Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20191122 : comparemela.co

The world, in the words of my great colleague, we are better than that. Adjourned. Chairman adam schiff in his closing statement yesterday echoing a comment, a familiar one, from the late elijah cummings. Good morning, welcome to morning joe if the is friday, november 22nd. Im wiley geist. Joe and mika the morning off. With us, susan del percio. White house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. Pulitzer prize winning columnist and editor of the Washington Post, eugene robinson. Msnbc analyst, former chairman of the Republican National committee Michael Steele. Vice president for third waves National Committee program, and former retired fourstar navy admiral. Hes diplomacy analyst for nbc news and msnbc. Good north to you all. Before we get into some of the testimony from yesterday from fiona hill and david holmes, jonathan, let me get a big picture from you. Were tend of the extraordinary two weeks. How is the white house generally feeling about where they are heading into thanksgiving . First of all, we should note how historic this is. This is the impeachment proceedings only the fourth time ever. We shouldnt lose sight of that if things are moving into partisan camps here. We have now had two weeks, five days of testimony, i believe, a parade of witnesses, almost all career officials and diplomats who painted a really extraordinary picture of what had transpired this past year between the president of the United States and the situation in ukraine where he has theres very little ability to dispute the evidence that he pushed ukraine to hold investigations into political rival in order to receive military funding and eventually a white house visit. He an ally, important ally in the United States and the west and europe say bulwark against russia who he had let twist in the wind and lives were lost because of this decision. Eventually that aid was released, we know that. Fiona hill yesterday, extraordinary testimony, showed just exactly parallel paths there. There was the regular path in the u. S. Foreign policy and as she put it the domestic political errand that Rudy Giuliani was doing to try to get this information about joe biden. The white house still shaken about the events. They feel confident that the republicans in the senate have the president s back. They do not believe hes really any risk of losing office. Of course things can change and well see how this plays out the next couple of weeks. But this much is all but certain. President trump is going to be impeached. Hes likely not going to be removed from office, but hes going to be impeevached. And, gene robinson, we saw in fiona hill, someone who worked for donald trump in the white house. For 2 1 2 years. Come out and tell the truth about what she saw. She was careful not to appear partisan. She did talk to the republicans about some of the conspiracy theories theyve been floating and say i study this for a living. None of what youre saying about ukraine meddling in the 2016 campaign is true. She went out and she told the truth, and now, as jonathan says, it will be up to the house and eventually the senate and the American Public to decide based on what theyve heard for two weeks whether or not donald trump did Something Worthy of impeachment. You can see why they scheduled fiona hill as the cleanup witness. She was extraordinary the way she in a cool way sort of told us so much about what had happened, so much about herself, why she does what she does. She gave us a sense of why these career people serve the country the way they do. And and how it felt to them to see Foreign Policy diverted by a president in this way. The consequences of that for ukraine, the consequences of that for her sense and the sense of others of what was what was right, what was acceptable, what was proper, what was the way the white house is supposed to work. And, you know, you mentioned the American People. Ultimately if the needle is going to move from where it is now, which is that the president will be impeached, i believe he will be. I believe, you know, impeachment is almost analogous to an indictment and i think theres plenty of evidence for an indictment by now. But he is unlikely to be removed from office unless, number one, public sentiment moves in that direction, which the republican senators will be paying attention to. And, number two, were just going to have to see how this trial plays out. Yeah. What are going to be the rules . We have so few precedents for this. There are obvious witnesses who were not who did not testify, basically because the white house told them not to testify. So will it be a trial in which the defendant, in effect, gets to decide who testifies or not . Is that acceptable to chief Justice John Roberts whos going to be presiding at the trial . So a lot of questions going into this next phase, and i assume there will be a next phase. Before we get to to that next phase, will chairman schiff pursue some of these witnesses like john bolton, Mick Mulvaney and mike pompeo or do they want to get this to a vote and not wait . We also have to note theres not been an official word that theyre done. Thats right have some theres going to be thanksgiving week, but its not entirely clear that theyre finished with this phase. Susan, lets listen to some of what dr. Fiona hill said yesterday, the former top russia aide to the white house was asked about testimony from ambassador Gordon Sondlands deposition when he accused hill of being, coat, emotional while describing himself as being a shoulder to cry on. I think you might recall