so, i'm a little confused by the play that mitch mcconnell is making right now. >> david, quick word from you. >> tuesday night, state of the union is donald trump's night and the first tuesday in november, of the union. it will be donald trump's night. but the first tuesday in november is democrats night. republicans will get wiped out if they do that. >> thank you all for your analysis. this is a complicated time and we have relied on you all very heavily. thank you. msnbc's impeachment coverage continues right now. good morning, at least here on the east coast from our head quarters in new york. as we cross midnight here on the

east coast, so begins day 1106 of the trump administration. that leaves 278 days to go until the 2020 presidential election. s a new phase of the impeachment trial under way today. and tonight senators' questions read aloud by the chief justice, answered by the president's lawyers or house managers. all the while the drama continues in the background over this vote over witnesses. here is how some of today's question time went. >> mr. chief justice, i send a question to the desk. >> to counsel for the president. as a matter of law, does it matter if there was a quid pro quo? is it true that quid pro quos are often used in foreign policy? >> and if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in an impeachment.

>> mr. chief justice, i send a question to the desk. >> the question is for the house managers. would you please respond to the answer that was just given by the president's counsel? >> are we really ready to say that that would be okay if barack obama asked medvedev to investigate his opponent and would withhold money from an ally that needed to defend itself to get an investigation of mitt romney? that's -- that's the parallel here. and if you say you can't hold a president accountable in an election year where they're trying to cheat in that election, then you are giving them carte blanche. so all quid pros are not the same. some are legitimate and some are corrupt. and you don't need to be a mind reader to figure out which is which. for one thing, you can ask john bolton. >> today's exercise was formal.

it was highly scripted. and it continues tomorrow. down the street at the white house as the president signed the new post-nafta trade deal, he made a point to thank the republican senators, pointedly not the democrats. >> i think i have to mention some senators that are here. marsha blackburn. great state of tennessee. roy blunt. mike braun. he's become a big fixture on television. shelly moore capito. senator bill cassidy. john cornyn. senator tom cotton. ted cruz. steve danes, my friend from the beginning. the tag team with chuck grassley and joni ernst. lindsey graham. senator james lankford. kelly loeffler. martha mcsally. tim scott. he said just read the crypt. thom tillis. the rest of you i don't have to bother with. >> in the senate chamber john bolton remains the man of the hour. the number one witness on the democrats' list with republicans under enormous pressure to vote him down. his allegations from his upcoming book that trump told him that the freeze on military

aid to the ukraine was indeed linked to the investigations of all things biden have rocked the impeachment trial. today trump has been lashing out at bolton starting just after midnight this morning there was this. why didn't john bolton complain about this nonsense a long time ago when he was very publicly terminated? he said, not that it matters, nothing. then a few hours later, "if i listened to him, we would be in world war 6 by now." he accused him of writing a nasty and untrue book. soon after that and out loud trump's ally lindsey graham issued a statement with what seemed to be a veiled warning for the president writing in part, "i am concerned when john bolton's credibility is attacked. it makes it more likely some will feel the need to call him as a witness." perhaps the day's biggest surprise was when democratic congressman elliot engel, chairman of the house foreign affairs committee, revealed for the first time a conversation he had with bolton back in the fall.

engel now says on september 23 bolton volunteered that there might be something improper about the removal of our now former u.s. ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch. the congressman was asked why he waited until now. >> when i heard that the president was saying that mr. bolton had never indicated anything beforehand, i thought it was time for me to go public. we wanted him to come to testify before us way back when. i thought he should have done it, and i think he should do it now. i shared it with all the people that were investigating. >> on another front the white house has written to john bolton's attorney saying his book appears to contain just too much classified information that must be removed before it can be published. late today bolton's lawyer fired back. he released a letter dated january 24 in which he writes

bolton is preparing to testify and would likely discuss some of the material contained in a chapter on ukraine but that bolton doesn't believe any of the content was classified. tonight nbc news is reporting the republicans believe they're on track to collect the votes they need to block additional witnesses. that would include one john bolton. nbc news also reporting senator lamar alexander, who is retiring from the senate, is leaning no on more witnesses while senator susan collins, senator lisa murkowski are likely to vote in favor of calling witnesses. earlier today colorado senator cory gardner said he will vote no. senator thom tillis of north carolina, who is also opposed to witnesses, said he expects the issue will be resolved by week's end. >> i think when we go on the motion on friday that we will be successful and we'll move forward on the articles of impeachment. >> so there you have it. and here for our lead-off discussion in this second hour

