Says needs to resign now. Live from studio 6a in rockefeller plaza, all in starts right now. Hello, everybody. Hello. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Thanks to everybody for being here. Its great to be back here at 30 rock with all of you here. Good god, today has been ten days and this week has been ten weeks. And there are a million things happening at once. Just in the past couple of hours, for instance, we just got this incredibly incriminating and damning behind closed doors testimony from a u. S. Foreign Service Officer that was still supposed to be kind of like the b story today, the sideshow. Its a guy who works in the u. S. Embassy in ukraine, a guy named david holmes. He testified behind closed doors that he could hear President Trump talking on the phone to the u. S. Ambassador to the European Union who was an bucks to trump, Gordon Sondland, and they were in a restaurant in kiev and the president was shouting so loudly on the phone that sondland had to hold the phone away from his ear because it was hurting his eardrum, so then everyone could hear. And after he hung up with the president , sondland told this guy who testified, david holmes, that the president does not give and im quoting now so i can say it, does not give a shit about ukraine, he only cares about the big stuff and by big stuff he means investigations into the bidens. Right, yeah, thats the right reaction. In a restaurant in kiev, shouting through the phone. So that just happened. Were going to have more on that very crazy testimony later. But this was just week one, keep in mind, in the public televised impeachment hearings of the president of the United States. Its just the fourth time in American History that were all going through this process. I think its fair to say, and maybe im a bit biased but i think its fair to say its not gone really well for the president the first week. Today even before that breaking news it was an especially busy day in the criminal chronicles of one president donald j. Trump. So the president s longtime adviser and associate roger stone today was convicted on seven counts in a federal courthouse. Thats he was thats it. Unanimous jury of his peers. If youre keeping track, and its probably worthwhile to do so, the list of people surrounding the president who have been convicted of, pleaded guilty to a felony now includes the president s former personal lawyer, his campaign manager, his Deputy Campaign manager, another Trump Campaign staffer, his First National security adviser, and now the man who has been trumps political adviser since the reagan administration. So thats the sixth person in the president s close orbit convicted of crimes committed while in the service we should mention of donald trump. And i want to be transparent here. I am not including the president s current lawyer, rudy giuliani, because to be clear hes just under investigation for a number of federal crimes. Hes not been indicted. Im also not including giulianis associates, our good friends lev and igor who were arrested last month while trying to flee the country. Theyve just been indicted, innocent until Proven Guilty in america. So this morning, trumps adviser roger stone was convicted. He was convicted of one count of obstruction, five counts of making false statements, and this is an important one, one count of witness tampering. Its a federal crime. Its in the federal statute. He was tried for it and he was convicted then. The crazy thing about the world in which we live is the very moment we learned about that verdict the former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine was testifying publicly in the impeachment inquiry of donald j. Trump, her name, maybe you saw this today, her name was Marie Yovanovitch. An ovation for Marie Yovanovitch. She goes by masha to her friends. She speaks different languages, spent over three decades in the Foreign Service. Most recently she was bullied out of her job by the president and his henchmen for lack of a better word. She had assignments all over the world. She was in places like somalia and armenia. Most recently and relevantly she was in ukraine where she focused especially intently on a kind of anticorruption program. In fact, she was doing so well there aiding a young democracy, trying to root out endemic corruption she was asked to stay on for another year until one day out of the blue to her, out of the blue she gets a call. Ambassador yovanovitch, on april 24th of this year at approximately 10 00 p. M. , you received a telephone call while you were at the embassy in kiev from the director general of the state department. At the time that this urgent call came in, what were you in the middle of doing . I was hosting an event in honor of an anticorruption activist was an anticorruption activist in ukraine. She very tragically died because she was attacked by acid and several months later died a very, very painful death. After you stepped away from this anticorruption event to take this call, what did the director general tell you . She said that there was great concern on the seventh floor of the state department, thats where the leadership of the state department sits. What happened next . Around 1 00 in the morning, she called me again and she said that there were great concerns, there were concerns up the street, and she said i needed to come home immediately. Get on the next plane to the u. S. , and i asked her why. And she said she wasnt sure but there were concerns about my security. I asked her my physical security because sometimes washington knows more than we do about these things, and she said, no, she hadnt gotten that impression that it was a physical security issue but they were concerned about my security and i needed to come home right away. You know, i argued. This is extremely irregular and no reason given. But in the end i did get on the next plane home. You said there were concerns up the