Overnight in the New York Times. Incredible, with Rudy Giuliani, just revealing a lot. A lot of revelations there. Im yasmin vossoughian, alongside Ayman Mohyeldin. It is december 17th, 2019. Another u. S. Historic moment. This morning, the House Rules Committee will take up articles of impeachment for the first time ever, one last step to consider the procedures to govern the vote tomorrow on whether to impeach the 45th president of the united states. Unlike the clinton impeachment when lawmakers agreed to the rules by unanimous consent, todays markup is expected to be a fight with the house judiciary chairman jerry nadler and Ranking Member doug collins expected to testify on the articles of impeachment. In the senate, the battle is on whether to call witnesses. Here is Chuck Schumer after the majority leader Mitch Mcconnell, calling on white house chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security adviser john bolton to testify. To engage a trial without the facts coming out is to engage in a coverup. To conduct a trial without the facts is saying were afraid. We have something to hide. To conduct a trial without relevant witnesses who havent been heard from, to just rehash the evidence presented in the house, just doesnt make any sense. If leader mcconnell doesnt hold a full and fair trial, the American People will rightly ask, what are you, leader mcconnell and what is President Trump hiding. Mcconnell of course wants a quick trial, with no witnesses, and according to the wall street journal, quote, several republican lawmakers view the president s dealings with ukraine as inappropriate but not worthy of impeachment and feel that opening the door to witnesses may make it harder for them to actually acquit him. Now, one person to watch is senator joanie ernst. Shes got a tough reelection battle back home in iowa. When asked about witnesses at the senate trial she told nbc news this. Dont like it, lets shorten this. I think pretty much everything we need to know is all right there in the house, well hear about it in the senate, and i think just dragging this out is not going to do us any favors one way or another. As for a start date for the senate trial, majority whip john thune says january 6th is probably quote a good bet. A group of five moderate democrats who flipped their districts from red to blue in 2018 have announced plans they vote to impeach President Trump tomorrow. Those democrats include congresswoman alisa slotkin of michigan and south carolina, and mcadams of utah and Abigail Stanberger of virginia and andy kim of new jersey. And slotkin explained her decision in rochester, michigan, last night and the partisan divide of impeachment was on full display. About 450 people attended her town hall and there was a handful of Trump Supporters who chaptered and booed throughout much of the meeting. I want people to think about where we will be if it becomes normal to ask foreign governments to intervene in our political process. What if that becomes normal . What if next time, we have a democratic president asking the Chinese Government for a cyber attack, for something new, for some intrusion . For me this is something that i cannot abide. That i cant accept. As a cia officer and as someone who has sworn an oath to protect and defend the constitution, reaching out to a foreign power is something fundamentally different. I made this decision out of principle and out of a duty to protect and defend the constitution. I feel that in my bones and i will stick to that regardless of what it does to me politically. Because this is bigger than politics. Lets talk some polling here. So americans do remain split on whether the president should be impeached. And removed from office. According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, you can see it right there, 45 of americans agree that the president should be impeached and removed. And a little over half, 51 said he should not be. Now broken down by party, opposition to impeaching and removing the president , includes 95 of republicans, and 58 of independents, and just 11 democrats. While 53 of americans agreed that trump abused of power of the presidency down two points since the start of the house impeachment hearings in october, 44 said they disagreed. Meanwhile after a fox news poll showed half of the country supporting President Trumps impeachment and removal from office, cohost brian yesterday, said he was stunned. Keep in mind too, the fox poll came out and i was stunned by this. 50 of the country want the president impeached. Was stunned that is the number because i thought things were trending away. 50 of americans support President Trump being impeached and removed from office and 4 support trumps impeachment but not being removed from office and 41 said the president should not be impeached at all. On sunday, after the release of some tough numbers for the president , he took to twitter writing this. The fox news polls always inaccurate, are heavily weighted toward democrats. They got it all wrong. Getting a you in pollster and six minutes later, the president found some poll results he like and he tweeted this, Approval Rating in Republican Party, 95 . A record. Overall Approval Rating, 51 . Think of where id be without the neverends, 24 hour a day phony witch hunt that started three years ago. It is unclear which poll results the president is actually referring to there. Wed love to see them. As his Approval Rating has not climbed above 47 on any poll collected by real clear politics in the month of december. But joe biden believed the president was referring to the same fox news poll that trump earlier