Gets underway on a thursday night. Good evening, once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 1,092 of the trump administrati administration. That means we have 292 days to go until the 2020 president ial election. Donald trumps impeachment trial is underway right alongside his Reelection Campaign and even as we continue to sort through a mountain of new potential evidence from a man initially described as a bad man for Rudy Giuliani lev parnas. Parnas has been indicted in the Southern District of new york, the feds in new york on Campaign Financial charges. In his telling of what happened and what he was up to. What hes describing and off the book shadow Foreign Policy run by a former big city mayor at the direction of the trump white house, it reads if true like elements of some sort of criminal enterprise, yesterday parnas talked to Rachel Maddow, last night he described in great details how trump directed him through rudy to pressure ukraine to open in vipvestigations on j biden. He offered new details in part two interview going against trumps claims he was concerned of corruption and ukraine. Parnas describes how there were efforts to stir conversations with president zelensky, ukraine officials towards the topic of the bidens. They would walk it back. There were corruption. I am saying thats not what we discussed. He said the name biden. Both. Parnas also straight up alleged tonight that former Secretary Energy rick perry have been told by rudy to convince the ukrainians to announce an investigation into joe biden. Parnas described those around the president as a cult. He spent two years in washington and never left the trump hotel. He said he was with trump when he argued the firing of our ukraine ambassador. Today the president says he does not know and never met this lev parnas. Whats your response to lev parnas . I dont know him. I dont know him other than i had pictures taken which i do thousands of people including today i did not meet. I dont know him at all, dont know what hes about. Dont know where he comes him and nothing about him. Hes trying to make a deal with Rudy Giuliani. I guess he attempted i took a picture with him. I take thousands of pictures with people. Thousands during the course of the year. I dont know him or perhaps hes a fine man or i know nothing about him. It is more than just taking pictures. I dont know him. Trumps friendly daily mail of all places took the liberty put a photo collage of some of the photos of the two men together. Tl lawyer p the lawyer of parnas released this video back in maralago and parnas offered new details of what the president repeated effort to fire our u. S. Ambassador, marie yovanovitch. He fired her at least four our five times. He even breaks down and screams to fire her. And then he said there president , i could not do that. He was drirecting the state department to remove her and the state department refused. He spoke once or twice and he fired her at dinner which was the most surprising. Tell me more. Basically at that dinner we had a conversation, there was lie like six of us there. At the white house . The trump hotel, a private area there. If president was there . Yes, absolutely. The president was there and his son don jr. Was there. Lets backup. There was another big headline today. We learned the Nonpartisan Government Accountability Office concluded the Trump Administration broke the law when it ordered a months long hold of the military aid. This is an extraordinary finding by an agency like the gao. There was this and let us not forget how this day got underway for the third time in our nations history, an impeachment trial is underway. Here is some of what he witness. Here hear ye, hear ye, articles of impeachment against donald trump, president of the United States. The managers on the part of the house will now proceed. Donald j. Trump, president of the United States is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, the house adopted the following resolution which would permission the senate i will read. President trump compromised the National Security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. Well administer the oath to our chief justice of the United States. Will you place your left hand on the bible and raise your right hand . Do you solemnly swear that all thi th thin things pertaining to the trial impeachment of donald trump, president of the United States now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the constitution of the laws, so help you god. I do. Will all senators now stand or remained standing and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear all things pertaining to the trial of the impeachment of donald j. Trump, president of the United States now pending, you will do impartial justice of according to the constitution of the laws. So help you god. Again, thats how this day got underway. Here for our lead off discussion on a thursday night, annie carney and Ashley Parker for the Washington Post and shannon, senior White House Reporter for us here at nbc. Good evening and welcome to you all. Annie, i would like to move to your new reporting on what was going on inside the