street. What did you understand that to mean . The white house. She was at an event highlighting a ukraine anticorruption activist who was murdered for her work. She was attacked with acid, and she died. And Marie Yovanovitch gets a call and is told come home immediately, literally gets on the next plane because there were concerns up the street about her. And what became exceedingly clear is Marie Yovanovitch got in Donald Trumps way. As the Deputy Assistant secretary of state george kent said there was ongoing active Smear Campaign that was waged against Marie Yovanovitch including the president s personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, his two indicted associates lev and igor, whose indictment includes a section in the indictment in the Southern District about trying to get you yovanovitch fired. We should say that the president s son weighed in on and this and the president. Now you testified in your Opening Statement that you had left ukraine by the time of the july 25th call between President Trump and president zelensky. When was the first time that you saw the call record for this phone call . When it was released publicly at the end of september, i believe. And prior to reading that call record, were you aware that President Trump had specifically made reference to you in that call . No. What was your reaction to learning that . I was shocked. Absolutely shocked and devastated, frankly. What do you mean by devastated . I was shocked and devastated that i would feature in a phone call between two heads of state in such a manner, where President Trump said that i was bad news to another world leader and that i would be going through some things. So i was it was a terrible moment, a person who saw me actually reading the transcript said that the color drained from my face. I think i even had a physical reaction. I think, you know, even now words confound me. What do you think when you read you were going to go through some things . I didnt know what to think, but i was very concerned. What were you concerned about . Shes going to go through some things. It didnt sound good. It sounded like a threat. Did you feel threatened . I did. So the ousted former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine she goes to Congress Today to testify in the context of course on impeachment inquiry to the president s high crimes and misdemeanors and shes talking about this really Bizarre Campaign to smear her and threaten carried out by a bunch of people but ultimately at the correction direction of the president of the United States himself and shes talking about how she felt threatened by the president. And while this is playing out two huge things happen, okay . One, in the middle of her testimony the president s longtime adviser gets convicted by a jury in a federal courthouse on several counts including witness tampering. Thats one thing that happens. And number two, in realtime the president himself attempts to tamper with the witness. He attacks Marie Yovanovitch while shes in the middle of testifying. I mean, you cannot make this up. As we sit here testifying the president is attacking you on twitter, and id like to give you a chance to respond. Ill read part of one of his tweets. Everywhere yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in somalia, how did that go . Ambassador, you showed the courage to come forward today and testify. Notwithstanding the fact you were urged by the white house or state department not to, notwithstanding the fact that as you testified earlier, the president implicitly threatened you in that call record. And now the president in realtime is attacking you. What affect do you think that has on other witness willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing . Well, its very intimidating. Its designed to intimidate, is it not . I mean, i cant speak to what the president is trying to do but i think the effect is to be intimidating. So the president of the United States attacks a 33year vet on of the Foreign Service, a former ambassador to ukraine on twitter. He tach tampers with a witness. Hes insulting and intimidating a witness during his impeachment inquiry, and he does this while his political adviser is about to be found guilty of witness tampering. Now, if you cover as a reporter political corruption outside of this context, if you cover mayors or complaint governors, theres kind of a similar pattern that happens, right . You learn the way they go down is first their lower Level Associates get indicted and its front page news. And those associates start cooperating and its front page news and their associates start cooperating and its a big deal. And then, before you know it a lot of people are going to jail. And ultimately like the last thwack in a large tree, down comes the person in the middle, the corrupt person at the top, right . That is what happened. I watched this happen as a young reporter in chicago. Its what happened to george ryan, whos the former governor of illinois. And the former of detroit. One a republican, one a democrat. Obviously corruption is not confined to one party. You see this around the country in local settles all the time. People around the corruption politician, they start falling and usually the politician in turn ends up in trouble and falling himself. And the reason they fall in the end in these context is because if you were are governor or you were are a mayor, you could actually be indicted by a federal prosecutor. Thats like a badge of honor for a federal prosecutor. Thats not happening in this case. Day after day the guys around the president are being convicted of crimes including today with roger stone. Crimes done seemingly on the behalf of the president and his campaign. But not the president. Because the department of justice has concluded, and i think theyre probably right about this, that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office. So