of our coverage, this early thursday morning here in the east, david jolly, former republican member of congress from the great state of florida. he has since left the house and his political party. karine jean-pierre, still in hers, chief public affairs officer for move-on and an alum of the obama campaign and obama white house. former u.s. attorney joyce vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. and clint watts, former fbi special agent, distinguished research fellow at the foreign policy research institute. his timely book is called "messing with the enemy: surviving in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, russians, in no particular order, and fake news." and in washington our friend a.b. stoddard is back, associate editor and columnist for real clear politics. congressman, i'd like to begin with you because your name was on an actual ballot that people chose over your opponent, and that is where does your party, your former political party,

stand tonight at the end of what we've witnessed? >> i think in many ways today was a little unsettling to the national conscience because you saw the senators in their environment have an opportunity to engage with the president's defense counsel, with the house managers, and you saw very little authenticity. it's one thing to see ted cruz and lindsey graham and marsha blackburn on fox news and in the hallways spouting their fox news talking points. it's another thing to see them use their time as a united states senator submitting questions to the chief justice of the supreme court peddling that same narrative. i think in many ways that very little changed today. there was very little surprising that happened today. but at the same time the gravity of what happened was re realized you do have one of the two major parties largely disconnected from any interest in the truth, any interest in the gravity of the moment, particularly on a

day when the president's ultimate defense as adam schiff said evolved all the way to if the president believes it's in the national interest to engage in corrupt behavior it's necessarily okay. that was a watershed moment in american history that happened on the senate floor. and you had republican senators seeming not to care about it. >> karine, how about this day for your party? >> so today on the senate floor, in the senate well, you saw the beginning of a cover-up. and what we saw today for the first time was republican senators being co-conspirators in that cover-up along with donald trump's defense team. and the shredding of the constitution that we saw, the argument about the quid pro quo and that it is okay because donald trump, yes, he was doing it for re-election but it was for public interest. it is absurd. it is insane. and it sets a precedent that is so incredibly dangerous. and that's what they laid out for us today.

they are basically rewriting 200 years of history, 200 years of law, 200 years of precedent. why? all for donald trump. on behalf of donald trump. and if they are not going to stand up for the rule of law, we will all be paying for it down the road. >> joyce vance, because i follow you on twitter my phone was physically hot to the touch late tonight after the dershowitz argument. explain to the good folks what it is he argued, at the risk of repetition, and your view of it where it bumped up against actual law. >> well, this is what karine is referencing. it's this notion dershowitz now has which i think is the full-blown expansion of bill barr, the attorney general's expansive powerful unitary executive. and this is its ultimate expression, that the president can do anything to get re-elected if that's in the public interest. so when you're trying a jury

case and the jury goes back to deliberate, the judge often reminds them that they don't have to leave their common sense at the door as they evaluate evidence. we are all now so deep down into the trees that we're not seeing the forest. but if we take a step back and use our common sense, arguments like dershowitz's really fall apart. these people in the republican party are contorting themselves to find a way of justifying the president. and they're now saying things that we know if we use our common sense are ridiculous. because a president can't, for instance, go out and engage in voter suppression, right? he can't tell his militia buddies go take your ak-47s and stand outside of a polling place and make democrats afraid to vote. under dershowitz's version of the law that would be okay. we know it's not. our common sense tells us this cannot be american justice. >> a member of our staff prepared some video because of the number of people who were reminded of a callback to a

different president that i different era. >> if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment. >> i have in article 2 where i have the right to do whatever i want as president. >> when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. >> and joyce, that last bit from the famous david frost interview which when nixon said it jaws dropped. >> so i'm actually old enough to remember when that happened. >> i'm right there with you. >> at my family dinner table. and you know, it's no less shocking now as an adult so many years later. i'm sure you were an adult. i was still a child. but it's no less shocking. i mean, i think we're all

