Katy tur, thank you. Have a good weekend. Te hello, everyone. Im Chris Jansing in for ali velshi. In impeachment terms, this is deadline day. Right now, window for White House Acting chief of staff and Energy Secretary rick perry to submit subpoena documents is closing. Mulvaney has already said he will not comply and the white house is scrambling today to undo the damage mulvaney caused to the president s no quid pro quo defense. A full court press including just a short time ago the president brushing off concerns and so was Energy Secretary rick perry. I think he clarified it. Its just a terrible witch hunt. This is so bad for our country. I think he was straight up with what he said. You know, i think straight up how . Connect dots when the facts would by by basically saying that there was no quid pro quo in the sense of what those folks out there would like for it to be. That were going to give you this money unless you go investigate joe biden and his son. I never heard that said anywhere, anytime, in any conversation. Meantime, perry, unlike mulvaney, who is defying the subpoena, has left the door open saying he is still working things out with the Energy DepartmentsGeneral Council and will do the same before deciding whether to testify. So while we wait for word from him and, again, the deadline is today, democrats are gearing up for another week of testimony on capitol hill after four long days of testimony this week. Joining me now from the white house is nbcs hans nickels. So hans, lets start with what were thinking about right this second. Do we know anymore about whether rick perry will comply with the subpoena . No indication that rick perrys moved beyond the answer he gave this morning and hes going to let his counsel, his attorneys work it out. But when you look at what rick perry is saying publicly, hes basically articulating the Trump Defense and, that is, theres nothing to see here. Nothing done wrong. The revealing testimony, chris, that weve had over the last week, two weeks, has come from officials that we hadnt heard from before. So fiona hill. Mr. Sondland over at the state department. Those are people that had basically been silent. At this point, though, we know what perrys version of events are. So i dont know how much more officials on capitol hill will learn based on what he testifies. Unless there is a radical departure. One quick note on this. I do think its significant the president says perry will stay on to the end of the year. Its a lot harder to testify when you still want to get invited to those cabinet meetings. Excellent point. Meantime, the white house is blaming the media of course for taking mulvaneys words out of context even though we heard him say what he said. The doj says that what he said is news to us and trumps personal attorney jay seculo very quickly released a statement distancing himself saying the president s Legal Counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaneys press briefing. In addition to all that, two sources tell nbc news that mulvaneys admission angered and confused allies of President Trump inside and outside the administration. One of them calling it an unmitigated disaster. So is the white house in panic mode . Whats the mood there . I wouldnt quite go to panic mode. I mean, in some ways, this feels like after some of Rudy GiulianisPublic Comments where people of the white house are almost rolling their eyes wondering how they might clean it up. What ultimately matters here its true of rudy, its true of everyone. Is what the president says about you. If he thinks that you are defending him well, he will stand by you. And what the president said there is that mick clarified his comments and theres nothing to see here and lets move on. What you did hear from the president is them trying to go on offense and bring this story back to joe biden saying that george kent, one of the state Department Officials that has been testifying, indicated there may have been a concern with hunter biden back in 2015. The president seizing on that trying to stop playing defense and go on offense. Chris . Hans nickels at the white house for us. Thank you so much. Now, house dems have been building the case for impeachment. Deposing key figures. I want to take moment to walk you through some explosive ohn bolton referred to efforts to pressure ukraine as a drug deal. He didnt want anything to do with it. And he likened giuliani to a walking hand grenade. Tuesday, Deputy Assistant secretary of state george kent told house investigators that he was told to lay low after raising concerns about Rudy Giuliani. He testified that acting chief of staff mulvaney effectively pushed aside top state Department Officials and instead appointed three political appointees to spear head policy. Energy secretary rick perry, Gordon Sondland, and vulkar. A trio who call themselves the three amigos. On wednesday, michael mckinley, former top aide to mic pompeo told investigators he resigned last week for two reasons. The failure in my view of the state department to offer support to employees. And second, what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives. Then there was thursday. Current Eu AmbassadorGordon Sondland testifying that the president directed top u. S. Diplomats to work through his personal lawyer, rude just giulia Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine Foreign policy. Sondland said he didnt understand until later that giulianis goal may have been an effort to involve ukrainians directly or indirectly in the president s 2020 reelection