this is all we get, impeachment literally. That is the way to stop a corrupt president. Thats the remedy, the only way to rein in his criminality is through this process were watching play out, impeachment. Joining me now, one of the members of congress who will be considered whether to recommend impeachment charges against the president democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee of texas and also a member of the House Judiciary Committee where those articles will likely be drafted. Congresswoman, i want to ask you about the president tweeting about the witness today. I saw some people defending him saying, oh, come on, hes just letting off steam, it wasnt so bad. Youre crazy if you think thats witness tampering. What do you say to people who say that . Chris, its good to be with you today and your audience. Let me say what we witnessed today was an abuse of power, a mountain of abuse of power. Contributing to that, of course, was the most devastating and seemingly senseless tweet attacking the witness as she was testifying. That happens to be a federal crime. I was reading the statute that says that any attempt to stop a witness from testifying in a corrupt and intimidating manner is illegal if they are testifying in a legal proceeding or a proceeding that is official. This was an official proceeding. And so whatever argument our friends on the other side of the aisle and let me very clear, democrats want this to be a process where they put their nation and the people of the United States over themselves and the party. Were hoping that a light will turn on that they will look at the facts i dont know how anyone could not see that a witness that has been sworn to testify and is in the midst of her testimony, and a tweet or a statement comes out that smears her and suggests that she is in quotes, no good, obviously could in that moment intimidate the witness. So i dont think that it is in any way a question. I do think that that adds to the facts of this whole umbrella of abuse of power and all the elements that i heard you discuss really play into what the Founding Fathers established as the one barrier or the one law if i might use that terminology that protects the American People against a abusive leader who is using the power of the office not for himself excuse me, not for the American People but for himself. Theres more tonight on testimony of course, we got the testimony, the Opening Statement acquired by cnn we have looked at, of the political officer of the embassy in ukraine who gave the Opening Statement in which he describes the phone call he was present for the day after the president presses ukrainian president zelensky to open investigations of the bidens in which he can hear him talking to Gordon Sondland on the phone. The president , on the phone saying hes going to start the investigation. What do you think the significance of that is . Enormously significant. There are Building Blocks going on right now with what is the investigatory process. What people are seeing now is instead of an independent prosecutor, we dont have that. So the Intelligence Community is doing an excellent job in laying the Building Blocks. Here we have an innocent professional Foreign Service staff person who took an oath to defend the nation and defend the constitution coming forward and saying, the president said i dont give a blank about the American People, ukraine, the jeopardy of russia invading ukraine, the war that is going on, which by the way ambassador yovanovitch went to the front lines more than ten times subjecting herself to violence. I dont care about that, in fact i dont give a blank about it. I only care about dirt on my opponent from a foreign entity absolutely against the law. Here is someone totally out of the stream of witnesses coming forward because of their commitment to the American People, the oath they take. And theyre saying outright that the president s own words loudly in a restaurant in a nonsecured phone, stunning, speaks about i dont give a blank. It is all about me. That is clearly bribery as well. It adds to that because it is rendering something to yourself that is not really yours for something that you have to give or expect to give to someone else. So it is just another brick in the pathway for the committee on the judiciary to move if the decision is made, to move forward in that process of articles of impeachment all based upon a report that is not yet given. But that report has to be given. And once its given, itll have all these elements in it to be given to the judiciary committee. One note of clarification was Gordon Sondlands clarification. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee, thank you so much for giving us some time on this friday night. Thank you. Good to be with you. So again weve got breaking news tonight, damning new closed door testimony against President Trump. Remember earlier in this week in public testimony the acting ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor, on if first day of impeachment hearings, he told of an incident hed heard from one of his staffers that hadnt been previously introduced to it record and that staffer was sitting at a table in a restaurant in ukraine with Gordon Sondland, inaugural donor, probably how he got the job. And this was one day after the infamous phone call that we have the notes of, with the president saying id like you to do us a favor, though. And sondland is talking to the president on his cellphone and the staffer overheard both sides of that conversation. Today that staffer david holmes gave sworn testimony behind closed doors about what he heard. Heres some excerpts from that Opening Statement. Im quoting here, while ambassador sondlands phone was not on speakerphone i could hear the president s voice through the earpiece of the phone. The president s voice was very loud and recognizable, and ambassador sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time