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Key republican senator lisa murkowski said she was, quote, disturbed, to hear mitch mcconnell say he was working in, quote, total coordination with the white house for the senate trial. so what does her disturbance mean? joining us now, our political analyst sun min kim and michael sheir for "the new york times." great to have both of you here with us. sun min, what does it mean? what do you take away from lisa murkowski saying that out loud in an $view? >> it underscores how mitch mcconnell has handled part of president trump's impeachment process. and we heard a little bit of criticism when ...

All right. the iowa caucuses are a little more than one month away. and the ad wars, well, they are heating up. politico reporting that billionaire candidates tom steyer and michael bloomberg have already spent, get this. a whopping $200 million on tv and digital advertising. that is more than all of the other candidates combined. back with us to discuss this seung min kim and michael sheir. this is an unprecedented amount of money. they are dwarfing the field. they haven't broken out. what is or could be the impact of this mammoth spending? >> well, that's yet to be seen, clearly. but it is c...

Figure out the number of hours for the opening arguments and punt that question of witnesses further down the line. and recall that while mcconnell clearly doesn't think witnesses are necessary, he hasn't ruled out that option. and perhaps that would be enough for, you know, the folks like romney and collins to side with mcconnell on the procedural steps at least at the outset. but obviously we'll have to wait and see how much the pressure builds on them in public for bringing some of these witnesses on board. >> michael, taking into account your skepticism about the possibility of any republi...

Also sort of distanced herself from how mcconnell said he was in total coordination with the white house. but certainly by far lisa murkowski is the plomost explic of the criticism. she was candid about how she saw or how concerning she found president trump's phone call with the ukrainian leader. she's been a wild card for us to watch for some time now. just a little bit about her history, she has a fiercely independent streak. she's not someone prone to arm twisting by senate party leadership. she is someone who lost her republican primary in 2010, was kind of ditched by her own party leader...

And remember jeb bush spent $55 million as well and he clearly languished until he eventually dropped out early in the race in 2016. >> i mean, here's one possible metric. here's one of the latest national polls, michael. you see here that bloomberg, okay. he's only at 4%, however, this is an nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. he has leapfrogged all of these people. castro, gabbard, booker, yang, that have been doing a lot more of the, you know, old fashioned just shoe leather retail politics than he has. >> absolutely. money can buy you name recognition. that is, you know, if that weren't t...