Another hour but were out of time. My thanks to steve schmidt, most of all, thanks to you for watching. Mtp daily with chuck todd starts right now. Welcome to thursday. It is meet the press daily. Good evening. Im chuck todd here in a big curly w washington. Lchl exactly a year after the president ial election, todays been another hectic day in the Nations Capital from capitol hill to the courts to the white house. House backed an Impeachment Inquiry into the president and historic symbolic action that moves us one step closer to public hearings. And Behind Closed Doors, it was another bomb shell day as the National Security council top russia expert tim morrison
confirmed much of the substance of the damning testimony by the administrations top diplomat to ukraine, bill taylor, what he testified to is that military aid was contingent on investigations into the president s political rivals. This is according to a review of morrisons opening statement. Now, morrison also testified that he was warned about Rudy Giuliani and Eu AmbassadorGordon Sondlands efforts to get ukraines president to open investigations into Hunter Bidens company burisma. Not his company. The company that he was on the board of. In addition to those developments, we have proceedings in two potentially gamechanging court cases today that could determine whether deputy National Security advisor Charles Kupperman and former White House Counsel Don Mcgahn will be forced to testify under subpoena before congress. And what happens in kuppermans hearing could have big implications on whether the former National Security advisor john bolton ends up testifying under subpoena before congress, as well. Because kupperman shares an attorney with bolton and bolton has been invited into the Impeachment Inquiry next week and he has simply said he is not going to come voluntarily. He wants the subpoena. Well get to all that in a moment. All of this is happening after the house took its first vote on impeachment proceeds approving a resolution to guide the next steps of the process. But vote fell very much along party lines. Two democrats broke with their party. One republican had already broken with his party to the point where he left the party. Justin amash voted with the democrats. Okay. Thats the definition, folks, of party line. Legally, Doesnt Change much of anything. But symbolically, lawmakers are drawing their lines in the sand and at least for now, todays vote makes clear that washington is still extraordinarily divided on this issue. And that republicent and democrats are retreating to their corners. A Reporting Team has been all over the action today. Garrett haake is on the hill. Kelly odonnell at the white house. Lets start on the hill where we
have Testimony Taking place with mr. Morrison there. So, garrett, weve learned a little something. But its interesting, some of the republicans in there have come out and they believe mr. Morrison has been helpful to the president. Yeah, thats true. Chuck, it feels like that was about six weeks ago theres been so much going on capitol hill today. Morrisons testimony, as you pointed out in the open, was largely confirmtory for what bill taylor has said about the arm or the aid for investigations part of this. But What Morrison also told the committees was that he listened to that phone call and he didnt hear anything that he thought was illegal. Now, of course, thats not the bar for impeachment but it is something that republicans can hang their hats on here a little bit. And morrison also described based on the reporting of my colleague leanne caldwell, whos done such a good job with this story, not really following the burisma connection as it was happening in real time. He really underscores the two parallel tracks of foreign
policy that were going on within the white house. The official Foreign Policy of the u. S. Government of which he was a member. And the secondary Foreign Policy of Rudy Giuliani and perhaps the president that he was not privy to at the time. And was putting together later. It also speaks to how this Impeachment Inquiry is just going to build and build and build. The vote today is such a key part of it. Setting up public hearings. Weve got another full week of depositions at least for next week. Just the ones youve laid out with bolton scheduled to come if he does show up on next thursday. So all of that will continue as these members are now on their way back to their districts tonight where they will have to continue to sell this. Democratic members, in particular, having to continue to sell this back in their districts as something that the country needs to go through. I want to i want to pick up on that for a second. I the the thing that has surprised me the most about todays vote was how Neither Party really wanted to have there werent many Rank And File members that wanted to go to the
