All in starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes. We are one week into impeachment hearings. Weve had two days of hearings last week. We have three this week. Just in the last 72 hours, weve gotten a lot of information. One basic top line is clear and it is this. Things are not great for the president right now. In fact it literally was not a great weekend for the president at all. He was rushed to Walter Reed Hospital on saturday. Alongside the white house physician. He spent more than two hours at the hospital. It was not a planned trip. It was nowhere on his public schedule that day. The white house is saying the president just popped over to the hospital to get a headstart on his annual physical exam for 2020, which seems weird. But that happened over the weekend. Generally it feels like from the very moment that trumps call notes from that infamous call from the ukrainian president were released, things have only really moved in one direction, in terms of the picture of the facts. Every news story only adds further details of the scope and the insidiousness of the president s shadow operation to extort ukraine into helping him win reelection. Right before our show on friday, we learned that a state Department Official told congress that he overheard a phone conversation where the president himself asked the u. S. Ambassador to the eu, Gordon Sondland, if the ukrainian president was, goquote, gonna d the investigation. He also testified after the phone call sondland agreed, quote, the president did not give an s about ukraine. He also learned more about how long ago the ukraine scheme was hatched. Cnn reports that at the White House Hannukah Party last year, Rudy Giulianis indicted associates, lev parnas and igor fruman, met with just President Trump and according to the report the conversation turned to ukraine. Parnas said that the big guy, as he sometimes referred to the president in conversation, talked about tasking him and fruman with what parnas described as a secret mission, to pressure the Ukrainian Government to investigate joe biden and his son. A secret mission to pressure the Ukrainian Government to meddle in the u. S. Election against his political rival. And then on saturday, an official from the office of management and budget, a career civil servant, a guy named mark sandy told congress in behind closed doors testimony that he was so concerned about the white house freezing that military aid to ukraine that he raised questions to the ombs general counsel about whether the move violated the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1974. Over the weekend we also got the deposition transcripts of Vice President pences russia advisor, Jennifer Williams. She was actually on the july 25th call with trump and the ukrainian president. She testified that trumps talk about investigations, quote, struck me as unusual and inappropriate. The president over the weekend attacked her on twitter, saying she should, quote, read the transcript and calling her a never trumper. Heres the thing, Jennifer Williams does not need to read the transcript, she listened to the call as it happened in realtime. Its also weird and laughable to call her a never trumper seeing as how she works in the white house now. She was the hand picked person to work on the Vice President s staff, a detailee from the state department. Now, williams has a key role this week and he is one of the people who will be testifying tomorrow. Thats at 9 30 in the morning. Shell be there alongside Lieutenant ColonelAlexander Vindman who was also on the president s phone call and was so alarmed by what he heard that he immediately reported it to the National Security councils top lawyer. So tune in tomorrow. There will be three days of hearings this week. By all counts, there will be tens of millions of americans watching. New abc poll shows 58 of americans say theyre following the hearings very closely or somewhat closely. The main idea of the hearings, at least from the democrats perspective, does seem to be getting through. 70 think President Trumps request to a foreign leader to investigate his political rival was wrong. But its not just polling that shows this. There are real world political events that have happened the last few weeks since impeachment started, none of which have been particularly encouraging for the president. It was just two weeks ago that trump went down to kentucky the night before the election for governor and the very next day the democratic challenger won in a state that trump had carried by 22 points. Then last week same play. Trump goes down to louisiana, a state that he won by 20 points, to support the republican challenger for governor and it was clear that that kentucky loss was still on trumps mind. And headlines the next day, trump took a loss. I lift him up a lot. So trump took a loss. So youve got to give me a big win, please, okay . Okay . So in President Trumps view, the election is a test of his Political Capital and power. He went down there to tell everyone that explicitly and then democratic Governor John Bel Edwards was reelected just days later. Its not crazy to think that impeachment might have had some kind of prorepublican backlash effect in red states, but that is not what is happening. The president went to kentucky and louisiana in backtoback weeks to explicitly say, hey, electorate, this is a test of impeachment. Please send the message you are against it. Both times the message the electorate sent back was just the opposite. Joining me now is one of the members of congress who will be conducting the public hearings, democratic congressman peter welsh of vermont, a member of the house intelligence committee. My sense strongly from the