attacked on twitter, and biden replied, this same poll has you losing to me by seven points. Joining us no you from washington, d. C. , political reporter for the hill, julia manchester. Julia, good to have you with us on this tuesday morning. Lets talk a little bit about what we are prepping to see today ahead of the houses vote, full vote, i should say, on impeachment tomorrow. Break it down for us. Yes, today, youre really probably going to see a bit of a showdown in the House Rules Committee, jerry nadler and doug collins testifying and i think it is going to be, even though democrats are the majority on the committee, you are going to see republicans being very vocal, and it just shows how partisan this entire impeachment process really has been. Now, everything is really set to be approved. Were not going to see any of these articles change. Because democrats control the majority of this particular committee. However, republicans are not going down without a fight. And we know that a number of republicans, whether it is doug collins, jim jordan, john radcliff, they have been very voke until defending the president and trying to curry favor towards the president and defending him publicly. So i believe you will see doug collins do that today. Tomorrow, youre going to see this potentially taken to the house floor for a vote. And then that could potentially go into thursday. If speakers take a while on the floor and were expecting republicans to once again defend the president. So this process, even though it is moving very quickly, is slated to get messy. We have heard a lot from freshmen democrats amidst this entire process, those that are supportive of im peaching a president , also those that are not necessarily supportive of impeaching a president , especially those in swing districts, you cant help but think about congressman Jeff Van Drew who has decided to become a republican amidst all of this. What kind, if were talking about those supportive of impeaching a president , what kind of political response are we expecting from some of those freshmen democrats in those swing district s . Right now weve seen the five freshman democrats, and spanberger, and cunningham, and slotkin, coming out in favor of impeachment and that probably strikes some political watch herbs a as bit of a surprise because they were holdout force a while and remember nancy pelosi was trying to give these members of her caucus cover earlier this year, by not coming out sooner in favor of impeachment. However, theyre taking a big Political Risk her and i think some of the members have come out and essentially said that this could cost them reelection, but for democrats, the argument right now is this is an issue of morality, and that clip we played earlier, of slotkin, during that town hall, she says this sets a precedent for whether a future president can ask a foreign power to intervene, in an election, or ask a foreign power to investigate a political opponent. So for them, this is about morality. Ahead of an election. However, it is unclear whether they will be reelected and this will impact that. Julia manchester, thank you so much. Stay close. We will talk to you again in a little bit. A lot to talk about ahead. A federal judge, rejects attempts at former National Security adviser Michael Flynn to throw out his previous guilty plea. Now he has a new sentencing date. The New York Times is taking a look at what it calls a nonaggression pact between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and why it could hurt their candidacies in the long run. Those stories and much more as well as a check of weather when we come back. Did you know that feeling sluggish or weighed down could be signs that your digestive system isnt working at its best . Taking metamucil every day can help. Metamucil supports your daily Digestive Health using a special plantbased fiber called psyllium. Psyllium works by forming a gel in your digestive system to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down. Metamucils gelling action also helps to lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. So, start feeling lighter and more energetic by taking metamucil every day. For the holidays you cant beat home sweet home. We go the extra mile to bring your holidays home. 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. A federal judge has rejected former National SecurityMichael Flynns claim that he was targeted by politically motivated federal agents. Flynns attorneys accuse prosecutors of suppressing evidence and allegation he was targeted by federal investigators for quote concocted and political purposes. They also argue that flynn was coerced into pleading guilty to lying to the fbi about his contacts with russia. But in a 92page ruling, the u. S. District judge ruled yesterday, refuted the arguments, effectively ending the former National Security visors chances at getting the conviction tossed out a sentencing date is now set for the 28th of january. Joining us here on the set, msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos. Danny, good morning to you. What do you make about this ruling against Michael Flynn . Michael flynn may have had this defense and it may have been effective but the time to assert it was many, many months ago when the case first started. Michael flynn was an exemplary cooperating witness, charged, rushed into court, pleaded guilty, cooperated, and that is the path that a cooperating witness takes, or a defendant takes, that puts him in the best position to get the lowest sentence and the prosecutors behind that lowest sentence. What you have with Michael Flynn now is essentially at