The ukraine phone call. But we start with a tale of two parties on this day four of the impeachment inquiry and the house entering a new phase after a week of damaging testimony against the president. Republicans are weighing a new defense strategy. The Washington Post today reporting a growing number of gop senators are considering acknowledging trumps quid pro quo on ukraine and, quote, insisting that the president s action was not illegal and does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense. The president , on the other hand, taking a different approach, slamming democrats and trashing the impeachment inquiry in his first rally since the house voted to make the investigation official. Corrupt politicians nancy pelosi and shifty adam schiff shifty [ audience reacts ] and the media are continuing with the deranged impeachment witch hunt. This is one i never thought id be involved in. The word impeachment. To me, its a dirty word. Meanwhile, the other story line, House Speaker nancy pelosi in a new interview saying there is no deadline to finish the investigation, telling bloomberg any case to impeach the president has to be ironclad. We havent even made a decision to impeach. This is what an inquiry is about. But you started a process the logical extreme of which would be removal of the president. I dont think its so extreme if he has violated the constitution, but then, nonetheless, our responsibility in the house is to make a judgment about impeachment and then that would go to the senate. This is what changed everything for me. I dont like impeachment. It divides. And 2020 democrats taking on trump in iowa this weekend at fridays liberty and justice celebration dinner. 13 Democratic Candidates made their plea to voters with a focus on defeating the president. Number one is that Vladimir Putin doesnt want me to be president. And number two, donald trump doesnt want me to be the nominee and i dont have to throw myself a military parade to see what a convoy looks like. A man who is a pathological liar, a man who is running the most corrupt administration in the history of our country, a man who does not understand the rule of law or our constitution and a man who will soon be impeached. In iowa, i stand here before you today for the people fully prepared to defeat donald trump. Lets go from there to the white house now and Nbcs Kelly Odonnell standing by at her post. Kelly, with a welcome to you on this saturday. The president , as you know, held his First Campaign rally since that house Impeachment Vote, in terms of getting the inquiry going officially. What more did we hear . Reporter well, in part, this was a trip about whats happening in mississippi, where there is a race for governor on tuesday. So thats why the president chose to be in tupelo, but it certainly gave him a background and a backdrop of supporters to argue his case on impeachment now that the events of this past week, momentous as they are, took place. So, the president was surrounded by several thousand supporters who were taking in his somewhat new arguments, going after the democrats, to be sure, but also poking some fun at the idea that as president running for reelection, he sort of set up joe biden as someone who wouldnt be that tough to beat, and if he were to need to go against biden, if he were ultimately the nominee, the president sort of mockingly saying, gee, he would need the help of ukraine to defeat him. So, the president using humor at times, using anger at times, forceful in saying to those who were in attendance last night that it is not just an action of impeachment against the president , which is certainly what is outlined in the constitution, but making an argument that this is also a pushback on the voters who chose the president in the first place in 2016. One of the things he pointed out with some, it would seem pleasure, was he believes republicans have been sticking with him. Heres a segment from his rally speech to make that point. Yesterdays vote by the radical democrats is an attack on democracy itself. But ill tell you, the republicans are really strong, the strongest ive ever seen them, the most unified ive ever seen them. Right . The most unified ive ever seen them. Reporter and the president has talked about the fact that he judges that vote from this week along those party lines. No republicans voted with the democrats. There could be the asterisk for justin amash of michigan, who had been a republican and is now an independent. He sided with democrats. And a couple of democrats from trump districts did vote on the president s side. So, the president s looking for that as some measure of support. But this was also a case where he acknowledged that impeachment is something he never thought he would have to deal with, and as he calls it, its a dirty word. So, clearly, the president frustrated, concerned, but also looking to find support and to beef up his base as much as possible. Alex . All of that not surprising. Thank you so much, kelly odonnell, from the white house. Joining me right now is Zerlina Maxwell with sirius xm, James Kindall and allen smith, nbc news political reporter. Big welcome to all three of you. Lets get into it. Allen, ill reach out to you first here, because it sounds like the president is trying to convince himself that republicans are not going to abandon him. Whats your read on that . Well, trump, what hes really looking for here is for republicans to come out and state emphatically that theres nothing wrong with trump asking ukraine to investigate joe biden. As a matter of fact, trump should ask ukraine to investigate joe biden. Thats really what hes holding out for here. We see in the president s defense here, hes been tweeting for days about read the transcript, read the transcript, and to many observers, it can come