white house as that was getting underway. As that was getting underway, donald trump had on his schedule a public event in the oval office where he was supposed to be celebrating, announcing a new rule on pair rairie schools. That was delayed for an hour because john roberts was being sworn in and senators were going through role call. When he came out, we saw someone who said basically said this should be the week where we talk about my china trade deals. Instead, hes bogged down in what he calls a hoax. Hes trying to dismiss and say there is no story here. While the end result of this senate trial, most people are assuming hes going to be acquitted, there is a lot of unknowns and donald trump is very aware of that, hes been talking to allies expressing concerns of his own legal team and whether theyll look at a televised trial. Hes concerned of not being able to call witnesses even though hes following Mitch Mcconnells advise to keep the trial short. Those witnesses are more unknown. H hes worried in general of republican senators are not defecting. He needs one more to say we do want to call witnesses and hes scribn nervous of it happening. There is a lot of unknowns and hes feeling uncertain. Ashley parker, last night must not have been a great night as lev parnas dropped the Vice President s name like a led balloon. Tell us about your new reporting on that front. Our new reporting sort of takes what lev parnas said and it is poworth allies of the president , chief of staff called into question his credibility. What hes been saying is backed up by a trove of documents. What we can see from that is what starts off assort of an irregul irregular Shadow Campaign to pressure ukraine to do trumps bidding. It is happening outside the traditional corridor. There comes a moment where that intersects with the official u. S. Policy and that moment is when President Trump orders Vice President pence to cancel a trip that was planning underway for president zelenskys inauguration. To be clear, i talked to Administration Officials say the Vice President does not know why his trip is cancelled. When pence decides not to go to ukraine, thats the moment when the ukrainians who were skeptical of parnas and didnt know who he spoke on behalf of realized that these people, these unofficial channel is quite serious and it is official channel. You have Rudy Giuliani over taking and assuming u. S. Foreign policy and diplomacy with ukraine and pence. Unfortunately for him it is sort of in the middle of that and whether or not he did anything wrong. Shannon, we have staffers on the hill, senior staffers working 12 to 24 hours shifts waiting through the parnas material and getting it ready for potential senate trial. What are the republicans you speak to in the trump camp saying about these two elements, the timing of what lev parnas have put out there . Well, i actually spoke to a few republican allies of the president today and they at least on the surface said theyre not too concerned of lev parnas actually. They said first of all, hes repeating a lot of what witnesses have already said. They dont feel that much is necessarily new. The stuff about the Vice President may be a bit new. Some of the things he said about rick perry are now. They feel in line of the narrative thats are already out there. Republicans feel that the narrative out there is not hurting the president s support with republicans and for the most part split 50 50 between independence. A couple said they think they can use it to their advantage if lev parnas was called as a witness because they feel like republicans would be able to crossexamine him and attack his character that could backfire on democrats. Bringing the fact that hes indicted and shady past and reiterating the argument that they made for other witnesses that he does not have firsthand knowledge or firsthand contact with the president. Tonight we seem to get a sense of him being at dinner and having more of firsthand contact. I dont think they think it changes the dynamic too much. Annie karni, whats happening in the past to members of the trumps circle when he makes a decision to hit the button and distance himself from a slew of different people in his life. I never met putin. James comey, i hard linly know man. I dont know paul manafort. Michael cohen, tell me about his relationship with him . He was a lawyer for me one of many, not somebody that was with me that much. Let me just say i hard lino the gentleman. What conversation did you have with lev parnas and fruman . I dont know those gentlemen. What was that about of that aspect of this mans personality and his being . It is about survival. And it looks like someone close to him is going to cause him trouble, hes going to cut them off. One person he has not pull the i hardly know him ever is Rudy Giuliani who caused him a ton of problem and not just back to ukraine but the part of the Stormy Daniels story. Rudy gotten in a lot of trouble and he always continues to be close to rudy. This is the general pattern of when someone gets in trouble with the law whos close to trump, trump distances himself. Ashley, the parnas telling of the numerous attempts