other republican senators who are not part of the hard right are going along. i hope that's not true. >> undeniable link between the threats we face in europe and the middle east and the indo-pacific. democratic leadership appears to be telling us today that they are willing to risk each of these priorities to avoid fixing our own borders right here at home. >> reporter: you get a sense that democrats are frustrated with mitch mcconnell in particular. he has been calling for ukraine aid. now he has become someone among the strongest proponents it should be tied to border problems. they are just simply running out of time. >> peter, the president's decision to add remarks to his schedule highlights the urgency here. they are out of money in ukraine. they don't have ammo. they don't have weapons. there's no way to backfill, according to the budget director who reports to the president. one wonders why if border security was the key issue here, why no one from homeland security or from mayorkas' staff was at the briefing. >> reporter: it's a good question. we will see how the president frames this. the president expected to speak in the roosevelt room here. it's clear having spoken to a senior administration official the president wants to use this as an opportunity to communicate to the american people the consequences of failure. failure to provide tens of billions of additional dollars to ukraine right now. as you noted, we heard in a letter from the white house budget director earlier this week, a letter written to congressional leaders that right now the u.s. is running out of money and running out of time to help support ukraine. she says something must happen by the end of this year. setting a deadline at which point there would not be the money necessary to provide additional military support to ukraine right now. she also said that if their economy collapses -- the u.s. is past the point it can support the ukrainian economy. if the economy collapses in ukraine, that would basically make it so the ukrainian people could not continue this fight full stop she said. we heard from one of the top advisors to zelenskyy. he was speaking to top leaders in the washington community. he said if there's not additional resources provided to ukraine in the very near future, that they are, in his words, at a big risk of losing this war. i think that's what we expect to hear from the president just moments from now about the consequences, the stakes here. republicans, as ryan helped communicate, specifically house republicans have been came call for what president biden calls draconian efforts to crack down on immigration laws. we heard from mike johnson saying in a letter to the white house that he first needed to see transformative change as it related to border laws. right now the question is where they can find some agreement on this with the window rapidly closing. >> indeed. zelenskyy was on a meeting with the president and all the other g7 leaders this morning. maybe that was previously scheduled on economic aid. clearly, this is an emergency. ryan, peter, thank you. i know you will stand by as we wait for the president as well. joining us now is retired lieutenant again twitty. give us a reality check. are they crying wolf or is this real trouble? >> i think it's real trouble. we lose credibility with our partners and allies when we tell them that we are going to be there for them to the end, and then we do not execute on that promise. so i'm hopeful that we can get this funding passed and we can get it to the ukrainians. as you know, they had a tough fight this past summer. they are going into the winter months. they will need to rearm, refit, reorganize. fix broken equipment. they need that funding to do those things to be prepared for the fight here coming up here in the springtime next summer. >> general twitty, that's a bonus for vladimir putin. that's one of the reasons why senator schumer said last night that republican icon ronald reagan would be turning over in his grave right now. thank you very much. stand by as well. we await for the president. the break in the blockade. senator tuberville releasing his hold on military promotions. abigail spanberger joins us with more on that. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. ts." this is msnbc. at's a deal worth celebrating. man, what are you doing?! get it before it's gone on the subway app. ♪♪ the power goes out and we still have wifi get it before it's gone on the subway app. to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. the senate has confirmed 425 military nominees after tommy tuberville lifted his blockade of promotions yesterday. all those military officers will not get back pay for the year they lost, nor will those who were slated to be promoted to replace them. tuberville has a hold on 11 four star generals and admirals who have not been confirmed. he held up military promotions for almost a year. he was protesting the policy allowing service members to be reimbursed for travel costs to travel outside of their states for abortion and other reproductive services. that policy remains in place. he got nothing for his trouble. >> everybody, i still got a hold on i think 11 four star generals. everybody else is released from me. it's over. >> but it's hardly over for all those 435 families who were held up, and the 435 who would take their places. people couldn't move. school years. joining us now, abigail spanburger of virginia, former cia case officer. she's announced she's a candidate for governor in virginia. what did senator tuberville achieve in that year of protest? >> well, he achieved a degradation of national security. i achieved sending a message to our adversaries that one single person can disrupt military readiness and the very function of the united states military. he continues to have a hold on four star general and admirals, the commander of the pacific fleet, the commander of u.s. cyber command. it is extraordinary that a united states senator would hold for months and months and months the promotion into vital national security and military roles, the 425 military members who have now been released from that hold and are now able to have that promotion. but he continues to wreak havoc on the military with the