in my deposition on october 14th that i said that very unfortunately i had a bit of a blowup with ambassador sondland and testy encounters with him. One of those was june 18 when i said to him who put you in charge of ukraine and i was a bit rude. Thats when he told me the president , which shut me up. And this other meeting, it was about 15, 20 minutes exactly as he depicted it was. I was actually to be honest, angry with him. And, you know, i hate to say it but when women show anger its not fully appreciated, its often, you know, pushed on to emotional issues and perhaps are deflected on to other people. What i was angry about was that he waersnt coordinating with u i realized that during his deposition that he wasnt right. He wasnt coordinating with us because we werent doing the same thing he was doing. So i was upset with him that he wasnt fully telling us about all of the meetings that he was having. And he said to me, but im briefing the president. Im briefing chief of staff mulvaney. Im briefing secretary pompeo and ive talked to ambassador bolt to b bolton, who else do i have to deal with . We have a robust interagency process that includes mr. Holmes, the tail loylors, and ae lot of other people. But when you put up on the screen yesterday ambassador sondlands emails and who was on these a emails, theer these are people that need to know. He was right. He was being involved in a National Political errand and we were being involved in National Security Foreign Policy and those two things had diverged. He was correct. I had not put my finger on that at the moment but i was irritate and angry that he wasnt fully coordinating. And i did say to him, ambassador Gordon Sondland, this is all going to blow up and here we. On the list of quotes that will be remembered from these two weeks, he was being involved in a domestic political errand may be near the top of the most memorable. What i thought was so interesting about dr. Hills testimony was that she was able to outline that it was by repeating sondlands testimony, that it was Mick Mulvaney, it was secretary pompeo, it was secretary perry. These were people who were operating under the president s authority and operating a political agenda while she was trying to take care of protecting our country. And at what conflict and what frustration, of course, she must have had because her mission was to carry out Foreign Policy and protect our country. These guys were just really trying to help the president. And i think it brings in another interesting point, which is was Rudy Giuliani speaking to all of these people as an attorney for the president which would mean that they were all not working on behalf of the government but on behalf of donald trump personally, which could be a violation of certain rules. Or, was Rudy Giuliani given permission to act as a part of the government, which in case he never went through background checks or anything else. I think his role will be thoroughly investigated. Admiral, there was an interesting moment when dr. Hill said she assumed there was a shadow Foreign Policy being conducted by Rudy Giuliani and Gordon Sondland. And then yesterday she sort of revised that thought and said, oh, no, that was the Foreign Policy and it was coming from the ambassador to the eu who had no jurisdiction over ukraine. Why was he here meddling in our business . And what you have again is state department and National Security officials who found themselves to be working at odds with people in their own government. Indeed. And i know fiona quite well, in fact, willie, when i was preparing to go be the supreme allied commander in nato, i was looking around and casting about for experts to talk to, everybody said, oh, youve got to talk to dr. Fiona hill. The point i want to make is her knowledge of russia, ukraine, this region is really quite unparallel. She is bril atbliant, as you s and shes also kind of tough as nails. Shes literally a coal miners daughter from the north of england. Shes not backing up to anybody. And so when you had that kind of collision between legitimate National Security, which, of course, is getting this aid to the ukrainians, ukraine has a dag g dagger at its throat from russia. This is big ka tino for them. And that narrative diluted colliding with this national agenda. Ive never seen anything like it. I spent several years as a combat commander working on this kind of Foreign Military assistance. Never saw it diluted in the domestic sphere. Fiona hill is Donald Trumps worst nightmare. And, mika, as the admiral says, we have a long list of National Security officials, career diplomats who came over the last two weeks and told the truth and did something that perhaps donald trump and the white house couldnt understand, which was not put loyalty to the president before loyalty to the country. Here i am as a fact witness, they said, and fiona hill said again yesterday, here i am telling you what i saw. Im not going to give you my opinion on whether or not i think the president should be impeached. But heres what i saw and heres what i heard. Yeah. These witnesses are very important because, as dr. Hill testified, they were pursuing the National Security interest of the United States and the president was trying to subvert that for his own personal political benefit. These are a group of people who are copious note takers, who have the sense of separation between politics and National Security. Theyre all bound by the thing called the hatch act which prohibits them from engaging in political activity on the job. So when they start seeing this kind of political activity, it is deeply alarming to them. We