>> yeah. >> you can, you know, start fronting your defense by having your attorneys there and getting that messaging out there, or if you already know it's a foregone conclusion in some ways that you're going to end up in the senate then you hold your strategy back, work through your surrogates and wait until the senate. >> here is what the white house pat cipollony the president's lawyer he wrote this letter to the judiciary committee, we cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witness right side yet to be named, more importantly an invitation to an academic discussion with law professors does not begin to provide the president with a semblance of a fair process. a, does he have a point that we are 49 hours away from this hearing beginning on wednesday and the public doesn't know, the white house doesn't know who the witnesses are going to be, and, b, how unusual is it to see it play out like this? >> the whole thing is unusual. >> sure. >> here we are, it's a unicorn