presumably because of the loud volume. I heard ambassador sondland greet the president and explain that he was calling from kiev. I heard President Trump then clarify ambassador sondland was in ukraine . Ambassador sondland replied, yes, he was in ukraine. And he went onto state president zelensky loves your ass. I then heard President Trump ask, so hes going to do the investigation . Ambassador sondland replied hes going to do it, adding president zelensky will do anything you ask him to. I continue with the statement here. Even though this is holmes talking even though i did not take notes of these statements i have a clear recollection these statements were made and i believe my colleagues also knew that ambassador sondland was speaking to the president. Maybe more witnesses. Ambassador sondland agreed the said the president only cares about, quote, big stuff. I noted there was big stuff going on in ukraine. Like a war with russia. And ambassador sondland replied that he meant big stuff that benefits the president like the biden investigation that mr. Giuliani was pushing. I want to bring in nbc news correspondent who covers congress and whos also been going through this. Will you first just setup who is david holmes, this individual who gave his testimony today . David holmes is someone who has a career at the state department and hes someone who has come out as being someone outspoken within different administrations as well. He actually won an award for speaking out for something he disagreed with in the obama administration. So hes nonpartisan, a straight shooter, and he does what he thinks is right according to what our sources are telling us. Now, what he said today really substantiated this new bombshell detail that ambassador taylor said on his public testimony on wednesday, i think the most important thing out of this is what holmes said that the president is interested in the big stuff. And that is not investigations into corruption in ukraine, but thats investigations that impact him. And the reason thats important is because weve heard testimony over testimony and read transcripts from all of these people with this same theme. That people were concerned the president put aside National Security and americas Foreign Policy for the president s own benefit, chris. Theres also some details in there i thought were interesting in terms of how they fit with other themes weve heard as you said. At one point he talks about trying to go to a meeting and he gets there and hes supposed to go in and take notes, and hes told he cant go in because sondland and yermak dont want a notetaker, they only want the two of them in there. How does that fit with the rest of the picture with what weve gotten about what bill taylor called the irregular channel of policy . The actual official channel of the state department had no idea what was happening in the irregular channel. Bill taylor was kind of the connection between the two, but obviously he wasnt involved in every single conversation that was had. So the fact that there was this meeting with sondland and yermak with no note taker, who knows what they discussed, but we do know is that sondland, who is going to come before the committee on wednesday, his testimony is going to take on a whole new level of importance. He has become this very critical player in this entire inquiry. Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. I want to bring in neal katyal, he teaches constitution law at Georgetown University and hes author of the new book impeach the case against donald trump. Thank you very much. I brought you a copy. Thank you very much. Lets start with the incremental news and work our way up to the big picture. This testimony that we just got our hands on, in the testimony its very interesting. Mr. Holmes said the reason he came forward is because he saw people saying no one actually heard from the president , it was all hearsay. And that prompted like i heard from the president , you should probably go talk to the committee. How important do you think this testimony we just got is . I think its significant. I dont think its the hugest bombshell ever and the reason for that is we already for the president s transcript on july 25th with the phone call with the president where hes essentially extorting ukraine. This is just further confirmation of what we already know. And yes, the president s defenders have been saying this it is hearsay. But the reason its second and thirdhand is one simple thing. The president has issued a gag order that prevents anyone in the executive branch from going and testifying on the hill. When we heard ambassador yovanovitch today testify and before that we heard ambassador taylor and mr. Kent, they were only there because they defied the president and said we took an oath to the truth and constitution and were going to tell the truth to congress. And thats one when we think about what the president did, he did something horrible in ukraine but hes now doing something horrible and trying to cover it up. Expand on that. Because i think theres some sense people have of oh, its trump being trump, or that this is the normal thrust and perry and push and pull of two different branches and youre saying theres something aberrant here, thats not the case . Like fundamentally, this is worse than nixon. Seriously, nixon take me to school, neal. March 1973, nixon says im not going to let the executive branch witnesses testify in this fake impeachment proceeding. And congress then says were going to start jailing those witnesses if they dont testify. What does nixon do . He backs down and lets them testify. So you think this sort of full bar that they have issued, that no witnesses can go forward, where theyve tried to stop everyone, all these people are appearing under subpoena and defying a white house order, you think thats even more severe and more egregious and abusive