by the president to have our ambassador to ukraine, yovanovitch, fired kind of border on pathetic in the telling of lev parnas. Why do you think there were repeated attempts by the guy at the top of the administration that were unsuccessful, why was he rebuffed in his efforts having made the decision that she had to go . Well, i think he was rebuffed because a number of people in his administration including some who recently went up on capitol hill and testified under oath about this felt it was a very bad or if not dangerous and problematic idea. Thats one of the reasons he was rebuffed. In lev parnas, just of how this Administration Functions and operates generally. When luke you look at some of t people where parnas said trump told to fire the ambassador. Hes not going to the state department, hes turning to his personal assistance a young woman in her 20 and telling her to fire yovanovitch. Shes turning to a white house political aid at the dinner of the trump hotel and telling him to to fire yovanovitch. People understand around the president , he says things when hes frustrated and sometimes their job is to ignore him and diffuse the situation and hope that it will ultimately goes away. In this case she was recalled. Shannon, a critical question that speaks to the people you spoke to today. In your reporting, is the thinking inside the white house, inside the trumps circle migrating from if there will be witnesses but with witnesses, wholl be called . I think privately which witnesses will be called . I think there is an increasing certainty that there will be a vote on witnesses and i think it is probably split 50 50 whether or not those witnesses are called. While the white house is trying to portray this public image that there will not be witnesses, allies in the senate are preparing for witnesses and trying to think of wholl be called and how theyre going to manage that. If it was a long day for us here. I know it was a long day for the three of you, great thanks to the throw of yee of you for joi. Annie, ashley and shannon. Coming up for us. The president tries to keep a nation focused on his reelection and not his impeachment trial in the senate and later accused felon lev parnas says he should be the senates number one witness but is there proof for all the things hes saying and for that matter, again, what about witnesses . The 11th hour is just getting underway on this thursday night. Underway on this thursday night. [sneezing] you dont want to cancel your plans. [sneezing] cancel your cold. The 1pill power of advil multisymptom cold flu knocks out your worst symptoms. Cancel your cold, not your plans. Advil multisymptom cold flu. Man whats my my truck. Is my livelihood. So when my windshield cracked. The experts at Safelite Autoglass came right to me. Tech hi, im adrian. Man thanks for coming. With service i could trust. Right, girl . Singers safelite repair, safelite replace. Wean air force veteran made of doing whats right,. Not whats easy. 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You are a liberal hack. I am not going to talk to you. Reporter you are not going to comment . After that abruptly change, the trump posted its own video of the encounter with the caption that read three cheers for senator mcsally, this is how you handle fake news cnn, donate to martha right now. Theyre using her remark as a fundraiser vehicle for a reason. Marklely has 13 million in the bank and mcsally is far behind with 7 million. Do you regreat what you said . No. I do not. I said it again. You are a hack buddy. You know i mean these cnn reporters, many of them around the capitol hill, they are so biassed, theyre so incant sta the president and they run around and chasing republicans and asking trapping questions. With us, our white house correspondent, tamyra keith, manu is one of those few the reporters whos well liked by, i guess we can exclude by the arizona senator, well liked by the vast majority of the people on the hill who surfed there and covers the news there. For a senator who once marketed herself as a moderate republican and as a kind of cautious conservative, this is a new look and i guess shes taking the chance that this will sell back in arizona. Manu raju has something in the hallway of capitol romance for john mccain. Not only is she looking at a general e llection in arizona. There could be a primary. The filing deadline is not until may. And so for a lot of these republicans who are running for reelection, there is this big question of how do you deal with President Trump and the impeachment time particularly. Putting space between yourself and a popular president and the Republican Party does not really help you reelection chances. Tell us about your current understanding of the Current Trump campaign plans to deal with the rare confluence of a Reelection Campaign during an impeachment trial. What is their plan . The same time the impeachment trial is happening, there are primaries, kau invictcaucus is iowa and primary is coming in New Hampshire. The campaign is going to be in both of those states with a big presence. Really what they are saying, they have been doing Rapid Response