floor to make the case for why they were voting the way they were voting. It was almost they all hid behind their leadership on that. Yeah. Thats true. You know, leadership in the democratic side painted this as something that they were forced to do by this president. And if you think about it, nancy pelosi has been resisting the idea of trying to impeach this president for the entirety of his term in office. And so this democrats cast this as something that was forced upon them by history. That the president has brought them to this point and they had to make this vote. So for democratic members not to be rushing out to scream about how excited they were to be voting to impeach the president makes sense on that strategically. On the republican side, you saw some of the same. This desire to defend the president within a relatively narrow framework. But i think there is also some concern on the republican side that as you start to defend the president , you dont know where this is going, right . So much of the defense has been built on process up till this point. Okay. Now, were making adjustments to the process. We heard a little bit of that today with the language republicans have been using for a while but it seemed to be turned up in bits today about this is trying to invalidate the 2016 election. The degree which republicans can link this Impeachment Inquiry to opposition of the president going back years, i think youll hear the names al green. That argument can make this feel distasteful for independent mind voters, democrats who are not sure about this. And i suspect well hear a lot more of that Going Forward from republicans. Right. Dont look at the substance. Try to blur the lines with with its just one big effort to get rid of this president. Yep. The big blob on that front. I get that. Kelly odonnell. The white house today, i think they were hoping for more democratic defections. They didnt get it. This basically was the Party Line Vote. Republicans lost one. Democrats lost two. Thats not you dont get Bragging Rights on either side
for something on that one. And more importantly, it means the president s on the road to impeachment, which we know the white house isnt happy about. So i assume theyre happy they didnt lose anybody besides amash but what can you tell us . Well, there is a new development in just the last couple of moments and that is our colleague Pete Williams reports that a decision on whether Charles Kupperman will have to testify, again, he is the deputy to john bolton when they were here serving the president in the National Security space. That wont come for at least a month. So that is according to peach reporting that there will be another hearing in december. So if we were expecting to have some quick resolution on some of the most highprofile names, we wont be getting it. Let me ask you. Kelly, let me pause you there. Is the white house happy to have this stuff dragged out . Or do they want to see this stuff resolved so they know what theyre dealing with . In a larger way, they have been really arguing on their
actions for dragging it out. In part, because the closer it gets to what is exactly the Election Year 2020, the easier it is to fashion this as being purely political instead of an inherently political process because impeachment is, by definition, a political solution to a problem. And that is, in part, what the white house has expected. That the longer this drags out, much like in the russia investigation, as much as the president and his team were battered and bruised by that, they came out of it. And in many respects, they believe that there is a Fatigue Factor for impeachment and well have to see. Would they like to have some clarity on who will be required to testify when youre talking about someone like don mcgahn who had been the president s white House Counsel . Im sure theres some anxiety to get a resolution on that. But the courts are in a separate track here and so thats going to take a little more time. But the president does have some ability to use his influence and
his relationships on republican members. So he was quick today to say there were no defections among the republican side. They had known justin amash had left the party earlier so they were looking at the broader piece of that. Might they have thought there would be in those trump districts where democrats prevailed in 2018, that there might have been more peeling away . Certainly, they would have liked that. Before this moment, the president can only do so much. And working the phones and building relationships and offering his help in districts where he can be helpful, thats what he can use at this point to try to keep republicans in line. Garrett haake, Kelly Odonnell kicking us off with todays news events of the day. Obviously, the single most important thing that happened today is the World Series ChampionshipWashington Nationals. Im going to get that in there anytime i can. Kelly, i think its impressive you decided to be a red head for the nationals. I really appreciate that. I know garretts from texas. Yeah, both of you. Thats right. Thank you, both. All right. Joining me now, two people who know a lot about both sides of this story from the legal perspective, as well as the National Security perspective. Ned price, msnbc contributor, former National Security council spokesman. Frankly, if he were there now, hed probably be subpoenaed. Glad im not. Chuck rosenberg, msnbc contributor. Former u. S. Attorney. Former fbi official and who knows you would be in the middle of either subpoenaing people or not if you were in the middle of it. Subpoena him. The host of the oath podcast where he talks with former Public Officials about this Pivotal Moment in American History. All right. I want to start with this issue of kupperman. And this is a classic separation of powers question. You could be arguing the governments side of this or you can argue congresss side of this. What do you think is the white houses strongest argument from