laughing because frankly this is such a dark moment that you have to try to do something to keep yourself from crying. this is what this president is now saying through his lawyers. >> can we drill down on this parallel for a moment? >> sure. >> because the full clip of that interview is specifically around the notion david frost is pushing richard nixon saying you're saying that the president of the united states could orchestrate a burglary. and richard nixon actually says burglary may be a crime per se, but the president has to be allowed discretion to promote these types of behaviors if he believes it's in the national interest. what we saw today was exactly that moment. you know, donald trump said he could shoot somebody on fifth avenue and get away with it. the nation received that message as though oh, donald trump says he could get away with a crime. what he did today through dershowitz as his counsel said if i shoot somebody on fifth avenue it's not a crime. he wasn't saying i can get away with a crime. he was saying it's not a crime. this is a dramatic evolution of the president's defense. adam schiff pled with the senators to recognize this moment. i think it fell on deaf ears on

most of the republican side of the aisle. >> clint watts, your role in our discussions is often to speak on the side of the i.c., the broader intelligence community. another expression from the '60s is the whole world is watching. well, the whole world is watching right now. >> it's remarkable how we've fallen. i think in terms of our global picture i've got this team, we're fracking all sorts of state-sponsored propaganda. the number one topic relentlessly is impeachment. just battering americans for how sad this is that you have people that would break the law, that there isn't true democracy, that this is going to go to a vote that we already know the result of. they use this as an ammunition that our democracy is at fault and that you really shouldn't trust or have faith in it. i think the other part of it is our standing in the world has slipped so far, particularly at key points i think we might talk about huawei later but that our allies in europe would maybe go toward china because they're seen as a reliable partner. when we talk about the iran deal or building the iran deal, john bolton as the national security

adviser trying build those coalitions, they struggled to do that because we were not seen as somebody that was consistent and could be trusted. and when you look at how this really shakes out afterwards, and i think all of the allies around the world look to us and say well, on a coin toss you might change your mind in four years, i'm going to go to a country that's reliable, that's not tearing itself apart and is not embarrassing itself on the world stage. >> let me back up because you just said a lot and everything you said was troubling. and go back to your time as an idealistic first-year cadet at west point, your time as an idealistic rookie fbi agent. what has happened to our world since? >> sure. i think what you would assume is that the best interests of the country was always being put

forth and right away. john oliver i saw it as a joke but now i see this as somewhat serious. he would call it dumb watergate, right? any of these actions that were taken by the white house with regards to ukraine and withholding the aid were always going to surface and become very well known publicly. we have people walking around doing unsecure phone calls in foreign countries to the white house back and forth with a personal lawyer that may or may not be part of the u.s. government. we have intelligence officers in these same countries getting calls i'm sure from many countries going am i supposed to do something about an investigation into the bidens? you've got military officers deployed to these countries that are trying to deliver aid. javelin missiles, that was part of the aid package. where is it? we are fighting a war out here. we're working with another country. you've got diplomats that are going forward trying to represent the interests of the state and they don't know what they are. you have defense contracting companies that are supplying these weapons. they want to know in the supply chain why aren't we doing this? this was always going to come out. and it really shows the ineptitude of folks in the white house and the president to not even understand how this system was going to fall apart from the beginning. >> a.b. stoddard, you and i had a similar conversation earlier tonight.

but the expression law and order republicans used to be a phrase as synonymous with national security republicans. what has happened just in our lifetimes, just in the last couple of years? >> look, in the last four years we've seen a republican party, as you said, that worshiped and revered ronald reagan, was a party of ideas. all the things you talked about, the law and order party, very focused on national security, being the hope of the earth, being a global leader. now you -- whether it's protectionist trade policies or the refusal to confront the debt, the only thing that being a republican means is stick up for trump. if you don't you're not a republican. if you do, you are. and this is an amazing transformation and everything clint is talking about is so upsetting and so profound, we've

also just seen just a total dissolution of our readiness -- i wrote about this, the vacancies across the entire government. it's been wiped out at the most necessary places. around this idea when we were poised for some kind of confrontation with iran. and the senators know, this especially the ones that have been around a long time. they know -- they're not pro government but they know we need to be ready and we need to have expertise and that we're really vulnerable right now. and the senators are part of a separate but co-equal branch of government. and even before dershowitz went into his mania tonight about the state is me it was so scary to think about what next week will

feel like when a congress says that this most impeachable act is not impeachable, forever setting the precedent that the congress no longer has the power of the purse, the congress no longer is a check on the executive and a president can rig elections. that's what the institutionalists in the republican party absolutely know as they watch and let this happen. >> we're going to have a break in our conversation. on top of everything we have just talked about lev parnas has given another interview tonight. we're going to play for you what he says about lindsey graham when we come back after this break. >> don't take my word for it about john bolton. look, i'm no fan of john bolton, although i like him a little more than i used to. but you should hear from him. you should want to.

what the executive branch usually does and should do is to produce everything that it can and then provide a log of documents in dispute or permit a private review of the documents that have been contested. that's not what has occurred in this case because the president has ordered the entire executive branch to defy our constitutionally inspired impeachment inquiry. blanket defiance. >> hakeem jeffries from the well of the senate today. right before the break i promised you the following. we'll all be seeing this for the first time. lev parnas has gone and granted another interview over at cnn tonight with anderson cooper in which in this portion he talks about lindsey graham. let's take a look.