campaign. Now, of course that same day, we heard that stunning admission on camera from Mick Mulvaney that the president withheld military aid to ukraine until the country agreed to investigate a Conspiracy Theory involving the 2016 elections. Saying to the press even get over it. Joining me from capitol hill is nbcs jeff bennett. So as the picture starts to become clearer as were hearing from these various people, both behind closed doors and in the briefing room, we know democrats feel their case is filling in fast. But what are you hearing from republicans . Well, chris, republicans up until yesterday, their preferred talking point had been President Trump wasnt involved in any quid pro quo. That was until Mick Mulvaney really drove a mack truck through that chosen line of defense. Weve talked before about how you dont need to have a quid pro quo for there to be a crime when an american citizen solicits foreign interference or anything of value from a Foreign National in connection to a u. S. Election. The other thing republicans are still making a lot of hey about is the process. Theyre making the point these depositions should not be happening in private. If impeachments going to be an open political process, this should all be happening in the light of day. And adam schiff has explained specifically why thats not happening. He says right now the house investigators are acting as grand jury. Theyre on a Fact Finding Mission and they dont want potential witnesses to be tipped off by prior testimony. They also dont want the white house to be tipped off after the case that democrats are building. That said, though, there will be a time for some of this at least to happen publicly. There will be public hearings. Adam schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, said some of the people who already testified privately might be called back to give public testimony. Chris. All right. Thank you so much for that. I want to turn the discussion to my panel. Joining me now, andy, former white house chief of staff for george w. Bush, as well as an msnbc political analyst. Joe winebanks. Msnbc contributor. And chris whiple, author of the gate keepers. How the white house chiefs of staff define every presidency. So, look, clearly between mulvaney and this weeks testimony, democrats feel their case is stronger now. I want to play for you one member of congress who was in the room all four days for all the testimony talking to me earlier today about what he learned behind closed doors. The metaphor that i like to offer is that its as though were using an old 35 millimeter camera and were rotating the lens in order for the picture to come into clearer focus, higher resolution. Were already above basic capable focus on what went on here. The depth and breadth of it. Were on our way to High Definition. But from each and is High Definition just so i understand the analogy, is High Definition drafting articles of impeachment . Well, i think theres some people that would be willing to do that, frankly, with basic cable resolution. Are you one of them . Are you at that point . I think the president has committed Impeachable Offenses. Yes, chris, i do. Joe, how much stronger do you think the democrats impeachment case is now than it was at the start of the week . Well, given the president s behavior, every day leads to another potential piece of evidence and more and more can be gathered. But you have to know when to stop. And as a prosecutor, you could investigate organized crime or this white house forever. But you dont need to when you have enough. And right now, enough is sufficient. They have very clear evidence. The memo of the conversation between zelensky and trump lays out, i need a favor, though. That is asking for help and its not help for america. Its help for his political benefit. And that is impeachable and illegal. And so thats enough right there. But then you add the text messages, which were very clarifying and made it very clear that everyone knew that there was this quid pro quo. Even though a quid pro quo wasnt necessary. But its illegal to withhold the release of money that congress has already said it should be given out. They appropriated the money. Its illegal to stop it. But clearly, they did. And then you add to that mulvaney saying what he said, which is, yes, we held up the money until they started an investigation. He said it wasnt of biden. It was of the server, which is equally a Conspiracy Theory. But hes ignoring the fact that we all read the conversation and it said, i want you to investigate the bidens. And when Lindsey Graham says i didnt hear him mention biden, thats because theres no actual recording of the conversation. He read that he asked for the investigation of biden. So its deceptive to say i didnt hear him mention it. Well, he didnt. But lets all use all of our senses. What you see, what you hear. Those all count and americans should be paying attention to the evidence in plain sight. And, andy, theres this very methodical building of a case by democrats behind closed doors. And then you have Mick Mulvaney saying what he said. I wonder i dont know was it painful for you as a former chief of staff to another republican president to watch what unfolded yesterday . What was Mick Mulvaney doing do you imagine . I mean, he wasently even ont ee to talk about ukraine. Im a big Mick Mulvaney fan but i did pain for him because i felt as if he had gone beyond that which he should have said. And im sure that after he did it, he had to eat a meal of crow with the president and