of his office than the coverup of nixon . I think whats going on right now is a fundamental betrayal of everything the constitution is about. What the president has been saying i cant be indicted, i cant even be investigated, and now hes saying i cant even be impeached because thats a coup and its all hearsay and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, maybe hes trying to rival king george iii, but in this country we dont have anything like that. Putin may be like that. But nothing in this country. There are these arguments that prove too much. They say, well, impeachment undoes the elections. Thats true in a certain sense, although it doesnt make Hillary Clinton president. It makes mike pence president. But thats also true of any impeachment. If you think thats wrong it shouldnt be in the constitution, right . I use a very simple thing called the yardstick rule. Which is just flip the parties and ask yourself if this were president obama who had done this stuff, who had stonewalled congress, or if this were president obama who tried to do a secret deal with a Foreign Government to get information on his rival, would you be clamoring for impeachment . I dont know how they can look in the mirror and say anything else. I guess the final question is, what is the evidentiary burden here, theyre standing over the body and the rest is told in flashback of how did we get here . The evidentiary burden has been met at a certain level. How do you understand the case thats being built here in that context . At this point, trump has tried so many different defenses, all of them have completely fallen apart. I think really the only question is okay, i did it, is it enough to remove me from office, and thats where i go back to founders. The founders didnt believe in impeachment. They werent sure about putting impeachment in the constitution, but what ben franklin said in response was imagine a circumstance in which a president , a sitting president goes and gets help from a Foreign Government to win his reelection, thats their example. Thats a franklin example in the constitutional convention. And then they changed the constitutions draft and put it in. Imagine theres a guy named zelensky and theres a thing called a telephone and it is remarkable, both the wisdom of our founders but also just the corrupt lawlessness of this president whos done something so fundamentally that betrays everything our founders thought the president was about. Thats what this impeachment proceeding is about restoring dignity and respect for our constitution. Up next, so this was not going to be what we called the c block in the show. This is going to be higher in the show, but here we are on this day. So were going to talk about what just happened with roger stone. And also alexandria ocasiocortez is here. Dont go anywhere. You ever wish you werent a motaur . Sure. Sometimes i wish i had legs like you. Yeah, like a regular person. No. Still half bike half man, just the opposite. Oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top . Yeah. Yeah, i could see that. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. Yeah, i could see that. Do your asthma symptoms ever hold you back . About 50 of people with severe asthma have too many cells called eosinophils in their lungs. Eosinophils are a key cause of severe asthma. Fasenra is designed to target and remove these cells. Fasenra is an addon injection for people 12 and up with asthma driven by eosinophils. Fasenra is not a rescue medicine or for other eosinophilic conditions. Fasenra is proven to help prevent severe asthma attacks, improve breathing, and can lower oral steroid use. Fasenra may cause allergic reactions. Get help right away if you have swelling of your face, mouth, and tongue, or trouble breathing. Dont stop your asthma treatments unless your doctor tells you to. Tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection or your asthma worsens. Headache and sore throat may occur. Havent you missed enough . Ask an asthma specialist about fasenra. If you cant afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. Do you recall, not long ago we would walk on the sidewalk all around the wind blows we would only hold on to let go blow a kiss into the sun we need someone to lean on blow a kiss into the sun we needed somebody to lean on all we need is someone to lean on roger stone, one of the legendary political dirt men of our time. Nixons tattooed on his back, hes guilty. Today, the president s longtime confidant was convicted by a federal jury on all seven counts including lying to congress, obstruction in a congressional investigation and witness tampering all tied to his lying about communications with the Trump Campaign in his unofficial role for that campaign as an intermediary with wikileaks. And of course the outlet that published the emails russian intelligence illegally hacked. Now hes the sixth associate of the president either pleaded guilty or been convicted just since trump took office. Here for more what happened is mimi rocah and glenn kirschner. Glad to have you both here. Glenn, let me start with you because you were in that room. What was it like when that jury came back . You know, first of all, chris, i think it was fully expected given the strength of the evidence. Roger stone, he really seemed deflated and defeated throughout the trial, and that was especially so when the jury started announcing its guilty verdicts. But ill tell you, it really does seem like today is witness tampering day in trump world. We as you mentioned, the jury convicted stone of five counts of lying to congress, one count of obstructing an official proceeding and one count of witness tampering for basically trying to convince congress that Randy Credico, a longtime friend of his, was his gobetween to wikileaks and Julian Assange when roger stones own email traffic and Text Messages proved that Randy Credico wasnt the gobetween. So