the presidency into a dictatorship, after his friend and ally sean hannity gave him repeated chances to deny it. we will play it all in a moment. judge for yourself. president biden telling donors off camera, he is not sure he would be running for re-election if donald trump weren't. but retracts that when reporters ask him about it later. >> would you be running for president if trump wasn't running? >> i expect so. look, he is running. i have to run. >> the former president responding in iowa. >> president biden says he is running because you are running. do you have any comment? >> i doubt it. i doubt that. they don't want me to run. everybody wants to run against biden. president biden speaking this hour as the deep partisan divide over gop demands to restrict the right to asylum at the border tanks aid to ukraine and israel in the national security supplemental budget, after senate republicans storm out of a classified briefing with secretaries of state, defense and the director of national security. ♪ is not. good day. what a day in washington. i'm andrea mitchell. there is breaking news on capitol hill. recently ousted republican speaker kevin mccarthy saying he is leaving congress at the end of this month to, quote, serve america in new ways. >> today i am driven by the same purpose that i felt when i arrived in congress. but now, it is time to pursue my passion in a new arena. while i will be departing the house at the end of this year, i will never, ever give up fighting for this country that i love so much. >> joining me now is reporter ryan nobles, "washington post" national deputy editor phil rucker and assistant manhattan district attorney catherine christian. ryan, what drove mccarthy's decision to leave congress so quickly? >> reporter: i think this was not too much of a surprise. we know that kevin mccarthy's presence still looms large over the republican conference, even after his ouster as speaker of the house earlier this year. basically, it got to a point where kevin mccarthy, as he said in his own words, felt he would be more useful to whatever cause he is promoting, outside of the halls of congress than inside the halls of congress. so he is going to leave at the end of the year, which is going to create a vacancy for house republicans that will shrink their already slim majority. of course, they just got rid of another member from their conference, george santos, last week. we are now getting a better handle on exactly how long it could potentially take to replace kevin mccarthy. the governor of california, once he resigns and not until, has two weeks to call a special election. then within a certain window of time -- according to what we are being told here, 126 to 140 days -- they need to call that special election to replace kevin mccarthy. it is very likely that kevin mccarthy will be replaced by a republican. his district is a republican stronghold. there's going to be a significant amount of time where that seat will be vacant and republicans won't have that vote. george santos' seat as well is going to be a significant amount of time. i believe the governor has called that for march 13th. republicans are finding a situation where they are already having a very difficult time passing a basic piece of legislation. there is still an enormous amount of dissent within their own rank. this is going to make it more complicated, to lose another member, especially as prominent as kevin mccarthy. >> ryan, former republican congressman fred upton is joining us now. there's so many questions to ask. when i said, why is he quitting now, i mean now, because it's creating that gap when key things, the supplemental, to say nothing of everything else at stake, as we head into the rest of december and january. >> reporter: right. that's a great question. i think part of it is timing. within the next couple of days, he would have been forced to file for re-election. he had a deadline approaching that he needed to make clear in terms of what his future is. that still doesn't answer the question, why doesn't he just complete his term as a member of congress and stay in office until the end of 2024 and allow the next member of congress to come in his place? that would allow the seat to be held in republican hands for at least the next year. that's the move that nancy pelosi made, even though she was not longer a leader and no longer speaker of the house. she decided to stay in office. she's now found a comfortable position here as speaker amerita. the situation is different with kevin mccarthy. nancy pelosi still very much is beloved with her conference. kevin mccarthy has created a lot of enemies. he is an enemy of a lot of other members. he called for ethics investigations into those that have asked for him to be removed. he has threatened primaries against some of those who removed him as speaker of the house. there was this level of tension that existed with kevin mccarthy in the room. i'm told every time he walked into a conference, an internal conference, there was a group that would look to him to see how he would handle a situation. that overshadowed the work of mike johnson. he is not particularly close with the new speaker, mike johnson. if it had been someone else, like patrick mchenry who he was very close with and even perhaps been jim jordan, someone he developed a relationship, maybe perhaps there was a role for him to play as a back bencher but someone with influence over the current speaker and someone that could mentor that speaker. that relationship doesn't exist with mike johnson. that's also part of the calculation. a lot of this is speculation. we don't know exactly the reason why he decided to step down. that's some of the data points you can point to as to why this is happening so quickly, especially given the margins between democrats in the house of representatives. >> to reinforce your point, fred upton, look at this tweet. let me read this tweet from marjorie taylor greene. she tweets, now in 2024 we will have a one-seat majority. congratulations freedom caucus for 105 reps who expel our own for the other. i can assure you, republican voters didn't give us the majority to crash the ship. hope hopefully, no one dies. >> remember a couple things. not only is santos gone -- you will have a special election soon. they are not going to have a primary. it's just a general. both parties decide who the nominee will be literally in the next