>> he was in the loop just like everybody else. he was very good at the relationship with rudy giuliani. he was aware of what was going on, going back to at least 2018. maybe even earlier. senator graham was involved before even i got involved with mayor giuliani. he had to have been in the loop and had to know what was going on. >> joyce vance, you're a lawyer. i just heard involved and in the loop multiple times. that can't be good for the senator from south carolina. >> well, you know, this is what prosecutors would call a proffer. someone who's involved in a crime comes in to talk to you and they give you some sense of what their testimony will be to see if you want to give them a deal as opposed to prosecuting them. so you hear these contours. what's important is what comes next. the specifics he has, the evidence he has that backs up those sort of bare-bone allegations.

sew says senator graham was in the loop, was involved. the next step as a prosecutor would be to sit down with him and walk him through from start to finish to see why he reached those conclusions and does he have evidence. does he have taped? does he have e-mails? >> and absent any more knowledge, that's going to have to put a cork in that topic for tonight. parnas, by the way, was at the senate today though not in the gallery as they had hoped because, and how often has this happened to you, his gps ankle bracelet wouldn't allow him through the magnetometers, through security, to take his seat in the gallery. let's talk about the legal fight over executive privilege. any fight on that topic would no question result in a lengthy court battle. i think most people would agree. likely all the way to the supreme court or perhaps as far as the chief justice standing

behind the white house lawyers and house managers. our next guest has this reporting, and we quote, "trump's backers hope the prospect of a protracted delay in litigation that might wind its way to the supreme court will contribute to all or nearly all republican senators deciding that witness testimony just isn't worth the hassle." so with us in our conversation tonight, the man who wrote those words, josh gerstein, senior legal affairs contributor for politico. josh, you'll forgive us for people coming off coverage of this topic all day long have heard especially democrats, maybe some wishful thinking, talking about how they have the responsibility to mitigate and litigate any such questions or challenges. your reporting would certainly indicate that it would be a much more traditional slow-moving route. >> i think that is the

republican threat, or the white house threat. now, i do in that story also discuss the possibility that some of this may be bluffing. i mean, remember, there isn't actually a desire to have that executive privilege court battle. there's a desire to use it as a leverage, as a bludgeon, if you will, to discourage republicans who might be on the fence about witnesses from going ahead and approving them. the house managers made quite clear today that they'd be willing to basically trust any ruling by chief justice roberts on these questions of privilege and not take it any further in the courts and not have it appealed further, and i think i heard jay sekulow, one of the president's attorneys, explicitly refuse to make that promise. and to actually go on to say that other presidents that have put up battles over these issues in the past, which include president nixon and president clinton, had basically disgraced

the office and contributed to the diminution of the powers of the presidency. so the white house is explicitly keeping on the table the possibility of a lengthy court fight, which has all kinds of permutation that's are very difficult to predict. one of my favorites is would chief justice roberts if this went to the supreme court actually rule on that or would he recuse himself because of his role in this trial? i think nobody really knows the answers to how that would play out. >> but isn't it true, josh, and i have no more knowledge of the law than any other layperson, that if the republicans wanted something to happen, if mitch mcconnell wanted something to happen, his middle name would be fast track in that instance and it would happen. >> yeah. i mean, they can obviously overturn chief justice roberts's ruling right there on the spot. but i actually think if the white house went this route, the sort of easier or perhaps simpler route for them would be as soon as some subpoenas were issued to go to court through the court system and try to block them. that's what would trigger this sort of drawn-out process where you'd have to probably go through two or three layers of courts in something that would

take at least weeks, even if dealt with in a very accelerated fashion. >> a.b. stoddard is still with us from washington. a.b., we weren't being cute earlier when we said another way to see the bolton testimony is to go on amazon and preorder it for $29.25 in hard cover, even less on kindle. it's right there. and that's kind of the bludgeon awaiting some of these republicans. there's the browser. if they vote no. >> i just think it's astounding given what we have learned about