across as kind of confusing, because this transcript seems to align with a lot of what the whistleblower and what other witnesses have said, that has not shown to be very favorable to the president. But what hes holding out for is for republicans, which they have not done yet, i will note, but for a number of them to come out and say, yes, trump is right to have ukraine, ask ukraine to investigate joe biden. Thats what trump should be doing. And this is where the president wants the argument to be going. Yeah, im going to delve into that concept a little bit further, but james, to you now. With the president floating the idea, really, of reading the ukraine call transcript in something of a fireside chat, borrowing a page from fdr there. How seriously is the president pursuing this and to what effect . Hes not pursuing that at all. This would be a very bad thing for him because it would lead, obviously, to a lot of coverage before and after that evening, reminding the American People what was potentially in this transcript. Of course, its not a transcript. Its a detailed summary. There are a lot of words left out, as we learned earlier this week about some of the contents that was apparently left out. But it was obviously a very showy thing. Its a smart political play, trying to reiterate that, dont worry about reading the transcript or the detailed summary. Whats in it is totally fine. Im willing to even read it on national television. If he ever actually does it, i will be shocked. Okay. Zerlina, you think democrats are hoping for that fireside chat . Do you think that america then could hear the president say all these words and the most important ones would be, i would like you to do us a favor . Yes. I think it might be helpful for democrats and maybe the white house, just like when they released the summary, unsure of just how bad the contents of the summary are for the president. I mean, lets get the facts straight just for a moment. We spent two years waiting for Robert Mueller to come out with his report after investigating the conduct by the president and his associates in the 2016 campaign. And what we established is, it is not okay to ask a Foreign Government for help in an election. Maybe we didnt prove conspiracy, but if nothing else, we established that that is unlawful conduct. Then the president went out and did it. Then he released a summary proving he did it. Then he went on television and did it in front of a camera. So, we have all of the evidence that we need to demonstrate that the president engaged in criminal conduct, because we established that this is a crime during the mueller investigation. So, i think that if he wants to read this summary in prime time, go right ahead. Youre just going to be reading your confession. Can i follow up with you, zerlina, on what Speaker Pelosi said on the closeddoor impeachment inquiry and whether there is a point of diminishing returns with the public, as this would drag on behind the scenes. Is that why theres a pivot soon to public testimony . Yes. I think that the pivot to public testimony is a critical component to ensure that the American People are educated on all the facts, right . And so, i think that, sure, youre probably out living your life, you know, paying your bills, taking care of your family, and you might have missed the president standing in front of a camera and asking china and asking ukraine to interfere in the upcoming election, but were going to have all of these hearings with credible witnesses who are not partisan, who are Civil Servants who are coming to tell the truth under oath. And i think the American People will sit up and listen. I think that this might be the moment that finally breaks through. And i think that youre already starting to see that in the moving polling thats showing that even republicans 25 of republicans support impeachment and removal. Thats a quarter of the Republican Party supporting that. And i think that this is actually a moment in which the American People can collectively gather around their televisions and learn all the facts, finally, for the first time. Weigh in on that, james, how dramatic a difference the shift is going to make to an open process in the democrats factgathering strategy, and more importantly with the public. Well, right. This is the only thing that really matters at this point. I dont think anyone in the house needs to learn anything more. We saw that kind of evidenced in the vote earlier this week. But what does matter is Public Perception of this process. Is this simply just more politicians in the circus in washington, or is this actually going to matter . And in terms of that public sentiment towards this issue, all that really matters is the Senate Republicans. As you know, you need 20 Senate Republicans to remove him from office. If not, youll just have impeachment. And if theres any chance for democrats to even get close to that number, theyre going to have to sort of convince more of the American Public and more republicans to that this is actually a very serious matter, not just politics as usual. And the way that happens is by having public hearings. Allen, i want to dig further into what you got into at the top here, the Washington Post reporting a growing number of gop senators consider acknowledging trumps quid pro quo on ukraine. How significant is this and whats the impact going to be . Whats the white house going to counternarrative with . Because currently theyre saying there was no quid pro quo. So how do those two concepts clash . Well, the Washington Post report, obviously, follows Mick Mulvaney standing at the white house podium and saying that, in fact, a quid pro quo did take place, which he then walked back, or tried to walk back later that day by simply saying that he was misunderstood, when you know, anyone