week or two, probably tom swazi on the democratic side, a former member from the district. he will likely be -- i would hall him a heavy favorite. you got kevin gone. it's up to governor newsom when he calls a special election. bill johnson from ohio is going to announce that he is going to resign to take over the president of youngstown state. that's three members that are going to be gone, through republicans that are going to be gone. that margin is only one or two, depending upon, of course, everything changes day to day. speaker johnson's got a very tenuous grip in terms of how he tries to proceed to get things done. for kevin, it wasn't a surprise he was leaving. i said so from the get go. he is not a happy camper. he has to go down that aisle to vote. he has a number of folks who voted to oust him. they are catcalling right there at the end on all of his votes. he is not on a committee. he doesn't get that magic minute where he can speak for hours if he wants to when he is yielded to just a minute or two. he wasn't going to be happy as a back bencher. it was pretty -- the writing was on the wall that he was going to leave. in fact, there was word even earlier this week that there was going to be a special party for him the end of next week celebrating his time in congress, which was a pretty early signal this would be his last couple days of votes. >> every vote counts. it certainly complicates speaker johnson's job. it is no love lost there. phil, mccarthy leaving comes after a public breakup with president trump. former president trump is also not denying he would rule as a dictator. this is in a fox news interview last night. let's watch. >> the media have been focused on this and attacking you. you are promising america tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody? >> except for day one. except for day one. >> meaning? >> i want to close the border and i want to drill, drill, drill. no, no. >> that's not retribution. >> i'm going to be -- i love this guy. you are not going to be a dictator are you? other than day one. >> we shouldn't call that a news interview. that was basically a maga ally and sometimes surrogate trying to help donald trump out by getting him off of the dictator meme that liz cheney had just said in recent days as her book has come out, phil. donald trump wasn't having anything of it. maybe he is joking, but he is not backing off of that. >> yeah. i would take what trump said there seriously. he plans to exercise his power to the fullest from day one. he for months has been signaling the way he would use that power if he were to win a second term, seeking retribution, using the department of justice to go against his political enemies and adversaries, as my colleagues at "the post" have reported, using his power on immigration policy and other areas. when he says he would be a dictator on day one, you know, the crowd there was laughing and applauding. but i think it's a deadly serious comment. there's an awful lot that a newly elected president would be able to do on day one by executive order and with the sort of coordinated muscle of the federal government behind him. >> exactly. catherine christian, there's a preview of what another trump term could look like. go to "the atlantic," this new edition, which has a lot of articles on things that he has said. a republican lawyer who is being speculated as his potential attorney general spoke about this and talked about kash patel who they had wanted to take over the cia and is considered a complete outlier of any institutional national security policy. this is what he had to say. >> we will indict joe biden and hunter biden and james biden and every other sleaze biden. >> we will find the conspirators in the media. we will come after the people in the media who lied about american citizens who helped joe biden rig presidential elections. we will come after you. >> it's department of justice. it's rule of law. it's the national security team, intelligence. it's all of the above. >> if you care about the rule of law, it's frightening. remember, the president not only appoints the attorney general, the president appoints the 93 united states attorneys who are throughout the country and puerto rico and guam. those united states attorneys are responsible for federal prosecutions within those states. they follow basically the policies of the department of justice. a president would appoint people whose job is not to prosecute crime and to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but to go after people who are perceived enemies. that's just not the rule of law. that's just not the united states of america that has the united states constitution that we all are familiar with. >> phil, catherine, thanks to both of you. ryan, fred, stand by. we will be back a little later. we are waiting for the president any minute. running out of time as we await new comments from president biden on the critical million teary aid for ukraine and israel. efforts to get that aid crashing on capitol hill in dramatic fashion. what happened and what it all means for the war against vladimir putin. that's next. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." we will be back in 60 seconds. we will be back in 60 seconds. a better plan would be verizon. 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(carolers all) ♪mom is mad. this plan has backfired.♪ (vo) for a limited time, trade in any samsung phone in any condition for a galaxy s23+, watch6, and tab s9 fe. all on us. that's up to $1800 in value. only on verizon. he hits his mark —center stage—and is crushed by a baby grand piano. you're replacing me? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ [sneeze] dude you coming? because the only thing dripping should be your style. plop plop fizz fizz with alka-seltzer plus cold & flu relief. also try for fizzy fast cough relief. republicans are walking out of the briefing because the people there are not willing to actually discuss what it takes to get a deal done. >> they didn't like it. even one of them started -- was disrespectful and started screaming at one of the generals and challenging him to why he didn't go to the border. >> here in washington, president biden's $105 billion aid package is on life support as republicans and democrats battle over two of e three key divisions. it hit a new level when senate republicans stormed out of the briefing from the cabinet members on ukraine and israel, because the administration didn't send anyone who could speak to their demands for tougher asylum policies at the border. ryan nobles back with us. we are joined by peter alexander. peter, ryan was telling us what has been happening up there. let's go to ryan first on what happened last night. i want to ask about this briefing and how it was set up. >> reporter: what happened was that white house officials in cooperation with the senate majority leader chuck schumer planned for a classified briefing on capitol hill to give senators a stark reality as to what the situation is like in both ukraine and israel. part that was briefing was to include the ukrainian president, but he was forced to cancel due to something that had come up prior to the briefing. it ended up only being the administration officials. these were administration officials with specific expertise on ukraine and israel, not anything else. when republicans got into the room, they had an expectation that there would be a conversation about the border security component of this package. these administration officials were not in a position to answer those questions. that made republicans mad. they thought that there should have been a more complete discussion about the package. that's what led to them getting into a confrontation with the officials. some of them just outright walking out. what this means more than anything is that it clearly shows the divide between republicans and democrats right now on this very complicated package that has four different components to it and necessitate each one of those having bipartisan support in order to get over the finish line. listen to how far apart the two sides are when you listen to the leaders talk about this. >> nothing more than an excuse for the heart ride to kill funding for ukraine? too many other republican senators who are not part of the hard right are going along. i hope that's not true. >> undeniable link between the threats we face in europe and the middle east and the indo-pacific. democratic leadership appears to be telling us today that they are willing to risk each of these priorities to avoid fixing our own borders right here at home. >> reporter: you get a sense that democrats are frustrated with mitch mcconnell in particular. he has been calling for ukraine aid. now he has become someone among the strongest proponents it should be tied to border problems. they are just simply running out of time. >> peter, the president's decision to add remarks to his schedule highlights the urgency here. they are out of money in ukraine. they don't have ammo. they don't have weapons. there's no way to backfill, according to the budget director who reports to the president. one wonders why if border security was the key issue here, why no one from homeland security or from mayorkas' staff was at the briefing. >> reporter: it's a good question. we will see how the president frames this. the president expected to speak in the roosevelt room here. it's clear having spoken to a senior administration official the president wants to use this as an opportunity to communicate to the american people the consequences of failure. failure to provide tens of billions of additional dollars to ukraine right now. as you noted, we heard in a letter from the white house budget director earlier this week, a letter written to congressional leaders that right now the u.s. is running out of money and running out of time to help support ukraine. she says something must happen by the end of this year. setting a deadline at which point there would not be the money necessary to provide additional military support to ukraine right now. she also said that if their economy collapses -- the u.s. is past the point it can support the ukrainian economy. if the economy collapses in ukraine, that would basically make it so the ukrainian people could not continue this fight full stop she said. we heard from one of the top advisors to zelenskyy. he was speaking to top leaders in the washington community. he said if there's not additional resources provided to ukraine in the very near future, that they are, in his words, at a big risk of losing this war. i think that's what we expect to hear from the president just moments from now about the consequences, the stakes here. republicans, as ryan helped communicate, specifically house republicans have been came call for what president biden calls draconian efforts to crack down on immigration laws. we heard from mike johnson saying in a letter to the white house that he first needed to see transformative change as it related to border laws. right now the question is where they can find some agreement on this with the window rapidly closing. >> indeed. zelenskyy was on a meeting with the president and all the other g7 leaders this morning. maybe that was previously scheduled on economic aid. clearly, this is an emergency. ryan, peter, thank you. i know you will stand by as we wait for the president as well. joining us now is retired lieutenant again twitty. give us a reality check. are they crying wolf or is this real trouble? >> i think it's real trouble. we lose credibility with our partners and allies when we tell them that we are going to be there for them to the end, and then we do not execute on that promise. so i'm hopeful that we can get this funding passed and we can get it to the ukrainians. as you know, they had a tough fight this past summer. they are going into the winter months. they will need to rearm, refit, reorganize. fix broken equipment. they need that funding to do those things to be prepared for the fight here coming up here in the springtime next summer. >> general twitty, that's a bonus for vladimir putin. that's one of the reasons why senator schumer said last night that republican icon ronald reagan would be turning over in his grave right now. thank you very much. stand by as well. we await for the president. the break in the blockade. senator tuberville releasing his hold on military promotions. abigail spanberger joins us with more on that. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. ts." this is msnbc. at's a deal worth celebrating. man, what are you doing?! get it before it's gone on the subway app. ♪♪ the power goes out and we still have wifi get it before it's gone on the subway app. to do our homework. and that's a good thing? 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