preventing . First of all, im glad you framed it as a separation of powers issue. Its not a republican democrat thing. Its the legislative and Executive Branch and the parties could have been flipped and in the exact same position. So i dont blame mr. Kupperman or his lawyer for asking the courts to resolve it. I mean, the lawyer has said that kupperman, the deputy National Security advisor, is indifferent. Whatever the court tells him he must do, he will do. And thats frankly an incredibly logical position. So whats the white houses best argument . I think they have a reasonable argument, although its fact dependent on Executive Privilege. Its a real thing. President s from all parties and all administrations have asserted it in one form or the other. I think the notion that they have absolute immunity, meaning that the witness doesnt even have to show up scalpel. You need a legal scalpel here. Its like, okay, you can get Executive Privilege for here and
well carve out the territory, you know, rather than, you know, rather than just saying yes or no. I think thats probably where the court comes out that they say that absolute immunity is a made up thing. That a witness has to show up and that when the witness shows up, he or she can assert privilege on certain questions and certain responses. Privilege is normally construed narrowly because the idea is you want the fact finder. Whether its the congress or the court or a jury to get as much information as possible. So this notion that i dont even have to go, that i dont have to show up in this body that wants my testimony, i dont think that flies, chuck. Ned, first of all, did you guys ever get legal briefings when you were at nsc about what would fall under sort of Executive Privilege . What would what would be your legal requirement . Im just curious, like, how are you how are National SecurityCouncil Staffers briefed on their legal requirements . We certainly had ethics briefings and i think some
people might say too often but for a very good reason. When you serve in the white house and serve at that level of influence within our national politics, its probably for the best. Now, frankly, these issues of separation of powers and privilege, Executive Privilege and absolute immunity, this wasnt something that i became familiar with until the trump administration. Frankly, because the obama administration, i am pleased to say, was scandal free. It is not like my colleagues were routinely dragged to congressional hearings to testify Behind Closed Doors or dragged before courts. Because this really is a creation of this administration. Sure but there were some things, for instance, benghazi, i think they wanted to get some folks on the National Security council to testify and you guys said no. Of course. Of course. But its not like this was the this was the substance of our day. My point on that is it did fall under some Executive Privilege. Even absolute immunity is something previous
administrations have claimed. Its not the currency. It is not the currency that it is in this administration that everything seems to revolve around scandals. All right. So much has happened today that we sort of got lost. There was a pretty interesting important story this morning in the Washington Post about about the idea that the transcript of the call that Lieutenant Colonel vindman was so concerned about it when he went to the mr. Eisenburg. First of all, tell us about the other server. How often did you interact . I had no contact with the server and thats the acronym for the intelligence server. Only those people in a directorate called the directorate for intelligence programs within the National Security council have access to that server. They are the ones who ever access to it. They are the ones who oversee it. Even when the National Security advisor or even perhaps the president of the United States wanted to access a document from that server, they tended to be the ones who would print it off, take it to the oval office, take
it to the National Security advisors office. What do you make of that story . The the house intel is going to want to hear from mr. Eisenbur. And im sitting here wondering how are they ever going to hear from him . Hes counsel. Not the definition of at least some form of Attorney Client privilege with the Executive Branch here. Well, first of all, his client is not the president. Yeah, who is the client here . For a white House Counsel or deputy white House Counsel, the client is the office of the presidency, the institution as opposed to the individual. And that sounds like a distinction not only a lawyer could love but its a really important distinction. You know its one that this president doesnt understand. He doesnt does think his white House Counsel is his lawyer. Its an important distinction. Will they hear from him . I dont know. I mean, there are always exceptions to privileges. If you commit a fraud, if you commit a crime, you cant behhi
behind a privilege. Privilege can be destroyed. Taken away. Do you think then his rationale for this is something he should have to testify to . Well, so i would like to hear from him. One of the things were always trying to assess as federal prosecutors well, two things. Motive and intent. Theyre different. Motive is why you did something and i dont ha