it was an uphill battle for the Defense Attorneys to prove that roger stone was telling the truth to congress. Mind you the way he tampered with Randy Credico was pretty serious because he said things like prepare to die, go in and lie to congress and forget that you know everything and if you dont im going to take your dog away from you. And i thought the really cutest line of closing arguments was he said to the jury, ladies and gentlemen, roger stone and Randy Credico have been tampering with each other for 20 years. That was acute lying but it didnt seem to resonate with the jury because pretty promptly the jury banged him out for seven felony convictions. So roger stone will be sentenced in february and well see what judge jackson is going to do. Heres the thing thats so weird to me about this. All these guys, everyone around the president they really think theyre tough guys. They talk like mobsters and talk like the godfather in goodfellas, and this is the first time theyre actually being treated like it. All of a sudden its like, whoa, now were actually in a federal court, now were actually being tried, and im not even clear what the stakes were here for roger stone. Its almost like theres something compulsive about being lawless, now look here you are. Youre looking at a prison sentence. Thats whats so satisfying frankly, about this. I will say i dont wish prison on really anyone just to be clear. No, but its not just about roger stone. Thats the point. To me when i saw that, i wasnt, yay, roger stone is going to jail. It was exactly what the prosecutor said in his rebuttal to roger stone at the trial to the jury. He said why should you care, why should you convict . Because truth still matters. Facts matter. And the jurys verdict on coming back the way that they did with the conviction on every count so quickly was their way of saying, yeah, it does. And thats an impartial, nonpolitical jury that represents us, america. So it was a good day. Glenn, how much time is he looking at now . Well, statutorily the max is 50 years. However, the sentencing guidelines, there will be some complex calculations that will have to go into what his final range is. If i had to hazard a guess, chris, i would say hes looking at somewhere between maybe 5 and 6 on the bottom, maybe 10 and 11 years on the top. So he is facing a number of years in prison. Theres one bit of testimony that happened. Glenn and i talked about it in this very chair about the Deputy Campaign manager rick gates saying, he saw stone talk about the wikileaks release and its imminence before it happened, which defies the sworn testimony of Robert Mueller which he says he doesnt recall it. Do you feel based on that and based on this trial that we got to the bottom of everything with mueller . Well, look, that fact trump and stone talking about itten the phone and gates hearing and basically trump and other people on the campaign knowing about the release of the emails ahead of time and planning their Campaign Strategy in part around it, that was in the mueller report, right . Every time we hear something were like thats great, it was in the mueller report, but it gets lost. I think having it highlighted here it brings it home, no is the short answer. I think therell be some parts of that report that will be unredacted, which will be interesting to see. I think we know now the fuller picture. How they were getting this information knowing it had been hacked, stolen by the russians, and they werent part of the hack necessarily, but they were using it as part of their campaign. And it just shows just like now, trump will do anything to help his political campaign. Mimi rocah and glenn kirschner, thank you so much. When we come back, congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez of the bronx is here. Dont go away. 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. When you take align, you have the support of a probiotic and the gastroenterologists who developed it. Align naturally helps to soothe your occasional digestive upsets, 24 7. So, where you go, the pro goes. Go with align, the pros in digestive health. employee half a millionar sales preowned vehicles,er most with tech features like blind spot detection, back up camera. [kristen gasps] employee because you never know what might be behind you. kristen bell does the sloth come standard . kristen bell vo looking to buy . Enterprise makes it easy. These days were horn honking i hear you, sister. Thats why im partnering with cigna to remind you to go in for your annual checkup. And be open with your doctor about anything you feel. Physically, and emotionally. Body and mind. Midway through todays impeachment inquiry the president was accused of witness tampering. On twitter. After sending out a twitter attacking Marie Yovanovitch while she was testifying. One of the sharpest rejoinders came from congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez. Quote, trump himself is clearly not satisfied with only one article of impeachment. His choice to broadcast his own personally authored witness intimidation means he wants to signup for witness tampering, too. Please join me in welcoming alexandria ocasiocortez. How are you . Good to see you. Have a seat. I guess, its not surprising the president did that. No, not surprising at all. Im sure and it certainly seemed my republican colleagues were scrambling after he sent out those tweets trying to provide some kind of cover. I mean, its theyre really beclowning themselves at this point trying somehow to find a way to somehow preserve their careers and futures while protecting this president , and theyre not possible. Theyre going with the latter. Youre someone who i think came to congress with a very strong vision and agenda. You were clear about that with your primary and you won. And theres interesting sort of debate about this impeachment and president that has to do with is this the best use of