Votes. Good thursday morning. Everybody. It is november 7th. Im Yasmin Vossoughian, alongside ayman mohyeldin. Wehi begin as the impeachment probe of prp is ramping up. House Committee Chair adam schiff has announced it will begin nextas week, and on wednesday, bill taylor, and state Department Official george kent and on friday, former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine maria yovanovitch. And additional witnesses are expected to appear before congressex publicly. Those open hearings will be an opportunity for the American People toan evaluate the witness for themselves, to make their ownfo determinations about the credibility of the witnesses, but also to learn firsthand about the facts of the president s misconduct. Pr based on the transcript of his closed door testimony which was released yesterday, we have a pretty good idea of what ambassador bill taylor will tell lawmakers in the open hearing. La you may recall that taylor was the one who texted Ambassador Gordon Sondland that it would be quote crazy to make Ukraine Military aid contingent on investigations aimed at helping the president get reelected. Taylor is now filling in the gaps from those text coverages. Likeos this one, when sondland responded callnd me after taylo asked if that really was the white houses position and he didti call and during the phone call ambassador sondland told him that he wants president zelensky to state publicly that ukraine will investigate burisma and interference in the u. S. Election,an and ambassador sorchdland now recognized that heso had made a mistake by earlr tellingad ukrainian officials t whom he spoke with that a white house, at a white house meeting with president zelensky was dependentre on a public announcement ofde investigation. In fact, ambassador sondland said, everything was dependent on suchas an announcement including security assistance. He said that President Trump wanted president zelensky in a boxwa by making a public statemt about ordering such investigations. So meanwhile, senator Lindsey Graham presented to new new arguments in defense of the president including suggested thatid Gordon Sondland colluded with democrats when he changed his testimony ton acknowledge quid pro quo. Watch this. Now, heres a question. Why did the senator change his testimony . Was there a connection between sondland and democratic operativesso on the committee . Did he talk to schiff . Did he talk to schiff staffers. Ive been a lawyer for a very long time and when somebody changes their testimony, they suddenly recall something they didntsu know before, it makes incredibly suspicious. What i can tell you about the trump policy toward the ukraine, it was incoherent. It depends who you talk to. Theyou seemed to be incapable o forming a quid pro quo. And the Washington Post reports that President Trump wanted attorney generalnt willi ba barr to hold a News Conference to say he broke into laws and people familiar with the matter say that it came around the time the white house released the transcripte of the controversi call and wastr passed along by white house officials to the Justice Department. A department of justice spokeswoman at the time released a statement saying a review of the transcript determined that quote there was no Campaign Finance violation and no further action was warranted. However, trump advisers tell the post that the president has mentioned barrs demure to associates in recent weeks saying he wished barr would hold the News Conference. It is unclear why barr would not go beyond the d. O. J. Statement but in an effort to tamp down a cushion, a discussion between the attorney general and President Trump, saying the president has nothing but respect for ag barr and appreciates the work he has done on behalf of the country and with no amount of shady sources to smear and slapder will change that. Trump is pushing back against the report writing on twitter last night, the report is totally unclear and another fake news story with Anonymous Sources that dont exist and labeled the news media as quote the enemyd of the people whichs quote working overtime with madeup stories in order to drive dissension and distrust. Joining us now from washington, d. C. , Senior Writer at roll call, niels lesniewski, great to have you with us this morning. Lets discuss this report on trumps request for attorney general william barr to hold a press conference solidifying his innocence. Barr has been a very loyal foot soldier going back to the days of the Mueller Probe a lot of people may remember. What factors may have played into barr nixing this idea . Well, it seems like that this even goes a step beyond what we saw from the attorney general during the Mueller Probe with his summary of the findings and the sort of public statements that the attorney general was making outge of the Justice Department at that time. This seems like a case where barr may not have wanted to get the Justice Department itself into being a subject of the investigation thats going on in the house of representatives. Certainly had there been more communication and certainly had barr come out and made some sort of public statement, as the Washington Post and others have reported, that the president was looking for, all of a sudden this would have become within the purview of what adam schiff and the House Democrats are working on now, and i just have a suspicion that the attorney general does not wanter to end up right in the middle of having his people calledis to testify about wheth or not they were covering up something for the president. So now, we are seeing some of