Good morning, im jo ling kent in new york at msnbc world headquarters. Its 7 00 in the east, 4 00 a. M. Out west and here is whats happening. Blaming it on rick perry, new reporting about the Energy Secretarys role in the ukraine phone call. Adding up the evidence and looking ahead, what weve learned and what might be revealed this week when new players testify. Taking control. The president s soninlaw gets a new job in the impeachment fight. And the impeachment attitude, where the momentum is in the polls and where its headed. We want to start with some breaking news right now. Tens of thousands of people are taking to the streets of hong kong in the rain, Wearing Masks in defiance of a new ban. It took effect on saturday and its a second legal attempt to block it and that failed. City leaders say the ban was needed to top widespread violence because the masks allow radical protesters to conceal their identity. Were monitoring that story that continues to develop. Also we have more breaking news this morning that we told you about last hour out of kansas city, kansas. Nine people were shot inside a bar and four of them are dead. Police have released few details, but they are looking for at least one suspect who entered the bar and opened fire. The exact number of shooters is still unknown. No one is in custody yet. We will keep you posted on the latest as that information becomes available. And we are starting day 13 of the impeachment inquiry and, yes, were counting those days. The new evidence is piling up by the day and if not by the hour here, and new this morning, the president is blaming Energy Secretary rick perry for the ukraine call. Hes telling republicans on friday that perry urged him to make that july 25th call. The president suggesting he did not want to make it. And theres potential new evidence on the way this week with crucial testimonies coming on capitol hill, including from that u. S. Diplomate whose explosive Text Messages have been called a smoking gun. And here is how three democrats running for president are framing this impeachment fight. This is bigger than the 2020 election. This is about the norms of Representative Democracy and the separation of powers that we expect. We have an opportunity now to do the factfinding, to see where that leads us and to reach a conclusion based on those facts and to do it in a way that actually restores faith in our process from the american people. Hes trying to socialize that as normal behavior. Its not. Its treasonous. I mean, this guy is a gangster. There is no other way to say it. And we have the a team of reporters and analysts to go over all of these new developments in the impeachment inquiry. Were going to start with Nbcs Kelly Odonnell at the white house. Kelly, what does the president gain by pinning this call on his Energy Secretary . Reporter well, it would appear that one of the things the president would be trying to do, jo, is to look for an alternative reason that was not about seeking any kind of help about a political rival. So the president was on a phone call with House Republicans friday, the white house said that call existed, that didnt mention anything to us about this rick perry element, but our team has reported this. It was first brought to our attention by axios and nbc news has confirmed that during that call the president sort of gave a new reason for the call, saying that Energy Secretary rick perry had encouraged him to make the call in order to talk about liquid natural gas. Of course, ukraine is a big energy country, especially as it relates to russia, and that would be a legitimate topic, however, we have all seen the released call summary, weve seen the reconstructed conversation between President Trump and president zelensky. There isnt a mention of rick perry and they are not talking about liquid natural gas. This could be a way for the president to sort of lean on one of his more popular cabinet members. Rick perry had served as the longest serving Texas Governor before he came to the administration and has not had scandals or controversy during his tenure at the doe. Now, the department of energy tells me that secretary perry certainly encouraged and supported the idea of the president speaking with president zelensky, they released a statement to us to that effect, but they dont say that this was specifically a request from secretary perry to make the july 25th call. President trump was on that call with House Republicans joined by one of his allies, Kevin Mccarthy who is the leader of House Republicans. Here is what he has to say about the state of the impeachment inquiry. Remember who we have right here, we have President Trump is the most transparent president we have ever had. He delivered a phone call, a transcript. No one has ever asked of that before. Just to make sure that its clear, nothing in there is impeachable. He never said i will do this if you do that. What the president was talking about, lets be very clear, this is an open investigation to get the bottom of what happened with that russia collusion. This is an open investigation that the attorney general had said was already looking into the president already talked about before. This is exactly what we do with countries all around the world every single day to work on investigations, to get to the bottom of problems. Reporter so mccarthy trying to give a reason, an explanation, a justification for