And a very good day to you. Im Kristin Welker in new york. While impeachment is on pause today, the standoff between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell is heating up. Pelosi insisting that the democrats need to know what sort of trial the senate will conduct before moving forward. This morning senator mcconnell criticizing the speaker for not yet transmitting the articles of impeachment. Are you surprised you havent been handed the two impeachment articles from the speaker . Yeah. I mean, the papers have to be physically brought over to the senate and we cant go forward until the speaker does that. Shes apparently trying to tell us how to run the trial. You know, im not anxious to have this trial so if she wants to hold onto the papers, go right ahead. This happening as newly released emails show that a request to withhold aid to ukraine came from the office of the white House Management and budget less than two hours after the controversial call with ukraines president in july. Hans, so lets just start with everything youre hearing at the white house. The president s on vacation. Hes clearly thinking about impeachment. Hes tweeting about impeachment this morning. Pelosi gives us the most unfair trial in the history of the u. S. Congress and now she is crying for fairness in the senate and breaking all the rules while doing so. She lost congress once, she will lose it again. Reporter when you pair that tweet with what he said saturday night where he thinks its a good thing the house hasnt agreed to send over those articles of impeachment in the senate, you get a sense that he likes his position over this holiday break. That is that they can continue to talk about fairness and process on the trial and not engage in the substance. Officials give you very little indication that theyd be having to produce the kind of documents that Chuck Schumer is asking for. We have a standoff, we have a stalemate and i think one peril for the white house in all of this and i think we see this in the emails, but the longer this goes on, theres a chance the dynamic of this entire process now that the president has been impeached is altered. Theres an internal discussion inside the white house on whether you want a short trial or a long trial. The longer this goes on, the more risk there is for the white house. The forces and the folks that are pushing for a short trial, they may have gotten a little bit of an advantage by the release of these documents because its just more information that casts the white house in a less than flattering light. Let me just get your reaction to the fact that as hans is reporting, this stalemate is deepening. Here we are, everyone is taking holiday and yet there are no signs that theyre any closer to getting on the same page. Do you think theres going to be a senate trial . Oh i absolutely do think theres still going to be a senate trial. I could be surprised, i suppose. But whats striking about this is that hans mentions risk. Theres risk for both sides. The more unflattering or worrisome emails could come out, more reporting could divulge something about some of these key witnesses that havent testified yet and have resisted subpoenas. More information could be damaging to the democrats politically, because obviously there are all sorts of republican allies of the president who are saying that this impeachment effort is a dance, that its an effort to damage the president , to undo this 2016 election. So both sides are in a little bit of drama and danger. Thats right. Leader mcconnell has said he hasnt ruled out calling witnesses. Mark short, the Vice President s chief of staff, was on meet the press on sunday. Take a listen. Does it make sense then to have Mick Mulvaney and his deputies testify, though, and give some clarity to this . You know, i think its kind of ironic to say that we have an airtight case. Nancy pelosi said we have an airtight case. Yet she now says we demand more witnesses. How do you reconcile those two statemen statements . We want to see a trial in the senate because we want to see that the president gets exonerated. One of the questions swirling around this trial, if there is one, is will mcconnell and the white house be on the same page . President trump said he wants the whistleblower to come forward. He wants to hear from joe biden. Do you think theyre on the same page . I think its so important that we remember that theres like the show in front of our eyes about what certain leaders say and then theres the behind the scenes. The show in front of us is essentially im tough, this case doesnt touch me, im not worried about anything, whatever pelosi does, it doesnt hurt me. But behind the scenes the president has been saying a lot of things that dont necessarily comport with what his aides and white House Counsel are telling the senate. For example, the request for the whistleblower, behind the scenes i dont think the white house is eager to have the whistleblower come and testify. Theres a little bit of bra vad douvado in the show in front of us and something more tempered behind the scenes. These newly revealed emails, conversations between the white house omb and the pentagon regarding aid to ukraine, what can you tell us about that . Reporter this is what the back end of bureaucracy looks like. And the most troubling aspect for the white house is that one of the emails by Michael Duffey was directed to other omb officials and pentagon officials telling them to withhold the aid. The timing is troublesome because it came 90 minutes after President Trumps phone call with zelensky. Omb officials are saying its irresponsible to draw a conclusion between that email and the phone call and that really the decision was made a couple of weeks earlier, about ten days earlier when they made the call to withhold the aid. But its also the tone of the