legislative time . Youve seen some republicans saying its not. As someone who has an agenda you want to pass, you want to see happen, how do you view impeachment in that context . Im not very concerned about it because were able to legislate while this is happening. Just yesterday, i introduced our first piece of Green New Deal legislation, which was around Public Housing and decarbonizing our entire Public Housing stock in the United States. And so its not coming across some may say that mass media may covering our proposals really but they dont do a great job anyway i love you, but i dont think im going to get a decarbonization like 8 00 p. M. Time slot, so its okay. I think were legislating and working for people and were holding the president accountable and its all possible. Do you what do you view the stakes as here . I think that some people think hes bad in a normal way. Some people think hes bad in an abnormal way and some think he genuinely represents an actual real existential threat to the normal order, where are you on that scale . Its bad. Its really bad. Its not normal bad. Its a threat to the republic and normal society bad. And if we dont hold this accountable we really erode rule of law in the United States of america. And really what makes america different, when people say i want to do business here, i want to write books here, i want to take my family here, i want to raise and be around american ideals, a lot of it has to do with the reliability that the right people will be held to account, that there are consequences for doing wrong, for hurting people and also this is a fair country where everyone is treated equally. One of the things that i think helps him is theres so much cynicism about that exact thing. Well, thats exactly right, isnt it, because there is a lot of corruption in our society. Big money and big pharma and big oil and big gas have taken over our entire political system, and there are a lot of systemic threats. But that doesnt mean that just because some things are broken you throw out our entire country and set it on fire. And at its core, the most sacred document in our society is the constitution of the United States. Everything else is very easily amenable, but this is not. And once we erode the general respect for the constitution, then we essentially erode respect for the United States of america, and thats what this president has done. You theres a report this week about Stephen Miller who is the president s point person on immigration. In fact, to the extent he is hes kind of run russia out of dhs as an independent agency or agency that functions. Theres about 700 emails of his leaked in which hes cultivating a breitbart reporting and pushing themes. To resign. Youve started a petition, why . If we have a White Nationalist at the helm of u. S. Of u. S. Immigration policy, it means that u. S. Immigration apologi immigration policy will become increasingly and we cannot allow that to be us. So long as Steven Millers in charge of immigration policy, hundreds of thousands of peoples lives are going to be in danger. Over 70 or around 70,000 Migrant Children have been detained and including child separation, including horrific conditions, including including Young Children who have died in u. S. Custody. This is not normal. And when we have i mean, its its its nuts because earlier this year, when i echoed the the consensus of experts, of historians, of experts, of political scientists, in saying the conditions, the mass expansion of detention camps qualifies as a concentration cramp. Everybody thought it was nuts, right . Until we realized this week Steven Miller is a die hard White Nationalist. This is what our policy has become. And in order for us to rectify and to begin to heal as a country, he has got to go. [ cheers and applause ] i feel dutybound to note that millers defenders, i think miller himself, would say im jewish myself. I come from a jewish family and its offensive for you to invoke that word. Particularly, as as regards someone who is jewish. Well, im sure thats also the way in which hes weaponized his identity, right . Like, you know, they say and and theres this theres youre the color of your skin and the and the identity you are born with does not absolve you of moral wrong. You know . It doesnt. And the perfect person, the perfectlooking person, to advance horrifically inhumane immigration policy would be someone that looks like me. Or someone that looks like someone in this audience, right . Because thats what provides the cover for these incredibly damaging and dangerous policies. So im not here to weaponize my identity and i dont think any Public Servant should weaponize their identity in order to advance White Nationalist ideas. Period. I dont care who you are. [ cheers and applause ] you you you recently endorsed senator Bernie Sanders and you were just down in iowa. Saw on instagram. It was your first trip to iowa. It was. It was. It was a clash of culture in a beautiful way. Yeah. Heres my question and i dont yeah, there you go. You know, this is not a question about your choice endorse sanders or its more a broader question in these two ways in which people are talking about the primary debate. One is you got to be realistic. This is crazy. You cant do medicare for all. You cant do a Green New Deal. You guys are out of your minds. And the other is, go big or go home. Bold solutions. You stake out your position. You fight for it. Im sympathetic to the latter one but i do feel like theres a little over correction sometimes where there is a political reality here and it seems to me the debate sometimes have a Little Angels dancing on the head of a pin quality. Like, which medicare for all are we gonna do . Do we have the votes in the house right now . Like, how do you square the politically possible and the bold vision in your head as a sitting member . Well, for me and and my personal, political strategy, and