the president s conversation. That is something the president will have to continue to answer for. We saw that susan collins, republican of maine, a senator who would ultimately be one of the jurors, if there is an impeachment trial some day, she said she believes the president made a big mistake by talking about china investigating the bid bidens. So the president has some work to do there and maybe thats why hes leaning on rick perry and trying to make his call seem more Standard Operating Procedure and less controversial. Thank you so much. Were now going to head to capitol hill where another big week in impeachment looms in this inquiry. Tuesday Gordon Sondland the u. S. Ambassador to the eu is expected to appear before three house committees as part of the investigation into the president. Sondlands texts were revealed this past week and they have been key in establishing a possible quid pro quo issue with ukraine. On friday then its former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine marie i cant von vich who reportedly was pushed out of that position in the spring. Joining me is Nbc News National Political reporter Josh Letterman. Good morning. Reporter hi. What are the house committees likely to ask him about . What is their priority . Reporter they will wand to hear from ambassador sondland what he knew and understood what the president s intentions were on ukraine. If you will recall ambassador sondland comes up not only in that whistleblower complaint but also in those Text Messages that Ambassador Kurt Volker handed over to Congress Last week and congress then released. He is the one that is seen in those Text Messages basically shutting down the top u. S. Diplomate in ukraine when he expresses concern and says we cannot be linking u. S. Military assistance to whether ukraine is going to agree to investigate the president s political opponents. In those Text MessagesGordon Sondland, the ambassador to the european union, trump appointees, long time trump donor he basically says thats not whats going on here, lets take it off text message. Democrats eager to hear from him whether he really does think that trump was trying to advance his political interests with this investigation. So for those who dont know, what is sondlands relationship with trump . Reporter yeah, so he had been a trump donor, he had actually distanced himself during the campaign from the president after the whole incident where the president went after the gold star families, but ultimately after trump became the republican nominee Gordon Sondland came back as a supporter of the president and after he was elected was nominated to be his ambassador to the european union. What about ambassador i cant van vich. Whats her story . Reporter she has been in the u. S. Foreign service for more than three decades, she is a career diplomate and she was yanked out of his role as ambassador to ukraine, a role she started during the end of the Obama Administration by President Trump earlier this year, a few months short of when her tour was expected to end. Democrats are going to want to hear about what she was aware of about why she was pulled out of that role because we know that Rudy Giuliani the president s personal lawyer had been building a case against her, basically telling the president that she had been standing in the way of what he was trying to do to advance his interests and this investigation. Shes also the one that President Trump in the notes from that call with president zelensky refers to as, quote, bad news. Josh, theres a few other people who will be it efg this week on the hill. Is there anyone else that youre really watching for critical information that can expand the scope of this situation . Democrats are also really eager to hear from two senior officials at the state department, george kent who is one of the top diplomats for europe as well as a guy named ulrich brekbol a long time society and friend of secretary of state mike pompeo, had worked with him in the past, pompeo brought him into the government as a senior aide and his name appears frequently in documents that Rudy Giuliani gave to the state department as part of his bid to push them to investigate the bidens and those documents were given last week by the Inspector General by the state department to congress. Lots of questions from congress about what he knew and what the timeline was behind the scenes for the president s push to get ukraine to investigate his political rivarivals. Thank you so much. Joining me now is Msnbc National Security analyst nicholas rasmussen. Good morning. From a National Security standpoint what are your expectations from the depositions and the testimony coming this week . What is the critical moment for you . What the appearances on the hill that josh just stepped you through will do this week is provide corroborating information. Other people who were involved in these text message exchanges, these conversations, these communications will all have a chance to provide their perspective, not just on what they wrote and what they said, but also what mindset was. We certainly had that opportunity with ambassador volkers appearance last week and you will have the same opportunity with these individuals in the coming days this week. Now, as josh said, ambassador yovanovitch was no longer part of the scene by the time some of those messages and certainly the call took place, but, of