email. The tone of the email is lets not disseminate this widely, this will be on a need to know basis. We should know that theyre heavily redacted. This isnt a complete picture but its an indication of how much more out there potentially through reporting could be revealed. Just real quickly on the timing, mcconnell just spoke moments ago. Mcconnell seemed to say there wouldnt be a resolution on this until the senate goes back into session. He said look back at my fox comments but hes got nothing further to add. We could be in a stalemate throughout this entire break. Senate comes back into session january 6th, i believe. That is a long time to be staring across and not talking to each other. Certainly is. A stalemate that is intensifying. Joining me now democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of maryland. Tho thank you for joining me. Let me have you pick up where hans left off. You are asking the Government Accountability office essentially for an opinion on the legality of President Trumps decision to hold up aid on ukraine. What are you hoping to achieve . Have you heard back from them . I have not heard back yet. They are going to do this legal analysis. I hope to ref it as soon ceive possible. We know that the president abused his power by withholding this essential funding to ukraine in order to extract these personal political promises to interfere in the election. But it seems also clear that he violated the control act withholding those funds. That would be true even if you accepted the president s cover story, that they were somehow engaged in a policy review. So thats why were asking gao to look into this and get back to us. We know that Chuck Schumer is pushing for the department of state omb, the white house to release those documents related to the decision to hold up the aid to ukraine. Do you anticipate theyll be any more successful than the house, because the house tried to get those same documents as well . I think americans regardless of where they stand on impeachment overwhelmingly understand that in order to have a fair trial in the United States senate you get to call the relevant fact witnesses and you get to look at the relevant documents. Thats what this is all object. We just highlighted the importance of that issue with the document you mentioned already from Michael Duffey whos a political appointee at the white house in the office of management and budget directing the pentagon to hold the military assistance to ukraine 90 minutes after the president s call and clearly indicated in that email that they recognize it was inappropriate in many ways, not wanting other people to see this document. So this is all the more reason that the public deserves to see the documents and that we get to call fact witnesses. The president keeps saying he wants a trial with witnesses and then they are saying well we dont want these key witnesses to testify. What do they have to hide . Let me follow up with you on that point. As you note, those emails transpired 90 minutes after the president s july 25th phone call with the president of ukraine. Yet omb says this is something that had been discussed. These are emails taken out of context. Do they have a point . No. The fact that they may have been in the works before the phone call with zelensky simply adds to the story line. The reality is they were in this period of time when the president was going to be calling zelensky. Clearly the president wanted zelensky to interfere in the u. S. 2020 president ial election by launching this ridiculous investigation. So this was clearly on the president s mind both before the phone call, but it was right after the phone call that they put this into action with the official withholding documents. So the fact that they were already discussing this before the phone call seems to me just adds to the narrative that this was part of the president s plan to abuse the office of the presidency to extract this political favor from ukraine. Again, if thats not true and if the white house says theres nothing to this, why not give the congress the documents . Thats the basic question. What are you trying to hide . Senator, a lot of people are watching this back and forth and theyre wondering if there will in fact be a trial. Do you expect there to be a senate trial . Do you think house Speaker Nancy Pelosi has an obviously fact to turn over the articles of impeachment as quickly as possible . There will be a senate trial. I have no doubt what Speaker Pelosi is doing and rightfully is shining a public spotlight on the need to have a fair trial. Could this backfire on her if she holds the articles too long . Does it look like a political move . This is designed to get a fair trial. What shes saying is shell send this over tomorrow if Mitch Mcconnell and the republicans will allow for a fair trial. 70 of the American People including a majority of republicans recognize that that includes witnesses. We all know what a trial looks like, right . That means you get to put on your case. The house has already presented overwhelming evidence but the president keeps claiming that hes innocent. He also keeps claiming he wants this to have witnesses. Lets just do this. If the president wants to have any pretense of a claim of exoneration in the senate, they cant totally rig the trial which is exactly what theyre doing. Mitch mcconnell has already said he will not be impartial. Were just about out of time. He has said hes not going to be an impartial juror but he also made the case today on fox news senator Elizabeth Warren is not going to be impartial, Chuck Schumer is not going to be impartial. Does he have a point there . Speaking for myself and i think others as well that we will wait until we see all the evidence before reaching a final verdict. Thats what you should do. But it is important for the m k public