the revelations that are coming in john bolton's book, the threat of the ones that we don't yet know of, what lev parnas could yet reveal. he has promised once a judge permits him more audio and video. and then any leaks from the investigation to rudy giuliani out of the southern district of new york. this is what every republican senator considering voting against witness testimony knows is coming at them before election night. it's just amazing they would take that risk when the voters know that they know and will be reminded of it all year. not to mention the list that the democrats will make in all the legislation which is waiting to be passed while they said they were held hostage in the senate. and of course that will be like nothing. so it's an incredible political risk they're taking and it's why i believe mitch mcconnell might still be considering a path to witnesses. so he can say it wasn't a cover-up. >> i'm glad you opened that door to that conversation. and now we know camera crews

will be chasing a certain senator from south carolina down the hallway tomorrow morning. josh gerstein, a.b. stoddard, two of the very best, our thanks. yesterday the president's defense warned of "danger, danger, danger." today it was schiff's turn to issue that same warning. we'll play you what he said when our coverage comes right back.

the damage the president does in pushing out the russian conspiracy theories were identified during the house proceedings and you've heard in

the senate as russian intelligence propaganda. the danger the president poses by taking vladimir putin's side over his own intelligence agencies, that's a danger today. that's a danger that continues every day he pushes out this russian propaganda. >> the lead house manager, adam schiff, offered that warning when asked to address the president's legal team's argument that any decision to remove the president should be up to the voters in november. let's bring in mike mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia, who has known former ambassador marie yovanovitch for decades. his book is titled "from cold war to hot peace: an american ambassador in putin's russia." mr. ambassador, i've been wondering what it was like to be you today and hear this debate. it's all about your life's work. but really it's also about presidential politics and how that must be to watch. >> well, with respect to what adam schiff has said, congressman schiff, i'm worried about that too.

i have dealt -- brian, thanks for -- the book is a lot about disinformation. the book you just described. and when you're accused of a crime, as i was when i worked as the u.s. ambassador, you're accused of things you didn't do and you have no recourse, well, of course we expected vladimir putin to do that and try to push back. it's really scary when the president of the united states prop gates and repeats that disinformation. especially as we go into an election year. if there's no rules, no fact checking, you can say whatever you want, you can accuse your opponents of anything without any evidence. that's a very dangerous world. and we know what happens in other democracies when that happens. they fall apart. and it is i think a very

troubling time when there are no rules and there are no, you know, facts that matter. and especially when they are pieces of disinformation propagated by our enemies including vladimir putin. >> i almost hesitate to ask because i don't want to hear the answer. what if the witness vote goes down, this thing is done and dusted by the super bowl, and you have an emboldened president coming out of this? >> well, we know what happened with that. remember what happened after the mueller report was done? that's exactly when we got onto ukraine. and i do think the president and others around him -- remember, there are others that will be in this game, will be emboldened to do things that i just -- are not in the democratic interest. that's not a partisan statement. but i do think the rails will be off and we'll experience more disinformation, false claims than ever before, and it's going to be hard, brian, to figure out who's the russians, who's the iranians, who's the chinese and who's the americans. what was deeply disturbing today

about one part of the hearings was when i heard that, you know, it's okay to have foreigners involved as long as -- you know, it's information out there. it's okay for them to be involved in our elections. our founding fathers were obsessed with preventing that. i hope most americans will agree that we want americans to elect the next president of the united states, we don't need any assistance from vladimir putin. >> and what you just described, day seeming like night and night seeming like day, we just talked to a.b. stoddard about the notion that john bolton, who is also in your line of work, is now the great liberal hope. >> i've known ambassador bolton for a long time. i've never heard him described as the great liberal hope. but i do want to describe him as somebody that knows facts. and i want to know the facts. and i think the american people want to know the facts. and even for those that say, well, let's let the american voters decide, if you make that argument, well, let's let the informed american voters decide. and i think senators are making