ongoing holds. he has only achieved damage to national security and the morale and function of our military. >> and their spouses and their kids. >> yeah. >> the justice department filed its first war crimes charges during the ukraine war against four russians accused of torturing an american who remain at large. holding a mock execution. do you think the russians will ever be held responsible and pay for their crimes? >> i have full faith in the united states justice department and their ability to bring these individuals to justice. the fact that they are pursuing these crimes is extraordinarily important as we continue to bring light -- bring to light the atrocities committed by russians and by vladimir putin's armies in the war that they continue to perpetuate against the ukrainian people. this is why it's extraordinarily important that the united states congress move forward with our support to our ukrainian partners as they continue the on the ground fighting against vladimir putin's russia, the russian army and those who have perpetuated war crimes against ukrainians and also americans. >> that aid is more doubtful than ever. the president will speak shortly about it, we are told. meanwhile, kevin mccarthy, what do you make of that? >> kevin mccarthy certainly was chief among those who played a vital role in rehabilitating donald trump's reputation. it was shortly after the january 6th attack that former speaker mccarthy was on the house floor speaking very plainly and frankly about the culpability and horror of that day and donald trump's role in it. it was just a few short days later that he traveled down to mar-a-lago in order to be part of an effort to rehabilitate the reputation of a president who had led an insurrection against the united states of america. he presided over a congress of chaos and division and, frankly, ineptitude in a variety of ways. constantly pushing us toward the brink of potential government shutdowns. i wish him well in his retirement. but i think this is clearly the appropriate time for his service in congress to come to an end. >> congresswoman abigail spanberger, thank you very much. an nbc news investigation. an investigation into one of the most horrific atrocities of the october 7 attack. new allegations about hamas using sexual violence, rape as a weapon. that's next. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. . so now, do you have a driver's license? 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>> we have eyewitnesses that are slowly arriving and giving testimonies. >> reporter: disturbing accounts about october 7, including this woman describing how a hamas terrorist, quote, laid a woman down. he is raping. then they pass her on to another person. telling investigators, the woman was alive and bleeding. another chilling eyewitness account from yoni telling the "sunday times" he was at the music festival where hamas slaughtered hundreds of concert goers. he hid under dead bodies saying he saw a beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten fighters beating and raping her. when they finished, they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head, he said. >> speaking at an event tuesday off camera, president biden called for, quote, global condemnation of the horrific attacks saying, reports of women raped and repeatedly raped and their bodies mutilated while alive, women's corpses being desecrated, inflicting as much pain and suffering on girls and women and then murdering them, it's appalling. hamas denies it committed sexual crimes against women. joining us is richard engel. what do we know about these stories? >> reporter: well, israel is building its case and is presenting evidence piece by piece. the families are obv outraged of hostages who are still in gaza. they are very concerned, because there are still women in gaza held by hamas and other groups. last night, there was a very tense meeting between the hostage families and the israeli government with israeli prime minister netanyahu and his war cabinet. some of the tension is because this is such a stressful time. these hostage famiies are facing what can only be an impossible debate, discussing with the government issues of which hostages should have come out first. why wasn't more done to release their daughter or their grandfather? why didn't the government swap more people earlier and prioritize one human life over another? some was directed personally at the prime minister saying that his policies have failed this country. he is putting politics before the hostages. he is too determined to fight hamas instead of going back to a cease-fire, working toward freeing the hostages, and then fighting hamas. a very -- a lot of stress. then, of course, that stress that much more severe with all of the stories of sexual violence and all of these allegations of rape, particularly for the families whose daughters are still inside gaza. >> we still don't know what's happening to the women who are still being held hostage. no confirmation on that. richard engel, thanks very much. at any moment we are expecting president biden to speak in the roosevelt room. that's a live picture. we are told by aides the president plans to urge congress to pass his national security supplemental, including funds to support ukraine. we will bring you the president's comments as soon as they begin. in it to win it. the big reason president biden is running for re-election and what his admission may mean about his campaign coming up. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. hing "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. and here. not so much here. farxiga reduces the risk of kidney failure which can lead to dialysis. ♪far-xi-ga♪ farxiga can cause serious side effects, including ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration, urinary tract or genital yeast infections, and low blood sugar. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking farxiga and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection, an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. when you have chronic kidney disease, it's time to ask your doctor for farxiga. because there are places you want to be. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. ♪far-xi-ga♪ she found it. the feeling of finding the psoriasis treatment she's been looking for. sotyktu is the first-of-its-kind, once-daily pill for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis for the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding your back... is back. or finding psoriasis can't deny the splendor of these thighs. once-daily sotyktu is proven to get more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections including tb. serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred. tell your doctor if you have an infection, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides, or had a vaccine or plan to. sotyktu is a tyk2 inhibitor. tyk2 is part of the jak family. it's not known if sotyktu has the same risks as jak inhibitors. find what plaque psoriasis has been hiding. ask your dermatologist about sotyktu for clearer skin. so clearly you. sotyktu. president biden is drawing the battle lines with donald trump ahead of 2024, painting him as a major threat to the country. at a campaign event in boston tuesday, the president said, if trump wasn't running, i'm not sure i would be running. he added, he could not let him win. this after referring to the former president as an election denier in chief. at the white house, the president was asked about those comments. >> he is running. i have to run. >> would you drop out if trump dropped out? >> no. not now. >> joining me now is jim messina and his former campaign manager and fred upton. jim, i have to ask you something. democrats say, why is he running? they think that some of the number of governors could be a better candidate against donald trump. was he opening the door at all? was this just thinking out loud at a fund-raiser, no cameras present? it raised a lot of eyebrows. >> he was not opening the door. joe biden is going to be our nominee. there's lots of people you and i know who would love to run for that office. the truth is, they are all unproven. with donald trump, we know joe biden has beaten him the first time. he will beat him the second time. we can't take the risk of an unknown candidate. these folks sometimes just aren't ready for primetime as we saw with sarah palin, dan quayle, with a bunch of things you see right now with desantis, who was everyone's national candidate and the spotlight was too great. donald trump admitted that he would be a dictator on day one. we just can't take a risk for that. that's why joe biden ran the first time and it's why he is running the second time. >> fred, are republicans going to use the president's words against him? >> i'm sure they will. it's unlike opposition research before when you had to look through newspapers or find out speeches. it's all right there. the other question someone might ask about president biden is, i'm not sure that harris, the vice president, is tested for this either. that could have been part of the reasoning in terms of what president biden said last night. >> fred, that debate, the last debate tonight -- first of all, who will see it? it's not on major networks. it's the last one before the iowa caucuses. you have four people, chris christie sliding in at the last minute. you have four people. is it a big chance for nikki haley? >> i think it is. >> picking up big money on wall street. >> she is. she's the alternative. she's the likely alternative. desantis has been going down, down, down. trump continues to pound away. i think chris christie levelled up a little bit here as well. just like biden is the likely nominee for the ds, trump is the likely nominee for the republicans as well. take the case of michigan. it's winner take all. when he got a third of the delegates, he shared it with kasich and a few others. now he gets them all. he is on a path to be the nominee for the republicans. >> the filing deadlines are such that time is running out. >> filing deadlines are come and gone for a number of states. >> here comes the president, joe biden. >> congress has to uphold the national security needs of the united states. quite frankly, of our partners as well. this cannot wait. congress needs to pass supplemental funding for ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. i think it's stunning that we have gotten to this point in the first place. while congress and republicans in congress are willing to give putin the greatest gift he could hope for, abandon our global leadership, not just ukraine but beyond that. we have all seen the brutality that putin has inflicted on ukraine, invading another country, trying to subjugate his neighbors to his iron rule. committing atrocities against ukrainian civilians, trying to plunge them into the cold and darkness of winter by bombing their electrical grid so they don't have heat during the winter or electricity for that matter. kidnapping thousands in ukraine, thousands of ukrainian children electric their parents and families and keeping them in russia. who is prepared to walk away from holding putin accountable? who is prepared to do that? for the better part of two years, the brave people of ukraine have denied russia a victory on the battlefield. they have defeated vladimir putin's ambition to dominate ukraine. the people of the united states can and should take pride -- they should take pride that we have enabled ukraine's success thanks to weapons and ammunition we provided them together with our partners and allies. i did a meeting with the g7. all the european leaders, we are prepared to stay with this, stay with ukraine. our european friends are as well. who in the united states is prepared to walk away from that? i'm not prepared to walk away. i don't think the american people are either. if putin takes ukraine, he won't stop there. it's important to see the long run here. he is going to keep going. he made that pretty clear. putin attacks a nato ally. then he keeps going. we have committed as a nato member that we defend every inch of nato territory. then we will have something we don't seek and that we don't have today, american troops fighting russian troops. american troops fighting russian troops if he moves into other parts of nato. make no mistake, today's vote is going to be long remembered. history will judge harshly those who turn their back on freedom's cause. we can't let putin