and private communications essentially for three years. Three plus years. And so you know for President Trump, he has a very wellfunded organization and outside organization, his campaign that can amplified his message and push his own message and run an ad during the super bowl that could if the trial goes more than the two weeks at the white house could well be an ad thats played in the middle of impeachment. By going to iowa and New Hampshire on the eve of democratic primaries, hell get media and time and attention and a platform for his views. Something that you know well is that all the political reporters are going to be in iowa right before the caucasus and New Hampshire before the prima primaries. The Campaign Sees this as an opportunity to practice and do dress rehearsal. Tamyra keith, it is always a pleasure to have you. More allegations with a man the president says he does not know when we come back. T says ht know when we come back before we talk about taxsmart investing, whats new . Audreys expecting. Twins wed be closer to the twins. Change in plans. At fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. whistling i have moderate to severe pnow, theres skyrizi. Things are getting clearer, yeah i feel free to bare my skin yeah thats all me. Nothing and me go hand in hand nothing on my skin thats my new plan. Nothing is everything. Keep your skin clearer with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90 clearer skin at 4 months. Of those, nearly 9 out of 10 sustained it through 1 year. And skyrizi is 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. 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You were incline to say yes. Absolutely. I have nothing to hide. I am not doing anything legal. Your lawyer advised you to not cooperate and the president will it was a little more than that. I was brought into john dowels house and also rudy and basically they came up with a situation that says because i work for rudy and because i work for victoria and rudy works for the president , we have three way privilege and that theyll be writing a letter to congress telling them that nobody is cooperating and that would protect us under the same order and being followed up with that. Again, this is the president of the United States, i thought okay, here is all the information i have. I did my duty, i gave him whatever paper work i had. Thats a lot right there. Lets bring in barbara mcquaide. Is what he describe at all normal to the legal world . Imagine your lawyer has a secretary or a paralegal who works for him, that so if lev parnas was working as an assistant to Rudy Giuliani as a translator or whatever he was, he could be apart of President Trumps legal team. Thats one thing. The other is to then say we are all going to assert privilege and nobody is going to talk, thats a different thing. He has the right to his own council and his own independent legal advise. Whats best for President Trump is not whats best for lev parnas. So if his lawyer is giving him advice, thats not in his own best interest, thats unethical on the part of the lawyer. We had the better part of two hours of lev gripping television over two nights with rachel and i hear proper names and titles flying out of this. I hear mentions of the president and Vice President and cabinet officials. When someone under indictment in the hands of the feds, do you take what hes saying and put it into two different buckets of approvable with evidence or unproou unprovable. Is there any rules of people with nothing to lose make effectiveness or cutting both ways. They give you all kiepds of information that sounds potentially valuable but you really have to work to pin it down. As you suggest, brian, there is some potential bias here. If hes seeking to get a deal with the Southern District of new york to reduce his own sentence and feeling some incentives to fabricate extraordinary information that could be perceive as valuable. I dont know if i would call him as a witness, at least not at this point. Ill consider him valuable for lead purposes. He provides a lot of information with conversations with rick perry and Rudy Giuliani, he suggested there is additional quid pro quo here in Exchange Part of this deal. Hes under indictment by the Justice Department for bribely a facing extradition. He says things like everybody was in the loop. You cant pin him down or at least we have not heard him pinning down on tell me who told him this and when did it happen and what documents did you have to support . Who can confirm this occurs . I want to spend a few days with him to pin down all of those things. I may be i would use those other people as witnesses and not parnas himself. The title which you held which we throw around with some form of fashion in the forecast. United states attorney, thats a president ial attorney. Put yourself in your old job, if you were a u. S. Attorney and this guy whose investigation is part of your purview shows up for two nights on msnbc and then on other interviews, what are you feeling . I am feeling hes desperate for attention. I dont know what the Southern District of new york has told him whether hes a