and the senators to be able to see all the evidence. These are witnesses who the president blocked from testifying in the house of representatives even though theyre fact witnesses, theyre people with personal knowledge of what happened around the president , former president s like richard mix nixon and othe have allowed these individuals to testify in prior impeachment proceedings. So thats what were asking for. As long as were very focused on that being the issue, that the public should see the documents and we just saw one that was forced out of the white house and what it said. It was incriminating. The people deserve to have witnesses. Thats what a fair trial is all about. Thank you for joining us on this Christmas Eve eve. Happy holidays to you, and to you too. Coming up, going ballistic. New evidence shows north korea expanding its production of long range Nuclear Missiles that could threaten the United States. And as the decade comes to a close, we want to know what you think the biggest story of the past decade was. Tell us what you think. Was. Tell us what you think if your gums bleed when you brush, you may have gingivitis. And the clock could be ticking towards bad breath, receding gums, and possibly. Tooth loss. Help turn back the clock on gingivitis with parodontax. Leave bleeding gums behind. Parodontax. Male anchor . An update on the cat who captured our hearts. Female anchor how often should you clean your fridge . Stay tuned to find out. Male anchor beats the odds at the box office to become a rare nonfranchise hit. You can give help and hope to those in need. Looking around here i see tablets, laptops, printers, smartphones. Theyre all connected to the internet. Theyre all connected. Can your network handle all those devices . Sometimes. Comcast business runs on the nations largest gigspeed network. So you can get the bandwidth you need to power all of your devices at peak performance. If all of my devices could have that kind of speed, i would be dancing get started with secure 35megabit internet and one voice line for just 64. 90 per month. Call today. Comcast business. Beyond fast. North koreas warning of an imminent Christmas Gift to the u. S. Is looking nor gr ing more today. Satellite images show the expansion of a factory linked to the production of long range missiles. The regime could conduct a missile test in the coming days or even weeks after hopes for diplomacy with north korea have faded after the final round of failed talks between President Trump and north korea in october. Joining me to discuss all this john gantz and ken delanian. Thanks to both of you for being here. Ken, i want to start with you. Help us understand what these satellite images show. We got exclusive access to an analysis by jeffrey lewis. Using commercial satellite images from planet labs, what he and his team found was that the North Koreans have made pruch improvements to this factory. Whats significant is that they found that kim jongun visited this factory in june and the work appeared to start right after that. The reason thats important is that kim jongun happened to watch preparations at this very factory for a december 2017 test of a long range Nuclear Capable missile. If this test goes forward, it would really spell a breakdown in diplomatic talks and its a real blow to the Trump Administration, because the only thing trump has been able to show is the suspension of these long range missile tests that threaten the United States. If the north resumes the tests, its really bad news. John, let me turn to you because the president s former National Security advisor john bolton is out with some mu criticinew criticism of his former boss. He said, quote, that the president is bluffing about stopping north Koreas Nuclear ambitions. He also adds, the idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on north korea is just unfortunately not true. What do you make of that assessment . If were looking at the history of north korea, the only thing more consistent than their efforts to get a Nuclear Weapon is john boltons hawkishness on it. In 2006 after he left the bush administration, he criticized the president he served for being soft on north korea. Its no surprise hes doing it again. Go ahead. I think its doubtful his words are going to do much. We have to see whether this christmas surprise and north koreas actions can change Donald Trumps mind on diplomacy with north korea. Do you think the president s strategy in north korea is working . Hes held these talks with kim jongun, really the first lead tore leader to do this. Is it working . s very clear that his diplomacy isnt bearing fruit. The challenge thats being called a christmas surprise by the North Koreans is also in many ways a 2020 surprise. At the moment Donald Trumps policy win that hes going to claim credit for is sort of some success or diplomatic efforts with north korea. The fact is that they have now set off into 2020 and said you know what it didnt work. Hes going to have to sort of face the voters and face the consequences of these changes as democrats start opposing him. Let me switch gears now and ask you about this news out of saudi arabia. A Court Sentenced five people to death today for, quote, committing and directly participating in the murder of Jamal Kashoggi in a saudi consulate in istanbul last year. The cia assesses that the crown prince likely ordered the killing and two of the top officials suspected in the killing were not convicted. How is this trial being perceived . The u. N. Investigator who conducted a widespread investigation of this matter is calling this trial a mockery, because she had concluded that it was complicity for this murder at the highest levels of the saudi government and this was a premeditated act. What this trial found is they didnt intend to kill him. They went over to negotiate wit