these testimonies being made public, and then we have the announcement of the open hearings beginning next week and we have talked about these the last couple of weeks when they would c begin, and we have a da, wednesday, ambassador bill taylor and then george kent and then maria yovanovitch. Walk us through what to expect from the scheduled hearings next week. Sure. So my colleagues, Katherine Tully mcmans and Lindsey Mcpherson went through the transcript of bill taylors testimony yesterday, and have posted a list of some things that they think that people should behe watching for. Ou the one that is most mostable to me is what are the republicans on this committee up to when it comes time for these open hearings, of intelligence. Remember, there is the possibility that the housere republicanspo may seek to sort replace devin nunes as their lead sort of member in this questioning. Imqu interested as much as in what taylor says, and the others say, as to what the republicans do who may be appealing to the audience of one, President Trump, and as well as what happens and what exactly the president is doing during these hearings. Pr is there a constant twitter feed . What sort of implications he may have as well as this is going on. Real quick, what do you make of Lindsey Graham and his position in all of this, the way he is constantly evolving trying to throw something out there to stick. It sounds like he is trying to beg the defense attorney for t president in these hearings if in fact they get to an impeachment trial at the senate. It sure sounds that way. And specific lick t, specifical latestly one from senator linds graham, they couldnt have formulatedgr a quid pro quo whe it comes to ukrainerm policy, because their ukraine policy wasnt coherent enough to do so. That is quite a defense, if thats the one theyre going to go thwith. And then t turning around an saying that sondland was, calling him sunderland, calling him sunderland, and saying he may have been talking to schiffs team or one of his staffers and thats why he changed. Niels lesniewski, thank you very much. Former Vice President joe biden slammed republicans at a washington, d. C. Fundraiserbl yesterday. Wa making a prediction about their demeanor in a posttrump presidency, biden had this to say, with donald trump out of the way, youre going to see a number ofto my republican colleagues have an epiphany, mark my words. But republicans werent the only ones to getwe the brunt of bide. The former Vice President also took a slight dig at senator Elizabeth Warren for criticizing candidates who have expressed doubt aboutid her medicare for l plan. He said quote, the people that arehe running against me tell mi am naive, one said i should be in the republican primary, god love her. Lo thats not the way you get things done. President trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani announced yesterday he has obtained new legal representation in the on ongoing impeachment inquiry. In a seriesgo of tweets, he nam the new legal team, writing this, i am represented and assisted by Robert Costello and the pierce banebridge firm in particular, aaronrm creizman an lisa mad gal. The decision comes as investigators began to release closed door testimony from state Department Officials that implicate giuliani in the white houses dition decision to block military i aid in exchange for investigations into the biden family. The hires mark a shift for giuliani who until recently insisted he did not require a defense attorney. Never a good look when your attorney has to hire a lawyer. The first day of the roger stone trial and it links President Trump more closelye a 2016 effort to obtain stolen democratic emails. Danny cevallos is hereat to wei in. Former alabama senator Jeff Sessions, remember him, well, he is apparently interested in getting his Old Senate Seat back. Were going to see what President Donald Trump has to say about that. Weresa getting some clues. Those stories and a check on weather when we come back. Ths an weather when we come back. Sundown vitamins are all nongmo, made with naturally sourced colors and flavors and are gluten dairy free. Theyre all clean all the time. Even if sometimes were not. Sundown vitamins. All clean. All the time. Welcome back, everyone. Now to the start of the roger stone trial. Phone records introduced in federal court yesterday are drawing renewed attention to the trump campaigns efforts to obtain the stolen democratic emails then previously known, than previously known. This includes numerous conversations between the trump and stone during the summer of 2016 when stone was desperately trying to obtain the stolen emails from wikileaks founder julian assange. Prosecutors say while it is unknown what trump and stone discussed, the timing lines up with major developments leading up to the theft and release of the emails, including three calls stump and stone had june 14, 2016, the very same day that the Washington Post reported that Russian Hackers had infiltrated the dncs computer network. Stone faces charges of lying to federal investigators about his efforts to contact wikileaks during the 2016 election season, obstructing justice, and witness tampering. Lets get into this. Joining us on the site, msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos. As amin walked us through some of, that the prosecutiondon necessarily accuse the president of any crimes, but is saying that there was direct contact, has evidence of direct contact between roger stone on some of those very important days and the president. How is this going to affect the impeachment inquiry, if