cooperator. I worry about his ability to keep his story straight. It is also sort of the crucible. If he can go on National Television over multiple niepgh and tell a consistent story and thats consistent of what hes telling me then that does corroborate him. Most lawyers and attorneys are reluctant to see people talk publicly this way. In some ways, it bolsters his credibility. Thats why we always ask barbara mcquade. Thank you, as always. Thank you, william. A new book calls it a marriage of money and power. There are new revelation about the trumps and the kushners which well get to it when we come back. H well get to it whe come back. Remind me to call petsmart for ralphies appointment. Whos his groomer . Carrie. Full groom for sure what . I just booked ralphies appointment online. That work . Wait you what . Its that easy download the app or book online at petsmart. Com quitting smoking is freaking hard. St, like quitting every monday hard. Quitting feels so big. So, try making it smaller. 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Look, i have my personal opinions and sympathies but i work for the president of the United States, my job is to when he ask my advise on things, i will give him my advise but when the president makes that decision, my job is to help him execute that decision. He may be the most powerful man whose voice americans do not recognize. Time magazine sat down for an interview with Jared Kushner. The new book shatheyre talking about right there is americame oligarchs. Andrea bernstein is as veteran journalist and cohost of the podcast, produced by wync public radio here in new york. It is so interesting that put the story in this book and the circulation. Tell the immigration story of the cushner kushners. Jared kushners parents is a holocaust survivors. They lived in the forest and camping out and hiding out from the nazis. After they fled the soviet union. They were stuck stateless. The struck upon the idea where Jared Kushners grandfather would take on his fatherinl fatherinlaws name. He changed his name to joe kushner and taking on the role of his fatherinlaws son. He and his family were able to immigrate to america. Why is that on the topic of immigration of what Jared Kushner had become . They lost everything in the holocaust. They had no property or documents or nothing. They had nowhere to go. Why it is jermaine because they did what they had to do for their family to thrive. Their grandson is one of the most powerful people in the United States in the administration where immigration is being restricted and refugeed to historic lows. How unlikely in life is it that Jared Kushner had such an incredible proximity to the president of the United States and incredible power of a lot of which have been for undocumented. Hes someone when you think about it who have survived so many people, kelly and practically bpriebus and manning, Jared Kushner survived all these people because hes incredibly lawyer to his own family but also to his fatherinlaws family. We have called you here as an Expert Witness to President Trump, given your understanding, how is he likely to react in realti realtime, we are just getting underway in the next trial. I can see in my book that he has a history of evading legal consequences whether it is charming fbi or prosecutors or give donations to the favorite causes of the district attorneys. He escapes legal consequences again and again and as his family. Mueller testify it wasied it wa. The next day the president called the ukrainian president to do us a favor, hes emboldened. He believes he simply cant be held account in any form. The word, the term oligarchs did not originate in our own language. It is a notion that we learn about that people work all overseas. It is being applied in this country. Well, it is decades in the making. We in this country have make decisions collectively to allow more money into politics. Each time you create a system where the wealthy can toy with democracy. And we see this with trump everyday. That kind of system is an oligarch system and it is where we are headed if there is not some series reckoning of the restrictions and disclosures and trump transparency. Lets go ahead and say it without using too broad of a brush. The Harvard Business school crowd of hyper educated rather earnest, culturally moderate republicans go with this guy because it is good for business. Hes making them money and as a result, theyre giving him money. Thats just donald trump. It does not count all the pacts and the Republican Party thats supporting him. On behalf of all of your listeners, thank you. The american oligarchs the kushners, the trumps, and the marriage of money and power. Coming up, the latest democratic candidate to work his way into the president s mind and thoughts when we come back. And thoughts when weom ce back this blt is delicious made it myself. I love this place made that myself, too. Order up. Fries on the side. Right where i like em. 