reporting ive done and others have done is that the Democratic Caucus has come to the conclusion to start this inquiry on the merits and on the facts, in some ways against some political inclinations. But obviously Public Opinion does matter here. How do you think of the job that you have in terms of the public and what you want had public to know or find out or learn over the course of these public hearings . Well, youre right. Weve got to be laser focused on what is the impeachable conduct. And the impeachable conduct obviously revolves around the deal the president made where in exchange for a white house meeting and him releasing 400 million or so in military aid, the ukrainian president would conduct investigations on the bidens, dig up dirt for the benefit of his political campaign. Thats the question. And our effort is to try to just lay that out in as sterile a fashion as possible. Just the facts, maam. And i think the committee has been doing that. Its funny you use the adjective sterile there because one of the arguments ive seen republicans and the president and his campaign try to attack the hearings with is that they are boring. What is your response to that argument . Well, it really is of constitutional significance. If the best defense you have is that the crime that it appears the president may have committed is boring, thats not one i think thats particularly persuasive in Public Opinion. But lets talk about the republican defenses. The one thing they havent talked about at all are the merits. You know, the First Defense was i didnt do it. The second defense was Mick Mulvaney, so what if i did. And the third defense is that the hearings are rigged and a sham process and that its boring. But not a single defense has been offered on the merits of what the president asked for in that favor. So i think thats an indication of how weak that is. The president has a well earned reputation for telling fibs. Some would say lies. And now were seeing a lot of defense of all of those things the president said. I saw the president today making some noises, i think flatly disingenuous about how he would testify before the hearings. I dont really credit that at all. I think rightly. But it did reminding me of thi exchange that you had with congressman jordan about who should be coming before this committee. I want you to take a sglichb w listen. Now, there is one witness, one witness they wont bring in front of us and wont bring inspect front of the American People and thats the guy who started it all. I say to my colleague, id be glad to have the person who started it all come in and testify, President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there. Its more than President Trump too. I mean there are many people, Mick Mulvaney comes to mindi, wo you would like to talk to around the president and his associates who they are saying you cannot speak to. Thats right. That was a serious point in my response to mr. Jordan. The president has stonewalled. He has not provided any documents. Hes not provided any witnesses. And in fact the brave people who have come forward like ambassador yovanovitch, she did so in defiance of a directive from the state department and from the president. She responded to a lawful subpoena. So its only these brave folks who are serving in the state department, in the intelligence agencies and Defense Department that are coming forward. So the president has all of the information that he claims would be exculpatory supposedly but doesnt present it. Its obviously bogus him offering to testify, its his usual bluster. He should be providing the information that president s like nixon and clinton did. The state department has all sorts of documents and notes that they are not relinquishing which i think everyone would be interested in seeing. Congressman, thank you very much. Thank you. Joining me now, two people who have been paying close attention to the impeachment investigation. Erin banko, National Security reporter for the daily beast and harry litman, a former Deputy Assistant attorney general. Hes now the host of the talking feds podcast. Erin, let me start with you. It is remarkable, in some ways we learn lots of new little bits of granular information every day, it seems every hour, and then also the big picture remains unchanged from the time that we got the phone call, which is what the plot was because it was happening there right in front of everyone. Youve got new reporting on this infamous meeting at the white house where Gordon Sondland was essentially it sounds like just flatout telling the ukrainians you have to give us these investigations or you dont get the aid. Yeah. The meeting, as one source put it to us, sort of went off the rails as they put it. So as you remember, this july 10th meeting was sort of broken up into two separate parts. There was the first meeting that the ukrainians had with former National Security advisor john bolton and then theres the second meeting that happens in the war room with sondland leads the ukrainians into this separate room and begins making all sorts of demands. The people we talked to said the first meeting between john bolton and the ukrainians went quite well. It was professional. The ukrainians came with a plan. This is how we want to move forward with the u. S. It was only when sondland directed people back into the war room that things started to unravel. He starts raising his voice and making demands about you must open these investigations if you want a white house visit, making a lot of people in the room quite uncomfortable. Harry, one theme here, it relates to that cnn reporting about lev parnasy goi y igor andy igorfruman. The people who are not the president s henchmen seem unanimously