other people. And unfortunately, thats kind of a reality for lots of chiefs of staff. I had several meals of crow because yeah, but you didnt have a meals of crow that implicated your president in a potentially impeachab Impeachable Offense that i recall. Thank you. I dont think i did. And i dont think im quite sure you didnt. No. But first of all, the impeachment process, im in favor of it Going Forward to understand what are the facts . I am troubled that there has not been kind of a process that has been simple and explainable to all parties. The republicans are shut out. This is a democrat push. Theyre calling it like a grand jury. And a grand jury, you cant talk about whats said at a grand jury meeting. So there was lots of fluff and hyp hyperbole coming out of this. I dont think the chairmanship has done a good job of clamping down expectations. Instead, he elevates them and i think thats wrong. He should just be working to be credible and have the facts come out. I want the facts to come out. I want that to be used to determine whether you should go forward with impeachment or not. And then Going Forward with impeachment is very different than having a trial in the senate. I want the facts to be solid, understood, recognized by all parties as facts, not some parties. And lets just go forward with it. But i just think the process has been too closed, too incestuous. Look the name of your book is gate keepers, how white house chiefs of staff define every presidency. How does Mick Mulvaney if at all help define this presidency . Well, it was an incredible performance and i couldnt agree more with andy and jill. But i have to say my pal andy is being polite, as usual. White house chiefs of staff are effective when they are seen and not heard. And andy would be the first to tell you that he didnt want to be the guy in the cheers Television Show where Everybody Knows your name. We will never forget mulvaneys name after yesterday. But the striking thing to me is what we learned about mulvaney and the senior white house staff. This is a cult worthy of jonestown. We have known for a long time exactly who donald trump is. Donald trump is incapable of seeing any difference between his own personal interests and the countrys interests. What we learned yesterday is that mulvaney and the enablers are on the same page. Theres no defense for what has happened here. And so they want us to think this is normal. Get over it. Well, let me tell you. There is nothing normal about this. Its reminiscent of contra when you think about a rogue foreign policy. But the difference there was that trading arms for hostages is almost noble compared to trading arms for personal dirt on your opponent. So heres where we are with a white house full of enablers and a president who has committed Impeachable Offenses right and left. Well, i think whats clear and a lot of questions have been raised about this. That all the norms have gone outt out the window. There is a great analysis in the New York Times about how the president has redefined what it means to be president ial. In fact, last night, he mocked being president ial. I want to play that. Its much easier being president ial is easy. All you have to do is act like you youre stiff. Look. Ladies and gentlemen of texas, it is a great honor to be with you this evening. You know, andy, its one thing to flaunt norms and its another thing to commit an Impeachable Offense. And i wonder do you think that because so much of what were seeing in this administration has been done and said in the open, that in some ways its almost making it the norm . It has less impact on us than it would have for the president. First of all, times have changed. The social media aspect of the presidency are so different and brings the mob much closer to the role and thats always a danger for democracy. I was offended by what President Trump did in making fun of Abraham Lincoln is who he was making fun of. And i thought that was wrong. Look. It is what it is. The the times have changed. The social media has changed. The fact that donald trump was a Television Star in a Reality Tv Show says that times are different. Hes a different person. Hes changed the way. Unfortunately, too many people are copying him. Too many people are copying him even on the democratic side, especially in congress. I mean, do you think that there is anybody who is running for president right now, including the republicans who are challenging him and the democrats who are still running, that this will be the accepted norm Going Forward if whether or not he wins reelection. I mean, has donald trump redefined the presidency that much . I think donald trump has redefined how you might become president. Hes changed it from an effort that was wellorganized where it was really grassroots politics, not media market politics. And i live in New Hampshire. New hampshires the greatest state for i call retail politics versus wholesale politics. And we expect people to come to New Hampshire and be challenged on the streets of New Hampshire or in the living rooms of somebodys home in New Hampshire. And thats where you find out can they put up with the grief of running for president . Because the grief of running for president is much less than the grief of being president. And donald trump wasnt tested that way. And unfortunately, most candidates are not tested that way because of the nature of social media and the big foot of reality tv. And this is more of a tv show than it is a grassroots effort to pick leaders in our democracy. We have a great demo