the 11th hour, he has changed his attorneys and changed his entire theory of the case. And now, he is arguing, hey, i should get this discovery, shy get these documents, i should be able to look into whether or not i was railroaded into this plea agreement. The time to have made that argument was many months ago. Even though the inspector generals report just came out, a lot of this information was known to Michael Flynn way back when he pleaded guilty. And the way the system works is that once you go down this path of pleading guilty and cooperating, hes already pled guilty twice, so in doing so, he is saying i understand the charges, i agree i commit these crimes, i have no disputes with the facts that the government laid out. Once youve done that under oath, it is really hard at this stage to walk back from that. Yes. Lets switch gears and talk about impeachment, the articles of impeachment expected to clear the final hurdle later today paving the way for a full house vote tomorrow. Walk us lieu what we are expecting to see between today and tomorrow and where we go after that. Today, you can expect that the house is going to get together, the committee will vote on their procedure for doing this entire vote. And you are going to see republicans make a lot of complaints about the fact that they didnt get their own day of hearings, so that they could call their own witnesses, there will be debate about that. But were you surprised by that by the way. No i wasnt surprise bid that. Because republicans strongest argument is procedure. They have, many of them have admitted, including their own law professor witness, that the president s phone call is anything but perfect so republicans have to fall back on their strongest arguments which are in this case procedure. And they have to make the point that look, we should be allowed witnesses, we should be allowed more things, more opportunities, to contest this stuff, and so that is what youre going to likely hear today. This is why, what you just said, the procedure argument, from the republicans, this is why i dont understand why they wouldnt necessarily be supportive of a more lengthy senate trial where they could actually call witnesses. Exactly. If they have a problem with the procedure in the house so far, the Senate Leaders you would think that Mitch Mcconnell would want to bring in witnesses. Like you said. Youre exactly right in that a longer trial would allow for more witnesses, and for more reason maybe exonerating the president that way. Right again, but again, the republicans have been proceeding with the theory that this phone call was not exactly favorable to the president , and some of the president s actions were not exactly exemplary, so a longer trial might not be good politically for the president. Republicans know that they have the votes. So strategically, the best path might be the shortest trial and get through this, get it out of the way, put it in the Rearview Mirror and move forward toward the election. And not necessarily woefr about the political optics of it all . No, maybe not. Maybe not. Danny cevallos, thanks, always a pleasure, appreciate it. Lets get a check of the weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins. A rough 24 hours, from the tornados to the ice storm ongoing and the snow, and flooding concerns in the appalachians but the attorneys were the big story. Yesterday afternoon and evening, a december tornado outbreak. We had a report of 37 tornadoes, many of them were in louisiana, and alabama, and portions of mississippi, and we had three fatalities, two in alabama, and one in louisiana, and we have at least seven to eight other injuries related to these storms, and these were serious tornadoes, these were strong tornadoes, and obviously, you know, it can happen in december in the deep south, it doesnt happen often but if they do, usually it is this exact same area. So here is how it played out. In this, all of the little red dot, all of the tornado reports that you had. You can see, all the way from alexandra, who at one point was under a tornadoes emergency and then headed for the macomb area, to hattiesburg, and also at this hour this morning, we have a couple of storms in southern portions of the panhandle region of florida, tornado warnings. So were in the quite done yet. The winter side of this storm, we still have 48 Million People under a Winter Weather advisory and the ice storm warning around cumberland, maryland and this little area of northern new jersey, an ice storm overnight with winter storm warnings. And everybody else is kind of like a crunchy icy, not a lot of snow, and a lot of areas that were expecting snow, were more sleet and then to freezing rain, that is happening no you from new york city northward and heavy rain through the south here, and from atlanta, all the way through the carolinas, during the day today, and that will slow you down. And the blue is snow, so the new york state thruway will have issues, the mass pike, north of hartford and a freezing rain and sleet mess and northern new jersey, an southern portions of connecticut, and all of central pennsylvania, has got an good icing overnight. So those are the areas that have a lot of extra caution and a lot of School Delays out there. All through the northeast. And here is the additional snowfall, the purples, four, some areas six a good hit of snow still to come from the capital district, albany, through portland and areas north of boston so with this mess, most of it will be out of here through this afternoon. A quick moving storm. If you can get to work or school, it will be a lot easier getting home. Thank you, bil