win. i will say it again. we can't let putin win. it's in our overwhelming national interest and the international interest of all our friends. any disruption in our ability to supply ukraine clearly strengthens putin's position. we have run out of money to be able to do that in terms of authorization. extreme republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding ukraine hostage. let me be clear. we need real solutions. i support real solutions at the border. i put forward a comprehensive plan the first day i came into office. i made it clear that we need congress to make changes to fix what is a broken immigration system because we know -- we all know it's broken. i'm willing to do significantly more. in terms of changes of policy and to provide resources we need at the border, i'm ready to change policy as well. i asked for billions of dollars for agents, more judges, more asylum officers. republicans have to decide if they want a political issue, if they want a solution at the border. do they want a solution? it cannot be sustained as it is now. we need a real solution. my team has been engaged in negotiations with senate democrats and republicans on border security. democrats have put forward a bipartisan compromise on the table. schumer and senate democrats also have offered to let republicans propose amendments. the republicans have rejected it. we don't want to introduce your propos proposal, because we're not going -- we don't want to do that. this has to be a negotiation. republicans think they can get everything they want without any bipartisan compromise. that's not the answer. that's not the answer. now they are willing to literally kneecap ukraine on the battlefield and damage our national security in the process. look, i know we have our divisions at home. let's get past them. this is critical. petty partisan angry politics can't get in the way of our responsibility as a leading nation in the world. literally, the entire world is watching. the entire world is watching. what will the united states do? think if we don't support ukraine. what is the rest of the world going to do? what's japan going to do which is supporting ukraine now? what's going to happen in terms of the g7? what's going to happen in terms of our nato allies? what are they going to do? if we walk away now, it will embolden would-be addressers. i'm calling on congress to stand with the people of ukraine. stand against the tyranny of putin. stand for freedom. let's get this done. we are the reason putin has not totally overrun ukraine and moved beyond that. you all have heard me talk about it before. if we walk away, how many of our european friends are going to continue? what rates will they continue to fund it? this is too serious. like i said, i am willing to make significant compromises on the border. we need to fix the broken border system. it's broken. thus far, i have gotten no response. i just -- there will be a vote later today. we will know where we go from there. i wanted to make this comment before the before the vote, and i'm sure i'll be talking with you after the vote. thank you very much for listening. appreciate it. >> mr. president, given the current impasse, would you be okay with democrats willing to put more on border to get this policy through? >> yes. >> what would you be okay with democrats? >> i've already laid out our negotiations with langford and others, what we're willing to do, significantly more, particularly start off by equipping the border capacity that we need on the border from judges to more border security in addition to maing some substantive changes, but they're unwilling to do it. i really thought -- i felt good for a while. i thought we were making real progress. langford is a decent day, looked like he was prepared to move in a way, in a direction, that we could come one a compromise changing the substance, changing the policy on the border as well as security at the border, but they've walked away. it's take everything we have here, their one proposal, which is extreme, or nothing. in the meantime, the nothing means we don't get any support for our friends and our innocent people of ukraine. anyway, i'll talk to you more after the vote. >> president biden, on ukraine and also china, there's polling by the "associated press" that shows that almost 70% of americans, including 40% of democrats, believe that you acted either illegally or unethically with regard to your family's business interests. can you explain to the americans -- to americans amidst this impeachment inquiry why you interacted with so many of your son and brother's foreign business associates? >> i'm not going to comment i did not and -- a bunch of lies. >> did you interact with their business associates? >> i did not. they're lies. >> mr. biden -- do you think there is any democrat who could defeat donald trump other than you? >> probably 50 of them. >> you do believe that there are? >> i'm not the only one to defeat him, but i will defeat him. >> who else do you think could beat donald trump, mr. president? >> asked whether he's the only one who could defeat donald trump, i'm not the only one, but i can. i think that's what he said. let me ask peter alexander if you heard him better than i did. >> obviously there's been some back and forth, him saying he only planned to run because former president trump was running right now, was asked if he thought any other democrats could do it, i think the president said there are at least 50 of them, but the president on the south lawn yesterday made clear that he plans to run as well. the key takeaway from these remarks here, the president in effect saying this cannot wait about his desire to get tens of billions of dollars passed as part of this supplemental national security package to help provide new military support to ukraine right now, and he in effect accused republicans of potentially giving vladimir putin the greatest gift he could ever ask for, which is the united states no longer supporting ukraine. >> and peter, just before he left the studio just a few minutes ago, fred upton, a republican of course but one who has been very critical of his fellow republicans, said why isn't the president saying i'm going to hold congress here until they vote on the