course, the ambassador was at the very heart of u. S. ukraine policy and of course understands what the different factors at play were. Now that she is no longer in that position she is perhaps freer than most to say exactly what she thinks. Thats interesting. I will be watching that one. We also saw the Intelligence CommunityInspector GeneralMichael Atkinson about seven hours briefing the House Intel Committee on friday. He was only expected to be in there for about half that amount of time. What do you think he said in there that extended the hearing so long . Well, in some ways with all that has come out publicly offer the last week weve kind of moved beyond the idea of the Inspector General and the whistleblower complaint, but of course thats still out there, very much in front of the congress, and the congress probably or the congressional investigators and Congressional Staff certainly wanted to understand from the Inspector General what was the thinking behind his allegation that this was an urgent matter . What had he learned in the course of his conversation with the whistleblower why this was so urgent and why this required immediate congressional attention. Those are questions that had been asked but not particularly but not publicly answered. So i think the Inspector General i can imagine having no problem filling up those seven hours with all of those Congressional Staffers. Certainly would have loved to be a fly on the with a you will for that one. Five people familiar with the plan say President Trump is now ordering a substantial reduction of National Security council staff. The report says that some of the people described the staff cuts as being part of a white house effort to make its Foreign Policy arm leaner under new National Security adviser Robert Obrien. Nicholas, do you think that trump has a personal agenda driving this . Well, its been no secret that the president has had his suspicions about the National Security staff and whether they are truly loyal to him. Those suspicions go back to the first months of administration when transcripts of certain phone calls were leaked or reported on in the media. Of course, some of the speculation surrounding the whistleblower has also indicated or suggested anyway that the whistleblower might have served on the nsc staff. So not surprising at all that his new National Security adviser Robert Obrien would want to get a handle on things and in the president s mind that could mean downsizing, shrinking the size of the staff so they could be much more confident that its called with loyalists and not people that they dont know or dont trust. How does making the nscs staff leaner improve or hurt american National Security, though . Well, you know, on the one hand no one can argue against, you know, making a staff leaner and more efficient. If thats really behind what the white house has in mind, well, then, thats not a bad thing, but its also no secret that this administration has departed from past practice in the way it makes Foreign Policy and the idea that you will have an nsc staff with fewer subject matter experts, fewer professionals, fewer people from around the government who really understand these Foreign Policy challenges, that to me means we will have less expertise at the white house and thats not a good thing. I also want to talk about Energy Secretary rick perry for a second here. You heard that reporting that we have earlier that two sources familiar tell nbc news that President Trump told House Republicans he was urged by the Energy Secretary to make that july 25th phone call to the ukrainian president. And the sources added that trump suggested it was a call he didnt even want to make. Nicholas, what do you make of this here . Is rick perry being blamed . Is he going to be the fall guy here . Well, at face value it certainly seems like the introduction of rick perry into this conversation is a chance for the president to deflect, but if you go back to the transcript as Josh Letterman pointed out theres really nothing in that conversation that suggests that liquid natural gas or Energy Issues were at the heart of that conversation. So if the president really did pick up the phone and make that call because of rick perrys suggestion, its really not apparent from the actual substance of the call. It seems like a deflection to me. All right. Nicholas rasmussen, thank you so much for getting up early with us. Appreciate it. Sure. Thank you. New today secretary of state mike pompeo was about to head back to the u. S. From his european trip. He spent the last few hours during athens with his wife. Pompeo finally addressed questions about the impeachment inquiry on the last leg of his trip, vigorously defending the president s right to ask World Leaders for electionrelated investigations. Nbcs claudia la strong goe is joining us live from roam. How did the secretary make the case that this was in his words totally appropriate . Reporter good morning, jo length. That question was put to the secretary of state by reporters throughout his visits to europe first in italy then in month neg grow then North Macedonia then greece. This is one of the best answers he could give. I think theres clearly politics involved in this. This administration was incredibly focused on making sure that we worked in ukraine in a way that was appropriate and this is not only appropriate, but it is our duty to inv