Thank you all. Thank you. What a day to be back. All right, all right, what a day to be back here. House democrats are conducting a formal itmpeachment inquiry for president of the United States. The democrats have just subpoenaed the white house interest documents relating to that impeachment inquiry. I just think its worthwhile taking a second to remember how this all started. This all started with a very simple story of donald trump on the phone pressuring the ukrainian president to dig up dirt, one could really say like manufacture dirt on his political rival, joe biden. And we learned all about it from a white house memo that the white house itself released, right . Like just remember literally this is something the white house chose to show us on their own. Here you go, see the call was perfect. Perfect. Theres no crime here. Now its also the crime is literally right there, you could literally read the crime in front of you. The ukrainian president asking for military assistance, 400 million and the very next line after he says like mr. President we are ready to get some new weapons from you guys, the very last line donald trump says, quote, i would like to i would you to do us a favor, though. Though. Whats the though doing there . Well, donald trump said in the call on its own just that part, i think is absolutely an impeachable offense. Just the coercion you dont actually and i really believe this is not something written in the Ten Commandments or something. We all figure this out as democratic citizens. But i think full stop coercing a foreign leader to do a political hit job on your political rival, okay, the thing is weve learned more and more is that that moment, trumps phone call is only one part of an enormous effort from the entire American Government like full spectrum, so its not just a phone call or Rudy Giuliani running around doing his weirdness, its like his entire comprehensive use of foreign policy, it state department, the ambassador to the eu, the special envoy to ukraine all flowing through the white house and state department to get them to investigate the bidens. All right . Its a corrupt abuse of power to coerce an occupied country in exchange for nearly 400 million in aid i should say they need to keep russia out of their backyard. Theyre being occupied by russia right now as i speak to you right here. All while russia is the country that helped get donald trump elected in the first place. Which is weird. Yesterday the former u. S. Special envoy to ukraine, the guy who abruptly quit his job shortly after his name appeared in the whistleblower complaint, he testified before the House Investigative Committee for 9 1 2 hours, there for a while. He turned over pages and pages of Text Messages between him and dulumats and Rudy Giuliani and that trove of Text Messages was released for everyone to see around 10 30 and its bad, its really bad. I grew up in the bronx in the 1980s, i went to Public School. And in the bronx in the 1980s in Public School when somebody got caught or called out or a teacher caught you, the room would be like, ooh, busted. And all i could hear in my mind last night as i was reading these texts was like my middle School Cafeteria going like, ooh, busted. Theyre busted. Because heres the thing, the texts unmask that they were up to no good, all right . They document what were essentially several quid pro quos they were lining up. The ukrainians had to deliver something tangible in exchange for trumps support. It wasnt just a favor as trump phrases it. The quote is from one of the diplomats i think the president really wants a deliverable but even more than that above the actual wrongdoing in the text the thing so damning about these texts is the consciousness of guilt that hangs over them. And this is kwee to me, this is actually key. They knew what they were doing was wrong, and they were trying to keep it secret. On september 1st, okay, were just going to go through a few. Hes a guy named bill taylor, Career Foreign Service officer, served in the george w. Bush administration and obama administration. This is this guys work. He texts the u. S. Ambassador to the european union, a guy named gordon sondland. You should remember it because hes about to be famous, okay . Sondland actually is a Portland Hotel developer who literally gave a Million Dollars to trumps inauguration and appears to have gotten this gig as a thank you. Okay . Thats who sondland is. Bill taylor, Career Foreign Service guy texts i quote, are we now saying that Security Assistance and white house meeting are conditioned on investigations . Now, sondland, the trump appointee, the big donor recognizes that this is a dangerous conversation to put in writing. And he responds, call me. Thats not all. It is clear from these texts it Career Foreign Services guy is calling out whats happening, hes trying to get it into writing because he knows whats happening. And theres another exchange that happens eight days later. Theyre still working out this weird thing what are the conditions that have to be met and another quote, bill taylor, as i said on the phone nice one, bill. Nice one, bill. As i said on the phone, i think its crazy to with hold Security Assistance for help with a Political Campaign. That is crazy, right . So he says on the phone and then he texts it to bring him the record. Hes calling out what is clear as day happening. It is a corrupt abuse of power, it is a quid pro quo. Now, heres the thing about trump, always for everything the president has two big defenses, two defenses. One he does everything in public so theres no scandal, right . Like how could it be a scandal . Russia, if youre listening. Like