a huge mistake if they think they're going to stop john bolton from telling his story. i have known him for a long time. and i think it's a real risk that they say oh, i just want to close my ears and get on to the super bowl, as you just said. well, guess what? we're going to have these facts sooner or later. it should be done in the process that we're in right now, not after the fact. i think that will be a big political mistake for people. but again, if you want the voters to decide, let them decide with all the facts in front of them before they make that decision. >> before you go i want to play something for you. as you know, if the bolton vote goes through there's talk on the other side of, you'll forgive the phrase, a quid pro quo and having another witness appear. here is lindsey graham. >> if there's going to be one witness, there will be more. and there's 53 republican votes to call hunter biden, not 51, not 52, because all of us believe that this trial goes on hunter biden is a very relevant

witness. >> ambassador, what if in fact hunter biden is called to the well of the senate or videotape deposed? >> you know, this is classic what aboutism. it's another putin disinformation tactic. the trump administration's been in power for over three years. susan collins, senator collins, asked a very important question. republican senator collins. why didn't they ask about burisma in 2017? what about 2018? is there an fbi investigation? has there been any -- there's something called an mlat treaty, brian, we have with ukraine that allows us to cooperate on legal matters. why has there been no discussion whatsoever until vice president biden becomes a candidate? now, i don't know what hunter biden did. but i know what the processes are for investigating him. we have a department of justice. we have the fbi. those are the people that should

be investigating him. it is not the job of the president of the united states. it is not the job of the president of ukraine. and it's not the job of republican senators to try to indict hunter biden during an impeachment trial. those are two different things. and i think it would be a real mistake to convolute and put those things all together. >> michael mcfaul, our former u.s. ambassador to russia. ambassador, thank you, as always, for stopping by. >> thank you. thank you for all your time on tv today, brian. >> thank you. >> my first time. you've been there for many, many hours. get some sleep. >> thank you very much. all in a day's work. or at least a night's. as we go to a break, a reminder of what lindsey graham said in october. and our special coverage will continue. >> if more comes out you could support impeachment? >> sure. i mean, show me something that is a crime. if you could show me that, you know, trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing. bing

this new republican party has spent a lot of time slandering me and my only surviving son. repeatedly. and by the way, did anyone see what joni ernst said the other day? she spilled the beans, didn't she? they're smearing me to try to stop me. and they know if i'm the nominee i'm going to beat donald trump like a drum. >> five days away from the iowa caucuses. in less than 24 hours let's not forget president trump lands in des moines for a campaign rally to get out his own message before the caucuses on monday. still with us, david jolly, karine jean-pierre, joyce vance, clint watts. karine, i'm looking at you. because this has to do with democratic politics. do you care to make any predictions about the finishing

order in iowa and will it matter a whit to the larger race? >> you know, it's really hard to tell who's going to win. it really is. >> i'm glad you said that because that's how i feel. >> it's a jump ball. you look at the des moines register poll that came out about two weeks ago. it was a jumble. and that is a gold standard historically accurate poll. and it had them all bunched up at four. bunched up. there's another poll coming out from des moines's register on saturday which will have a better sense. but i do think that once that contest happens, once we have real data from voters iowa will set the tone on what happens in the rest of the primary. and it is just -- it is really an unknown. i think the question is is this going to be like 2004 where it

was kerry which was more of the establishment, that's who iowa caucusgoers went with, or is it going to be like 2008 where you go with a game changer, someone who is like obama clearly who won the caucus then, someone who's going to change things around and we just don't know because it's so bunched up, because it's a jump ball, which direction is iowans going to go? is it going to be 2004 or 2008? >> and david jolly, not for nothing, there's a billionaire in the race who has spent more in coffee money already than all the combined other campaigns that are in this to win it. >> which billionaire? >> i was going to say bloomberg. the chief billionaire in the race. >> yeah, listen, i had the opportunity to kind of live between two of those super tuesday states, and bloomberg is on tv everywhere and there are some early polls in florida now that show him popping a little bit. look, he's rolling the dice that the democratic party will end up in some type of -- they'll get stuck after new hampshire and iowa and south carolina and nevada. and he's betting it all on super

tuesday. i'll leave it to karine and any democratic friends if bloomberg's there, a cup of coffee if you will. he has some appeal, some cross-party appeal, but that's not the direction either party's going right now. the two parties are likely following what will be a turnout model to energize their base. i have no party affiliation. i get to sit back till november to see what happens. >> donald trump tomorrow in des moines just a giant shiny object? >> i think he often does counterprogramming. i think this is different. i don't think this is counterprogramming. he's going into iowa to destroy joe biden bhp senator rick scott went on the air with a 30-second commercial people said maybe he's running for president in '24. yeah, maybe rick scott is. but you know what he's doing? he's doing his buddy donald trump a favor by spending money to hit joe biden. they are scared of joe biden. whatever they say, they are most scared of joe biden and trump and his allies are trying to beat him in iowa. >> and karine, last question, however uncomfortable it might be. does joe biden still need a better answer for the daily attacks we're hearing from the well of the senate? >> so i think tomorrow if i have