have rules and laws in place to try to prevent that from happening because people realize that political benefit really is about peoples personal benefit. It is not in the National Security interest of the United States. And these are people who could put those words into the president s mouth himself. So, Michael Steele, one common theme from dr. Hill and david holmes testimony was that the president s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was a problem. Listen to this. I had already brought to ambassador boltons attention the attacks, the Smear Campaign against ambassador yovanovitch. I had asked if there was anything that we could do about it. And ambassador bolton had looked pained and basically indicated with body language that there was nothing much that we could do about it. And in the course of that discussion said that Rudy Giuliani was a hand grenade thats with going to blow everyone up. Did you understand what he meant by that . I did, actual. I what did he mean . Well, i meant that what mr. Giuliani was saying was explosive in any case. He was frequently on television making quite insinncendiary rem about everyone involved in this and he was clearly mupushing forward ideas that would come back to haunt us. And thats where we are today. It became apparent that mr. Giuliani was having an influence on the agenda that the three amigos were executing on the ground in ukraine. At one point during a meeg of the inaugural delegation, common wondered allowed why mr. Giuliani was so active and immediate with ukraine . My recollection is that ambassador sondland stated, quote, damn it, rooudy, every te rudy gets involves he goes and, quote, fs everything up. Theres another quote. Rudy giuliani, the president s personal attorney, not an employee of the government, running this entire operation. Absolutely. Hes doing exactly what donald trump wants him to do. This is that bit of separation from trump directly that puts rudely rudy in the space where he can go in and throw trumps game around and hes got the power of that behind him. All of these career officials, theyre kind of stuck. You know, theyre sort of stumbling over how to work with this person who has been put there by the president. So theres respect for that, i mean, because thats part of the traditional conventional way of looking at these things. If youre an envoy or representative of the president on certain matters, people give you some deference. But when it goes counter to the nations Foreign Policy, thats where things get muddied. And i thought dr. Hill yesterday just put it so profoundly out there for all of us to see. But heres the rub, willie. None of it really matters because the bed right now in the white house is the polling is showing that people are sliding off of had whole idea of impeachment. The United States Senate Republicans have affirmed by have been affirmed by the voice of one congressman will herd yesterday who was the hope in the house who basically stood on the front porch of donald trump and said, this is my space now. So the reality is that were all left with is that despite the explosive testimonies, the profound importance of that testimony, the consequences will virtually be nonexistent. And unless and until to eugenes point there is a movement by the public towards something more severe, Rudy Giuliani will continue to do what Rudy Giulianis doing. Donald trump will continue to do what he is doing, and the rest of us are going to be left scratching our head going what happened . If will herd was one of hopes for democrats, a vote they could swing to their side on the Impeachment Vote and hes come out already, he used his question time yesterday, as you said, to say i cant vote for impeachment. Hes a former cia officer. Hes concerned about some of things he saw. But he says, ive listened to all of this evidence, it might be bad, but its not it didnt warrant removing the president from his office. So if hes saying that, i think we know what everyone else in the Republican Partys going to say. Exactly. In the house. And obviously we already know what they were going to say in the senate. Well get no that in a minute. Still ahead, President Trump wanted an investigation into joe biden and now thats exactly what hes getting from Lindsey Graham. Details on the senators probe of burisma and ukraine. But first, bill karins has a look at the weekend forecast. A messy weekend forecast. We have three storms to deal with in six days leading up to thanksgiving and that means headaches for so many people from coast to coast. For today, heavy rain has broken out around areas from tennessee to kentucky. Little bit of snow for our friends heading from Colorado Springs to denver. For todays forecast, mild in the northeast, little bit of light rain will come through. The cold front, this evening will be colder and chillier than this morning. This is the weather were dealing with today with the rain this morning as we go throughout the afternoon that rage move to the southeast and later this evening. By the time we get to saturday, heavy rain will be pushing from the southeast. Rain will move into d. C. And richmond during the day. Most of your saturday is dry. It looks like saturday night and anning you. I an ugly sunday in the northeast. Its going to be a cold which iy rain. Not too much snow, just a little bit in the poconos. Then storm two coming into tuesday and wednesday there are is the biggest impact in the middle of the country. If you have travel plans on tuesday, we could be dealing with significant snow and somewhere in the Central Plains and into the midwest, its early to say who who. And then o