Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Craig Melvin 20191216

MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Craig Melvin December 16, 2019

Militarys investigation into possible white power signs flashed by students at this weekends army navy game. Well get to that in just a moment. But lets start in washington on this weeks historic vote. Msnbcs Garrett Haake is on capitol hill. Nbcs hans nichols is at the white house. Mr. Hake, ill start with you there on the hill. This justreleased, 658page impeachment report, it came out overnight ahead of this possible house vote on wednesday. What are the top lines in this report . A little Light Reading for impeachment fans out there, craig. Now, this report combines everything that weve seen from all of the public hearings and testimony and moves forward with the process. It includes the investigation that was done. It includes making the case for why impeachment, how what the House Democrats believe are the crimes of this president , match up with impeachable standards in the constitution. And it makes the argument for why this has to be done now. And i think this is probably the most useful part of this report, is the argument about the idea that the president is continuing along the path of the very same behavior that got him in trouble in the first place, with Rudy Giuliani being in ukraine. This report makes the argument that impeachment is the only real solution to what democrats see as this crisis. Meanwhile, as you know, senator schumer there just sent this letter to senator mcconnell, saying that he wants a white house chief acting white house chief of staff, mick mulvaney, former National Security adviser, john bolton. Both of these two men to testify. Likelihood that happens . Reporter well, look, there will be a sitdown conversation and negotiation between schumer and mcconnell to set some of the rules and parameters for a trial. In that actual negotiation behind closed doors, schumer doesnt hold a lot of cards. He is the minority leader. But in the court of Public Opinion, he can press for more. And youre seeing him use some Public Opinion here or try to negotiate in public to get some of these witnesses, to try to get a bolton or a mulvaney or some of these budget officials who did not testify in the closeddoor house proceedings. The reality is, if thats going to happen, its probably also going to come with some republicancalled witnesses. And we dont yet know who republicans might be willing to trade for that. Mcconnell has said he wants to do at least the first part of the trial as a fairly quick summation here. Have the house impeachment managers come over and present their case. Have the white house lawyers to present their defense. And then present it to his body. Present it to senators and let them decide. Do they want to hear more . Do they want to hear witnesses or vote up or down . Here were seeing schumer lay his cards face up on the table, saying, he wants more. This could be an ongoing discussion for quite a while, craig. Hans, what does the white house want this trial to look like in the Upper Chamber . They want a fast trial. And i think thats the emerging strategy here for the white house. They havent quite fully decided on this, but i think all indications are, just talking to officials this morning, is that they want this trial to be wrapped up quickly. Theyre leaning more towards short versus long. Remember, last week, the president seemed to be somewhat ambivalent about that. That gives you an indication that there arent going to be at least from the white houses side, a whole lot of advantages to calling the witnesses that garrett was just talking about. And we know that theres not going to be much daylight between the white house and Mitch Mcconnell. And by much, i mean in. Its clear theyre coordinating this. And all of the telegraphing from Mitch Mcconnell is that it is going to be a short trial. So the witnesses, whether or not you have a slate of democratic witnesses, as well as republican witnesses, it seems like the white house is leaning against this. And what they want to bring the conversation back to, which has been their strategy all along, really, is to just have the articles of impeachment be about the phone call. And thats why you saw among the president s tweets this morning, the tweet saying, read the transcript. Now, we can have a debate on whether or not its a transcript or a call log or a memo of a call log, but thats clearly what the white house wants this to be about. And it seems like theyre willing to move on rather quickly. Craig . Hans nichols at the white house. Garrett haake at his post on capitol hill. Thanks to both of you. Lets bring in rick tyler, republican strategist, msnbc political analyst. Hes also a former spokesman for Newt Gingrich and druted cruz. And berit berger is also an msnbc legal analyst. Berit, let me start with you and pick up with where we left off, talking about what this trial is going to look like. Because were using that term trial, and im not necessarily sure if thats whats most applicable here, wherever the chief justice is going to preside. What else do we know about the rules that will govern an impeachment trial . What we know is that its going to look very different than a typical criminal trial that people may be familiar with. First of all, weve only had a few of them, right . This is not something that weve had, you know, many, to take our cues from, as to what its actually going to look like. Here are some of the biggest differences between what this will look like and what a typical criminal trial. First of all, your prosecutors here or the house managers, as theyre called, are going to be the representatives, right . Theyre going to come and present their case. Theyll have a limited time period to do that. And they probably wont be calling live witnesses. Theyll be summarize iing the c based on the witnesses weve heard from previously. Then well have the president s defense able to make their case. But they may not also call live witnesses. We know chief Justice John Roberts will be presiding over the trial, but his role may be a little bit more limited than a typical Trial Court Judges may be. He may be called to cast a tiebreakering vote or rule on evidentiary issues, but anything could obviously be overruled by a vote, so he doesnt hold so much power in this trial. Senators by and large will be forced to sit quietly and listen. This is not a position that many politicians like to have, necessarily, but if were going by precedent, the senators will be silent, essentially. If they have questions, they can submit them to the chief justice. If we saw, in the clinton impeachment trial, you actually had the chief Justice Rehnquist reading the questions. We can imagine it would be the same case here. It may look very differently than congressional proceedings or a typical trial. Rick, Chuck Schumer as we were just talking about there, he was on morning joe, explaining the position that he laid out in that aforementioned letter to senator mcconnell. This is part of what senator schumer said. Theres not a single reason that has been given why the four witnesses weve asked for, while the documents weve asked for should not be presented. I dont know what theyll say. Maybe theyll be exculpatory to President