this is what ive practiced, is to come in with the boldest vision possible. Because the political reality hits ts f hits the fan on the floor of the house. So let that happen down the road. We need to come in strong. Dont do it ahead of time is what youre saying. Yeah. Dont like, dont bargain and negotiate with yours yourseelf f time. And dont kind of be overly cynical about this political moment because what we have right now, frankly, with donald trump in the white house is a moment to create a a unique moment to create a Mass Movement of americans to push for everything that we want and all that we deserve. So we dont need to negotiate with ourselves before we do that. You you you you said this thing when you were endorsing sanders that has really stuck with me. And i feel like youve been very honest about this. About the pressure to conform. Uhhuh. That you show up in congress and theres just pressure to conform. Uhhuh. What does that pressure feel like . How does it manifest itself . What do you mean by that . Well, that pressure is like a vice and there are so many different mechanisms in congress that create that pressure. One, for example, is the fact that any bill in legislation that is being voted on is not really debuted to members until about 48 hours before the vote. And so sometimes these bills, they go through markup, they go through individual committees, and we all sit on different committe committees. But we often dont know if a vote is coming until according to house rules, 48 hours ahead of time. Which is an approvement in paul ryans congress, in which it was 24 hours ahead of time. So sometimes were talking about pieces of legislation that are thousands of pages long. Then you say, wait, wait, this is a really big problem. Thats a really big problem. And they say, well, are you on our side or not . And theres all this lobbyist authored provisions that are slipped inside. Sometimes were able to catch them and take them out. We did that quite a few times in appropriations where we find a couple fossil fuel amendments. But theres a real intense pressure to conform, yes. Do you feel like that intense pressure to conform, theres also how do you balance, like, i mentioned this institution that i ran against in some ways that i viewed as corrupt from the outside. Now, im inside it. And i dont want to sell out and i dont want to be sanded down to conform. But also, i want to learn how the place works. Absolutely. And those seem to me like those can be impulses that are in tension with each other. Do you feel that way . I think well, they are naturally in tension. But thats where kind of just an individuals personality comes through. So if you just think that a persons politics defines who they are and you see every person that is on the other side of you as as almost a personal enemy, that creates a huge amount of problems for you. But when you see the result of our political process and the things that come out of our congress as the natural result of pressures on our system, then you can treat the individuals inside that system as human. But also it also almost i dont like using the word civility in politics because i think its a term to police how people talk. But yeah, youre going to get grag gr dragged on twitter now. Yeah, exactly. But i do think there is an element where if i respect you, you know, like people know that that my political positions when i walk in there. And whats great is that they know exactly how i feel and who i am and so they know not to come to me with certain things. And they also know it probably saves you some conversations. It saves me a ton of time. Ton of time. But they also, you know, they also are willing to reach out to me on unusual things. But they feel like would fit in the consistency of my values. Do you like being a member of congress . I do. I do like being a member of congress. I think being a Public Servant is the greatest honor of my life. Congresswoman, the bronxs own congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez. Thank you so much. Thank you, all, for joining us tonight. We will be back here next friday following another week of public impeachment hearingsment also, a debate hosted on this network on wednesday night. If its anything like this week, there will be a lot to talk about. Plus, we have big news about the final stop of our fall tour of why is this happening . We can now announce a second guest. Jeremy harris was the young actor and playwright. He will join tony kushner. You do not want to miss that. Get those tickets now. Theyre available on ticketmaster. Com. You can search for my name. The Rachel Maddow show starts rietd now. Youre there. Good. I am indeed. Often times not here at this moment but i am here. We were just to take everyone behind the fourth wall here, we had [ cheers and applause ] we had to decide whether we were going long or killing a break or not and i went with the killed break because i wanted to keep the conversation going but then i came to you early. Its a tightrope every night, baby. Well done, my friends. Thanks, guys. Thanks to you at home for joining us here on this fine friday night. I will tell you there are a bunch of moving parts in the news right now and were just going to take it one piece at a time, one step at a time. With the full and fullhearted expectation that more news will break over the course of this hour. You know it will. Right . I mean, that has generally been our experience on friday nights over the course of the trump administration. But today and tonight already it has just been relentless. So lets just jump in. Weve got a whole show prepared. Im sure its all about to go out the window. Obviously, today was the Second Public hearing of the impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Were going to talk about that in detail tonight. In terms of the latest news, though, i do need to mention that as soon as the public hearin w