supplemental? that's part of what he might say to you after following the vote. >> reporter: you're right, he said we will hear from him again later this afternoon. this is a procedural vote, what's taking place later today. the president do something we don't often hear from white house officials, senior administration officials, president did a bit of the negotiating publicly talking about how he's had conversations with some of the top republican senators referring particularly to senator langford of oklahoma, as it relates to border security, saying he was open to doing more on that, but clearly not willing to go as far as the republicans are and effectively accusing them of intransigence on this issue. >> and very briefly, thanks, peter to you. i know you've got to run off and report, but general steph twitty, former deputy commander of course of u.s. european command, the president's trying to take a hard line, but you're not offering any more compromise to try to get this thing unstuck? >> i picked up on the same thing. look, there are a couple of things i think we need to take away from the president's address, which i agree with. number one, we embolden our add adversaries if we do not signal we're going to have staying power in this war, and i think he said that pretty clearly. the second thing is russia. where would they go next? what will they do next? you know, they have the balkans, they have the baltics, poland, hungary, you name it, and so if the russians received a victory in ukraine, they could decide to continue and also impact nato countries. and then the third thing that i picked up on that i thought was extremely important, if we back out of this, what about the other 31 country who is make up nato. who's next and then the next and then the next? and then there's no funding for ukraine whatsoever to execute this war. >> general twitty, thank you so much. joining us now is connecticut congressman jim himes. he's the top democrat on the intelligence committee. on ukraine, congressman, do we believe we're about to see a major shift in funding from the u.s. if republicans don't get the border funding they're looking for? >> well, it's a, you know, terribly concerning situation. the general just outlined the case pretty well. he left out one critical thing, which is you know who's watching whether we have staying power in ukraine right now? president xi of china, and president xi of china has not one iota hidden his interest in reuniting forcibly if necessary with taiwan. if the lesson to putin is he can move in and we'll just get tired after 18 months and he gets what he wants, xi sees that, and he says america, which fought the world war ii and fought the cold war over a generation or more now fades after 18 months. that's a profoundly dangerous world, and any american who thinks if putin feels like he's had a success in ukraine or xi feels he can have a success in taiwan, if you think that's a safer world for americans and our allies, you're out of your mind. >> and congressman, i want to play what we heard from speaker johnson just ahead of his release about wanting to protect the january 6th protesters from being prosecuted. let's watch. >> as you know, we have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don't want them to be retaliated against, and to be charged by the doj. >> what's he talking about? protecting potential criminals? >> can you imagine, andrea, the speaker of the house of representatives, the institution that was brutally and violently attacked -- i was there. i saw -- is saying we don't want the people who did that to be charged. i mean, words fail me. what is the message sent to other people who a year from now or whatever decide they want to break windows, attack police officers and call for the hanging of the sitting vice president. the speaker of the house just said you got to get out of jail free pass because we won't let you be prosecuted. again, words fail me. >> and let me ask you also about the fisa reauthorization, fbi director chris wray repeatedly trying to make the case for this surveillance program being critical before time runs out at the end of the month, and the fact that it has been reformed to try to deal with the fbi abuses that they did flag the republicans complained about. >> yeah, andrea, i'm not sure republicans complained about. >> yeah, andrea, i'm not sure the american people are focused on 702, but they should be because on december 31st, our most important surveillance tool, which is targeted exclusively at non-u.s. people abroad, it expires. the chairman and i of the intelligence committee agree that we are in more peril from a terrorist attack than we have been in a very long time because of everything that's happening in the middle east. i actually think that the dysfunction -- and we just talked about the insanity of saying that people who broke windows around here shouldn't be prosecuted -- that kind of dysfunction may allow for that authority to expire. they did a markup today of a bill in judiciary by a lot of people who hadn't studied the problem. they've got an alternative bill. chairman turner and i have worked for month sps months and months to put forward a bill we think reforms the program dramatically, but will allow us to keep it safe. i don't have confidence that the speaker is not just going to toss aside the smart bill in favor of something that i think came together in very slap dash fashion today. >> jim himes, thank you so much, congressman. and finally, before we go, i just want to say something about norman lear, a giant of american it was has died at the age of 101. norman lear passed away of natural causes at his home in l.a., although the characters he created and the topics through norman lear really changed t way we laugh at home, we lau at each other, and we laugh at ourselves. and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." remember to follow the show on social media @mitchellreports, and also tonight the analysis by jen psaki after that last debate before iowa. "chris jansing reports" starts right now. ♪♪ good day, everyone, i'm chris jan chris chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters. donald trump is adding fuel to the fire, but do his voters care or is this exactly what they're