who was watching that segment knew exactly what was said. And since then, he had been a little bit iced out. But those comments have made it more difficult for republicans to argue that no quid pro quo took place. I mean, the partial summary of the call transcript shows that trump was interested in having such an arrangement take place. And again, as i said earlier, he really wants republicans to come out and say that he should have asked ukraine to investigate biden, that theres nothing wrong with doing that and that, in fact, he should do it. So, part of that is acknowledging that there was a quid pro quo that took place. Zerlina, weve got the gop alliance to trump pretty strong. Do you think theres anything in this process that changes any gop senators minds . I dont know if it changes their minds, but i think that they need to be thinking about their role in our government in a different context than they are currently. Right now theyre thinking about their own personal reelection prospects, and they should be thinking about the National Security of the country. Were talking about the integrity of an upcoming election, the undermining of our National Security, which theyve swore to uphold. They swore to uphold the constitution and protect the American People. They are not doing that. And so, whether or not they change their minds, i dont know. They should at least consider the evidence, because we actually have the president confessing to a crime on camera because we went through the two years of Robert Mueller to establish that this conduct is inappropriate. You cannot ask a Foreign Government for help in an election, and the fact that this behavior has become normalized is something that the Republican Party is going to have to hold theyre going to be held to account for allowing this to take place for the rest of history. So, i hope they go to bed with that message every single night, that they are betraying the country, essentially, for their own political interests, and that is very dangerous. Can i ask you, james, about a piece that youve written about republican senator Susan Collins, in which you write that the latest political head quake for Susan Collins what to do with impeachment. Where does she stand on this . You know, she may be the person, besides President Trump, who is facing the hardest pickle here or the most pressure. On the one hand, she represents a state that suddenly went to Hillary Clinton just by about four points, but if she were to the poll just came out, and if she were to vote to keep him in office as a senator, she would lose reelection by seven points. If, however, she votes to remove him from office, votes largely with democrats, she would easily lose a republican primary. So, its a loselose proposition. So, i think for her, shes hoping that its the kind of thing that sort of just goes away somehow, but this has been a very tough pickle for her. And of course, shes up for reelection next year and faces very strong competition. All right, allan, last question to you because you have a piece out about the president s coasttocoast legal battle thats trying to keep his taxes hidden. What all have you learned . As impeachment has ramped up, the tax battles which we spent much of the past year discussing, have gained momentum as well. We saw this past week that the president changed his residency from new york to florida, and i saw that on this network yesterday. Governor cuomo speculated that some of the tax cases might have something to do with that. But essentially, the president is arguing in about four or five legal cases that prosecutors have no ability to not only prosecute a sitting president , but investigate him while hes in office, and that congress has no legitimate Oversight Authority on the president , unless theres a legitimate legislative task attached to it. So, hes basically plugging all of these holes to keep those returns private, to keep them from coming into any democratic hands. And hes got a number of cases hes got to keep plugged in order to do so. Constitutional law experts i spoke with thought there was not a good chance of even justices President Trump appointed on the Supreme Court upholding his legal argument. Okay. James pinnedle and allan smith, thank you. Zerlina, ill buy you a cup of coffee if you stick around for another 30 minutes. Okay. Thank you so much. From one financial question to another big one, the president s d. C. Hotel records. My next guest, a member of congress, is demanding to see them. Well ask her why. Plus, shes heard some of the most sensational closeddoor testimony in this impeachment inquiry. Whats struck her the most about it next. Whats struck her the most about it next. Related to aging . Prevagen is the number one pharmacistrecommended memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Tmobiles newest signal reaches farther than ever before. With more engineers, more towers, more coverage. Its a network that gives you. With coverage from big cities, to small towns. Introducing tmobiles 600mhz signal. No signal reaches farther or is more reliable. And its built 5g ready. Work so hard give it everything you got strength of a lioness tough as a knot rocking the stage and we never gonna stop all strength, no sweat. Just in case you forgot all strength. No sweat secret. All strength. No sweat. Its been a long time since andrew dusted off his dancing shoes. Luckily denture breath will be the least of his worries. Because he uses polident 4 in 1 cleaning system to kill 99. 99 of odor causing bacteria. Polident. Clean. Fresh. And confident. The impeachment inquiry into President Trump entering a new, more public phase. The white house voting this week to proceed with open hearings for the first time after hearing over 100 hours of testimony from 13 witnesses behind closed doo