he told a foreign gump to engage in criminal sabotage on his behalf in front of everyone, right . And number two and the second defense, and youre going to hear it lot. Youve been hearing it last week, it basically comes down to this and these are not my words. This is the characterization of the people defending him. Donald trump is a morally incontinent sociopath who cannot tell the difference between right or wrong so you have to just give him a break because he like literally doesnt understand the difference. That is the defense. Hes just trump being trump. What do you want . He literally doesnt know whats wrong. And trump himself, thats his sort of thats his approach as well, right . Hes embracing this. Thats him on the driveway publicly committing these impeachable offenses. Hes doing it in public. Nothing wrong with it. Saying this morning on the driveway theres nothing wrong, corruption, theres no wrong. But these texts destroy that weird alibi. The texts show they all knew it was wrong. Theyre doing it in secret and theyre thinking about how to coverup. They know its wrong while theyre doing it. And thats what i think actually makes this different than some other the different scandals weve seen. Not only did they know it was wrong, they worked on their cover story. Back to the texts. Its after midnight, okay. Early last month our Career Foreign Service guy, bill taylor, hes in ukraine. And hes texting back and forth with sondland, right, the guy he gave a mimmian dollars to the inauguration. And the Career Foreign Service guy clearly uncomfortable trying to put on the record its happening, and very specifically says, quote, as i said on the phone i think its crazy to with hold Security Assistance to help the Political Campaign and then silence. Five hours go by. The New York Times reports that before responding to this text thats just hanging there with the Career Foreign Service being like what youre doing is crazy and wrong, right, that the trump appointee sondland spoke to trump. The times reported that yesterday, he speaks to trump. And one could imagine i dont know what was in the conversation but one could imagine what happened in the conversation between trump and the appointee about a career diplomat calling out the fact theyre corruptly extorting a foreign occupied nation for a political hit job on the president s political rival. What should i tell them . Well, the trump appointee comes back five hours later with this like hilarious lawyered press release cover story in a text which is the same cover story theyre going to use later on when all becomes public. I believe youre incorrect about President Trumps intentions. The president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. The president is starting to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt the reforms and this is text. And then here it comes again. Here it comes again. I suggest we stop the back and forth by text. I bet you do. Probably should stop texting that. No quid pro quo, lets stop texting, though. He says it, no quid pro quo. Okay, then it gets weirder. You guys, following, right . So today gets weirder. So republican senator ron johnson from wisconsin who is a big supporter of the president says he basically can do no wrong, what he did in the driveway yesterday was fine. Soliciting hit jobs on his and johnson saying no quid pro quo, that that guy told him back in august there is a quid pro quo. That guy, the guy who put into writing the lawyer text after he talked to trump going no, no, no he went to senator johnson and went, dude, theres a quid pro quo, were holding up aid to yeah crane in exchange for this crizzy investigation. This is all johnson told. Johnson then goes to trump and says is there a quid pro quo, are you holding up aid to yeah crane so they investigate the bidens . Donald trump, you cannot make this up, donald trump according to johnson says no, and who told you that . Which is just a super innocent thing to say. Its what you say when youre innocent. And then Johnson Johnson basically says according to ron johnson, according to this republican who does not support impeachment, i dont even know if he thinks this all wrong, hes in contact with ukrainians. He goes im going to tell them im going to release the aid and he says whats the hold up, and trump says dont do it. This is back in august before all this breaks. The people who are party to this corrupt conspiracy already know its wrong. They already know theyre going to get caught, and they are already working on their cover story. And the cover story is no quid pro quo. Even as they all very obviously put a quid pro quo into place. And then just two days after the Career Foreign Service guy bill taylor calls them out in that text am i crazy or are you guys doing something totally corrupt and illegal, you know what happened . Two days after that trump releases it. Busted. I want to turn now to the House Committee member investigating the president , democratic congressman danny heck. Congressman, i guess i want to first start with your reaction to the texts and the testimony that you heard yesterday in terms of how it builds out your understanding of what happened here. Well, first of all, chris, can we just declare that the quid pro quo is frankly as obvious as the nose on your face, its obvious on the president s words after discussing the sail of javelin missile, i would like a favor from you, though, its clear. And ambassador taylors remarks that its crazy to with hold Security Assistance for help in a Political Campaign. The quid pro quo is right there on the table staring us all in the face in their words. But heres the deal, chris, a