horrified by what is happening and compelled to tell the public an congress about it. Too many people and too long a span, as you say. This is the big contrast with mueller where they could circle the wagons because its all the sort of loyalists. This actually pushed out of the way some of the state Department Career professionals who are now coming back with a vengeance. But we know from the most recent testimony, its a course of conduct starting from zelenskys inauguration and going into september. Its not just the phone call. I mean in Broad Strokes you have morrison and williams confirming the details of the call. And then the dramatic centerpiece i think of the whole hearings is going to be tuesday and wednesday, volker and sondland. Each of them is in very hot water and probably lied to congress. Will they try to take the fifth, will they point at each other, what will they do with guiliani . Everything else is confirming. So we want all the facts, thats great. And well have this electric moment where the people who really have been closest to trump, especially sondland, might be pressed to unbearable pressure. This is a great point, erin. Volke rech volker and sondland are two of the three amigos, the third being rick perry. They come very early in these depositions and are on the hook for what they said and they are the most amenable to being tools for the president to carry off the plot. Volker will come before the committee tomorrow. To harrys point, hes already in a little hot water in terms of what he said so far, right . Thats exactly right. It will be really interesting to see how volker comes in front of the committee, what he says, whether or not he points to sondland. As weve seen over the past week or so, you know, a lot of reporting has come out on sondland. All sort of signs point to sondland as especially as the person who had direct communication with President Trump. I think thats really important to remember. As far as we know, volker did not. So the two will have drastically different kind of testimonies and hearings. It will be really interesting to see who points to many who. We already saw that sondland, especially in his opening testimony, has tried to distance himself from the ukraine portfolio saying it was only a piece of what i did and it really wasnt all that poimportt to me. Volker is very different. This is all i did. Ukraine was sort of like my baby. I tried to shepherd that policy in and really believed in it. Then we see sondland come in and sort of throw knives into that policy and change things around a bit. The other key point about volker tomorrow who will be in the afternoon, last week we heard from three witnesses, none of whom had direct interaction with rudy giuliani. He was a spectural presence that haunted their lives. Volker on the other hand we know has direct contact. Its the first time someone who is pulled into the irregular channel, as bill taylor famously talked about it, will be sworn in. Yeah, thats exactly right. Volker really can bury guiliani and sondland really can bury trump himself. But volker made five or six statements in his deposition that are just whoppers, starting with he doesnt know anything about biden and burisma. The meeting that erin referred, to the famous july 10th, oh, he said it was just a sort of boring, nothing happened. He is really on the hot seat for that one. So its not simply that he can point to guiliani, but that he has to himself make a strategic decision about which way hes going to go. Theres a lot of suspense about those hearings this week. I have no idea how any of that is going to go. Erin banco and harry litman, thank you both. Next, renewed questions about how much acting cheeief o staff Mick Mulvaney knows. The latest in two minutes. Th e telast in two minutes. T pre. T about geico making it easy to switch and save hundreds . Oh yeah, sure. Um. You dont know my name, do you . laughs nervously of course i know your name. I just get you mixed up with the other guy. Whats his name . Whats your name . Switch to geico®. You could save 15 or more on Car Insurance. Could you just tell me . I want this to be over. What are you doing back there, junior . Since were obviously lost, im rescheduling my Xfinity Customer Service appointment. Ah, relax. I got this. Which gps are you using anyway . A Little Something called instinct. Been using it for years. Yeah, thats what im afraid of. He knows exactly where were going. My whole body is a compass. Oh boy. The my account app makes todays Xfinity Customer Service simple, easy, awesome. Not my thing. As i said before, we already know a ton about the Trump Administrations ukraine scheme. In fact everything we are finding out i think the democrats would say is kind of icing on the impeachment cake. Theres one thing we still have some questions about, which is just the exact justification and the mechanics of that hold on the nearly 400 million of congressionally mandated military aid to ukraine which is a key part of this entire scheme. One person who can shed light on that is the acting chief of staff director of budget, Mick Mulvaney who said there was a quid pro quo but has refused to testify. The wall street journal furthers the case that mulvaney is directly implicated. The president s appointment, the legendary Gordon Sondland, looped mulvaney in my email. On july 19th, a day before the president was scheduled to speak to the ukrainian president , mr. Sondland emailed a group of officials, including mr. Mulvaney and Energy Secretary rick perry. Here is what he wrote in that email. Quote, i talked to the president of ukraine just now. He is prepared to receive the president s call. Will assure him that he intends to run a fully transparent investi