at all . Going forward. Not necessarily. For two major reasons. Number one, the roger stone indictment has been out there in the ether for at least a year so people have known about some of these allegations. And number two, the indictment doesnt charge roger stone for any of his actual conduct in communicating with People Associated with wikileaks or Randy Credico, he is not charged with espionage, he is not charged with computer hacking or anything like that, and all of roger stones charged crimes arise after, and as a consequence of the Mueller Investigation. They are crimes he allegedly committed when the Mueller Investigation and the House Intelligence Committee came to him and said, tell us the truth about what happened, give us documents that were asking for, and they allege that he broke the law by failing to tell the truth, or failing to provide those documents. So what can we expect to see as the trial goes forward . What are some of the key, you know, twists and turns that you are anticipating, pivotal moments . What is interesting is all of the information, all of the alleged collusiontype activities are really just Background Information for the roger stone charges, which are really about lying to congress, lying to the fbi, and then essentially obstructing justice. So those, while those are not what he is actually charged with, there will be a central theme, and of course, another central theme is his alleged witness tampering of Randy Credico by making godfather ichl i type references and you may have heard that the court denied the prosecutions bid to have godfather ii actually played in court. So the prosecution is going to have to generate that context without the help of the actual movie itself. So it is more painting a picture of what they have taken place, connecting the dots, versus anything actually actionable aside from what stone is being charged with. Yes, stone is not charged with russia collusion so to speak. Hes essentially charged with lying or obstructing justice about that, when asked about it. So all of that stuff is important for context. But ultimately, since President Trump is not directly alleged to have been involved with a crime in connection with the collusion, the alleged collusion, on the whole, the overall effect on the impeachment inquiry may end up being minimal. Not much. Thanks, danny, appreciate it. Lets get a check of the weather with nbc meteorologist michelle grossman. Were looking at cold air coming in. If you havent brought out the winter coats yet, now is the time to do it. The reason is we had a jet stream dip so far to the south, it is allowing the cold air to come in and opening up the door to the canadian air. The purples and the pinks indicating where that bitter blast will be, and most of us will be under the bitter blast. So taking a look at temperatures today, 34, thats just two degrees above freezing, in omaha and 18 degrees below what is typical for this time of the year. Tulsa, dallas, also chilly, and little rock, 57, and 31 in chicago. That is below freezing there. And now we slide this to the east, so by friday, the northeast, youre going to feel the coldest air of the season, and well below what is typical for this time of the year. Cleveland, 35. New york, 41. 14 degrees below what is typical for this time of the year and factor in the winds and brisk winds and feel colder than that, so a lot of spots feeling like the freezing mark if not below the freezing mark. Surd, if it stays in place, 34 in philadelphia. We also have some cold air in place that is setting the scene for some snow. We will talk more about that. Now early next week, we will have another blast and stay in place for this week and next week and into the following week. It is going to stay with us for a while. Wind chills, this is what it feels like on your body when you walk outside and dress for these temperatures. So this morning, today, we are looking at wind chills, nine degrees, in minneapolis, and this is very untypical for early november. And omaha, nine degree, and chicago will feel like 13 degrees. And same story when you wake up in the morning on friday morning. Buffalo, just feeling like 18. Cincinnati, 18 as well. And again, it stays in place on saturday morning. Even into sunday. Heres that stage set with that cold air in place. Bringing the snow and accumulating snow in many spots. We have the warm great lakes, so that cold air comes over the great lakes, and it gives you accumulating snow, so we could see up to eight inches of snow in some spots, even into the interior parts of the northeast and also new england, it looks like the major cities along the i95 corridor though will be spared, we are going to have a chilly rain tonight. Not a great commute. A little slow commute. For this evening. But at least it is going to be a rain. And it is all due to the cold front that is moving through. We will talk more about that. And also some pretty heavy rain in the southern plain, well talk about that, too, when we come back in a bit. You get a feeling that winter is coming at you real fast. Winter has arrived. All right. Michelle, thank you so much. Turkish president erdogan is scheduled to visit the white house next week, the same day House Democrats begin open impeachment hearings. We have a preview of what to expect during that visit next week. Thats all coming up next. Maria ramirez . Hi. Maria ramirez mom maria Maria Ramirez. Mcdonalds is committing 150 Million Dollars in tuition assistance, education, and career advising programs. Prof Maria Ramirez mom and dad Maria Ramirez to help more employees achieve