quid pro quo isnt necessary for it to be a violation of federal law and we shouldnt fall into the trap of that debate as obvious as it is. Soliciting assistance from a Foreign Government is violation of the federal law, full stop. Furthermore it is conspiracy to engage in that activity subject to proceedings, conspiracy to cover it up to obstruct justice is subject to criminal activity. We dont even have to get to the fact that this is in fact a quid pro quo. So there was news today about there actually being a criminal referral to that point, that the cia general counsel kicked this over to the department of justice and today the reporting was that when the cia general counsel moved this complaint to doj, it wasnt a what you guys think of it, it was meant to be actually a formal criminal referral and it looks like doj just sat on it. Surprise. Doj and attorney general barr. The point remains, however, that there is something broader and fundamental and more important than the violation of this particular statute at risk here and it is of course whether or not were going to be a nation of the rule of law. We were founded in this oneterm President Donald Trump isnt going to change that for the United States of america. So so explain this to me, so youre on the intelligence committee, its one of the three committees that sort of constitutes this oversight triad, right . You talk to kirk volker yesterday, youve got these texts, youve subpoenaed various people and from sondland i think on tuesday i think hes going to appear for deposition. You talked today to the inspector general, you subpoenaed the white house. What is the purpose of all this if youre telling me right now like we got him . I think theres additional it tails of the area to fill in . So for example, in particular im looking forward to hearing from ambassadoria ambassadoriai was somebody in the circle that knew about this that shared that information with the ultimate claimant. There are americans of patriotic impulse involved in this and they will assure that the truth rollout. Final question you subpoenaed the white house today, the Oversight Committee subpoenaed the white house which, you know, doesnt happen very often. Obviously theyre going to try to fight you on this. Are you confident that you have the better part of this legal argument . On the subpoena . This is formal impeachment inquiry an inherent power and article on under the United States constitution. I dont mean to be snarky, it is not at all clear to me the president of the United States has ever read the United States constitution. But it is clear that we have this power and authority. It is the job the people that send us here expect us to do. The constitutional remedy to engage in an impeachment inquiry or if needs be articles of impeachment or an Impeachment Vote are enshrined in the United States constitution, thats the document we all swore to uphold. Thank you very much for your time. Stim to come republicans are mostly standing by President Trump after one week of impeachment, but is the tide starting to turn . Well talk about that. kickstart my heart by motley crue truck honks wheels screeching clapping sound of can hitting bag and bowl clapping always there in crunch time. Pain happens. Saturdays happen. Aleve it. Aleve is proven better on pain than tylenol. When pain happens, aleve it. All day strong. Aaddiction. How juuline hooked kids and ignited an Public Health crisis. Other news outlets report juul took 12. 8 billion from big tobacco. Markets ecigarettes with kid friendly flavors and uses nicotine to addict them. 5 million kids use ecigarettes. Juul is following big tobaccos playbook. And now, juul is pushing prop c to overturn ecigarette protections. Vote no on juul. No on big tobacco. No on prop c. One of the Big Questions thats been hanging around impeachment all year is hows it going to play politically . The National Polling has already moved swiftly in the direction of plurality or even majority support for impeachment inquiry. Even in some polls support for impeachment or removal of president which is startling. But the real question of politics of this involves two groups of people, House Democrats in contested seats who the Washington Post reports are getting pretty good attaboys at their town halls and republican senators where the president s Approval Ratings are under water. One such republican who wasnt really on anybodys radar as having a contested fight ahead of her was iowa senator jodi ernhz. Just this morning we have President Trump saying we need to talk to xi jinping and have him investigate joe biden. How is that helping anybody . Where is the line . You didnt pledge an oath to our president. You pledged it to our country. You pledged it to our aunsitution. When are you guys going to start standing up and actually be there for us . President trump if i can say yay, nay, whatever, the president is going to say what the president is going to do. I cant speak for him. Ill just say that. I know you cant speak for him, but can you speak for yourself . And our president shouldnt be threatening them and he also should not be encouraging other countries to investigate his political rivals . I would say to that corruption no matter where it is should be ferreted out. Im joined now by msnbc political analyst carlos carvalho, congressman good to have you. You were pretty outspoken yesterday after the president was on the driveway saying i want china and ukraine and i guess whoever else to go after the bidens. You said, look, this is kind of a makeorbreak moment. What is your read on what republicans should be saying here . Chris, lets set impeachment aside for a se