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At first it may seem out of place for the president to bring up Michael Bloomberg at a religious freedom event today but according to the New York Times, the president himself has been closely watching bloomberg and unnerved by his Campaign Spending and his suggestion that he may spend 1 billion of his own fortune. One of our favorite guests is here with us tonight. O theyll announce their endorsement on sunday, well get it out of her tonight. It out or tonight no doubt. Youve already got a billionon nary in the race. Second billionaire enters the race, why would trump be so interested in Mike Bloomberg . Oh, my goodness. Theyre both new yorkers. Lets start there. Bloomberg grew up in queens, always wanting to be a member of new yorks inner sancdom. Even when he got rich well, he was born rich, but he wasnt able to the former mayor decided at the last minute to jump into this race with all his money. I think honestly bloomberg is actually the selfmade billionaire that donald trump pretends to be, so i think its got to be quite unnerving for sure. So this is kind of, i think, what we call mind games in politics. Lets talk about whats going on in the democratic party, what we saw transpire on stage in des moines. Was it two nights or a year ago now . And the calls for a ceasefire between bernie forces, Elizabeth Warren forces. This goes back to a deeply held fear that things like a fight on the far left and purity testing at all these events would open a path big enough to drive a truck through or in this case big enough to drive joe biden through. It was hard to watch for me, i have to say. I think a lot of american voters, especially democrats, really want to candidates to put the infighting aside. Normally on primary fighting is quite normal. As we know. Youve covered many campaigns. Its a normal thing to go after your opponent. The problem is this isnt a normal election. This isnt a normal time and the differences in the democrats are minuscule compared to the differences between donald trump and the democratic view for what this country should be. I think the focus really does need to be for democrats on talking about what trump has donening wro done wrong, what they can offer the country instead and frankly fining as many voter as they can to turn out to the polls. This is a sideshow thats going to turn people off and keep them at home and not in the polls. Its just its really bad for the country. Given your status as a member of the New York Times editorial board. You may know this is coming. Ill raise the name, peter hamby. Hes a veteran journalist. I first became aware of him when i was with cnn. He works at vanity fair and snapchat. He writes editorial and board endorsements mostly left leaning only fuel bad faith attacks on the biassed media and confuse modern readers on what the press does is and is supposed to do. Its not 1957. Communities no longer look to editorial boards to they will them how to think, how to vote. Thats a shot across your editorial bow. How do you defend your election . I would say we have learned over the past several years that information is not the same thing as knowledge. And i think theres absolutely a huge value in having a newspaper and journalists everywhere who are trained at what they do, and looking out for the public interest, to ask questions, tough questions of candidates. And i think its really important to understand that what we do, we do in the service of reader and voters. We dont do it in the service of candidates i think thats the message we would really like to send. As soon as awe say that, i should remind the you vooers that the the New York Times endorsement comes out in the paper, on the web late saturday night . It will be stay tuned to our Television Show weekly which premiers at 10 00 p. M. On saturday. See how good she is . Thanks forring is me, brian. 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You can have three day of lawyers talking to each other, 16 hours of questions, bore everybody to death, talk everybody to death, but when you have a witness, who was engaged in it, in the middle of it, and why . Its the difference between getting the truth torque whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Oh, that there explains what was going on that was 1999 Lindsey Graham when he was impeachment manager in the clinton impeachment. Nothings happened to senator graham. Hes fine, hes normal. This was him tonight on fox news. If yount what a witness then do what cruz says everybody gets witnesses. If you want to turn the trial and a complete circus, youre allowed to do that, be you not with my vote. Lindsey graham having taken a sworn vote to impartial justice in this trial. Good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Tonight we will present part two of my interview with lev parnas. Now, as i said before, the first part of the interview last night and i want to reiterate it now mr. Parnas is under federal indictment. He was one of four defendants charge in the early october with multiple felonies related to an alleged scheme to foreign illegal donations to various republican candidates and campaign, including more than 300,000 in an allegedly illegal donation to the main super pac supporting the president s reelection. Mr. Parnas is under indictment. He says he would like to