Trump. But to not have them is to engage in a coverup. Is to say, were afraid. And then the American People will ask, of President Trump, and people like Mitch Mcconnell, if he doesnt have a full and fair trial, what are you hiding . What are you hiding . Majority leader mcconnell said last week that hes taking his, quote, hes taking his cues from the white house. Does he have any leverage here, rick . I mean, is there really anything that senator schumer can do to pressure Mitch Mcconnell to change . I think he can, but its all in the Public Opinion. Its not going to be in the procedures of the Senate Impeachment trial. I find it remarkable, craig, that the republicans chief complaint through the whole house impeachment inquiry has been this the expediency of the process. Which the democrats, as far as i can tell, were following the rules that the republicans actually wrote. And so whats their answer . Lets have a speedy, expedient trial in the senate. You have to imagine that if the president could produce evidence and witnesses that would exonerate him, that would clear him, that they would produce those witnesses. So theyre not going to do that. Theyre just going their not going to call any witnesses or anybody to who has direct knowledge to defend the president , assuming they dont. In fact, they want to go further. They want to actually bring in witnesses like theyve talked about bringing in witnesses like hunter biden, who has absolutely nothing to do with what the president is accused of doing or his chief political rival, which remains joe biden. So, you know, well have a quick well end up with a quick trial. But to your question, i think they do schumer does have leverage, and heres where he has leverage. Half the country, and 50 of the country, wants this president to be impeached, and some portion of them, a majority, a large majority of those 50 want him not only impeached, but removed from office. That puts tremendous pressure on republicans who are in districts like Susan Collins in maine. Or murkowski in alaska. Theyre in a bind. Theyre in a lose lose. They lose either way. But what they could do, if im going to go down because of this president , and if they lose, it will be because of this president , why not preserve the integrity of the process. Why not preserve the integrity of the impeachment . The people who are trivializing this process are the president. When he says things like, im benefiting from impeachment, this impeachment is great for my political advantage, thats trivializing the process. Justin amash, as you know, house manager possibility here, thesis house managers are folks who are named by Speaker Pelosi to prosecutor the case in the senate. A group of freshman House Democrats want pelosi to name justin amash as a house manager, elect eed as a republican, as mt folks know, supports impeachment, now register as an independent. Tthe Washington Post is reporting that the thinking is that amash would be able to reach a conservative bloc of voters that democrats cant, potentially bolstering their case to the public. It would also provide some democrats cover from gop accusations that theyre pursuing a partisan impeachment. What do we make of that idea, berit . Do we think that thats theres a potential upside there or downside for the speaker . I think theres a huge upside to this. Part of the criticism of all of this is that its just a partisan effort and this is not a legal proceeding, but just a purely political one. If you have somebody, as one of the house managers, that may disagree, fundamentally on every policy issue known to man, but agrees that the president s conduct here was improper, i think youre sending a huge message that this transcends politics and this is actually just about the legitimacy of the president s actions . Barreerit berger, thank you. I agree, by the way, justin amash would be a great choice. Amash just got the rick tyler endorsement, as well. And we have this fascinating look at where the public stands just days before wednesdays expected big impeachment vote. Well dig into some new polling numbers that show a very interesting trend among independent voters. Also, the president plans to pull rough lly 4,000 u. 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So a new fox news poll finds 50 of americans support impeaching and removing President Trump from office. Thats a fox news poll. Two polls out this morning, one from npr, pbs marist, the other from nbc news, show less than half of americans support the senate impeaching and removing the president. I want to bring in nbc news correspondent Heidi Przybyla and adrienne elrod, former adviser for the Hillary Clinton campaign, shes also an msnbc contributor. Heidi, let me start with you. I want to drill into an interesting part of this fox poll, first of all. Independent voters, specifically here. A new high of 45 of independents say they favor impeachment. Thats up from 38 in late october. How should lawmakers are from both parties be looking at that jump in particular, in this key segment of voters . How should they be looking at that jump . And does it change in any way shape, form, or fashion, the calculus between republican and democratic lawmakers looking ahead to 2020 . Sure, typically, looking at one poll and drawing conclusions is not a great idea, but in this case, this is a fox news poll, and its going to get attention from some lawmakers. What they take away from it, how it affects anything for republicans, doubtful is going to move a ton of republicans in the house. But its very significant, because of the longterm implications, craig. In that poll, they also found that more americans, by a wide margin, believe that republicans in protecting the president in this impeachment inquiry are acting politically, than believe democrats who are prosecuting the charges are acting politically. Only by a sixspoipoint spread, they believe that democrats are acting politically. Thats important, because the outcome here were being told by Senate Republicans is that theyre going to have a short trial and theyve essentially have already concluded what the verdict here is. So jump forward a year from now, in political campaigns, the most important thing, typically, one of the most important things is intensity. And what youre seeing right now is that a year from now, trump will be saying, if the senate does give him a quick trial and exonerates him, his people are going to be saying, he was exonerated. How angry are they going to be versus the debate base, which will be standing there, presumably getting more information coming out over the next year with all of these court case s pending, that already believes that republicans were acting politically here. And theyre going to be told the president was accused of all of these things, he was proved to have done all of these things and that he walked. I believe theres implications both for a longer senate trial, which brings out all of these facts now, or a Shorter Senate trial, that concludes a verdict, and then makes the most vulnerable republicans in the senate have to answer for, you know, essentially not having much of a trial and making a verdict so early on. Ladies, stand by for me just for a moment here. I want to bring in Leigh Ann Cal

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