this right he's going to give a speech just kind of -- he's going to kind of his own counterprogramming on what's been going on this week. i think he does need to do a better job. i know joe biden. he's a -- i worked with him when he was at the white house. he's fiery. he can speak his mind hp he's passionate. and i just haven't seen that. i've seen glimpses of it here and there. he needs to just hammer it in and be consistent and be consistent about how he's going to push back against the negative kind of narrative that's coming out. >> chris matthews has been arguing just this week that this is the time and he has the ability right now to give the speech of his life as the man whose name is invoked every 30, 15 seconds in the well of the

senate today and again tomorrow. everyone has agreed for reasons unknown to stay around for one more segment. more of our special coverage after a quick break. >> you know something? i trust the man behind me sitting way up who i can't see right now. we don't have to go up and down the courts. we've got a perfectly good chief justice sitting right behind me who can make these decisions in real time. by the strolle♪s

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we are back with our guests david jolly, karine jean-pierre, joyce vance and clint watts. and this is important, not just because we have to be able to walk and chew gum, during the pace of news right now, clint watts, let's talk about huawei and this quote from reuters. "the eu followed britain's example on wednesday, allowing members to decide what part china's huawei technologies can play in its 5g telecom networks and resisting pressure from washington for an outright ban." why is this important? why should people watching at home tonight know about huawei? >> it's a major setback for the

u.s. around the world. think through all of history. whoever makes the infrastructure which everything operates on essentially owns that domain or that medium. so if you own the pipes you can control the water. railways, highways. >> consolidated edison goes back to thomas edison. >> exactly. in the internet era the united states invented the internet. we were the ones that made the technologies. we might have outsourced some of the components in the construction of it, but we really had dominated and controlled the system. now enters huawei. this is chinese infrastructure. this is the pipes that we will see really deployed around the world. and not only, that the chinese have moved into 5g much quicker than the united states. this is our autonomous cars. this is the way we'll change everything from health care to other technology and industry sectors. and they will be the ones that will be generating artificial

intelligence and machine learning which they have caught up with us on and are likely to surpass us on. so think about this over time. we're also talking about intelligence sharing. the five is. the united kingdom. do we want our communications going through the pipes of a country that can maybe back door into that or see it? and think big, big picture. what we're seeing maybe is the balkanization of the internet where if you have the pipes then you can control the information that goes through it. china can almost essentially come up with ways to shape the information environment. so they could tailor ways that censorship, social scoring, surveillance, all those things, it would give them an edge to do that. and the u.s. has fallen behind. it's due in part because we've been beating up on our allies in places like germany, the eu, and they are now turning to others

saying, well, maybe we don't need to go with u.s. products anymore, there are other options out there. >> joyce, there's a chance we haven't depressed anyone yet. so i'm going to give you 30 seconds to talk about the damage done in your view to jurisprudence today. >> well, i'm afraid there's nothing uplifting here because this was a bad day for the rule of law. i mean, it's something that there's just no nice way to talk about it. ted lieu, the california congressman, put it perfectly. he said republicans today showed a fear of too much justice. too much justice. we have american elected officials saying we don't want to hear the evidence, we don't want to get to the truth, we just want to clear this president so he can be firmly above the law. that's not a good day for any of us. >> we were just talking about this day in america. of course this is what happens when you ask four very smart, aware, and bright people to join you for a conversation after the day we've had and what we've witnessed. to david jolly, karine jean-pierre, joyce vance, and clint watts, our thanks for staying up late with us. that's our broadcast for this early thursday morning. thank you so very much for being a part of it. good night from our nbc news headquarters in new york. our coverage continues all night long.

this morning, the fight over impeachment witnesses appears to be ramping up. republican sources say they have enough votes to block any testimony meaning the trial could wrap up as soon as friday. meanwhile, the president's legal team is offering a blanket defense against impeachment in at least one argument, trump's lawyers claim that quid pro quo, even if proven, wouldn't be grounds for impeachment, and the white house says john bolton's book can't be published as is. the national security council claims his manuscript contains a significant amount of classified information.