hello, everyone. i'm kate balduan. thanks so much for joining me. we are now entering the most consequential week so far in the impeachment battle. televised hearings start in just two days. and you will finally see and hear for yourself the testimonies about president trump's dealings with ukraine. and the big question going into this is, did the president abuse his power by pressuring a foreign government to investigate top political rivals? and is it an impeachable offense? these are the three key -- these are the three key officials who will be testifying this week. you're looking at them right there. the current top diplomat for the united states in ukraine,

another top state department official, and the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, most recently recalled by president trump, kind of out of thin air, it appeared at first, and her firing, if you will, is in large part at the center of this entire ukraine affair. meantime, republicans are demanding that the whistle-blower and hunter biden be called to they have in these public hearings. but make though mistake, this week and the public hearings after this week will in large part determine the outcome of this impeachment inquiry. and by that i mean, does it convince the public, does it convince the politicians that are watching it play out? let's get to it. cnn congressional reporter lauren fox is on capitol hill. lauren, let's start with the democrats on this. what are you hearing about their approach, their strategy, all of the plans, how they're preparing for these hearings this week? >> reporter: well, kate, it's a blockbuster week on capitol hill and democrats are preparing in a big way. i've been told from a senior democratic aid that the preparations have been even more exhaustive than they were when robert mueller came tomm.

and that's in part because they feel like momentum is on their side. they've had this, you know, transcript released day by day, and that has really given some life to their probe. it's also part of the fact that this is the first time that americans at home are going to be able to see these career diplomats on their television screens. that's a big deal. these are characters who many americans may not have heard of a month and a half ago, who are now at the center of an impeachment probe into the president of the united states. bill taylor and george kent are expected to tell the whole story about what has transpired over the past few months and it's intentional they're coming first. on friday, we'll hear from marie e yovanovitch, the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine who was recalled from her post, and she's seen as the first victim of rudy giuliani's shadow foreign policy and they want to be able to tell that story, kate, as well. >> let's talk about the republicans.

are you getting any sense of their strategy going into this week. >> i think the fact that we saw their witness list, they want to hear from the whistle-blower, they want to hear from hunter biden. and of course, kate, those are no witnesses that democrats are not going to allow to come forward. that gives republicans an opportunity to sort of decry the process further. we heard from lindsey graham. the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, who said, any hearing that doesn't include the whistle-blower, any process that doesn't include the whistle-blower is a sham. and when it moves over to the senate, it won't be taken seriously. he said, it will be dead on arrival. kate? >> lauren, thanks so much. it's going to be an amazing week to watch no matter where you land on this impeachment inquiry. i'll have to say that. another key angle that we are watching in the impeachment inquiry is a judge is going to be hearing arguments today on a last-minute effort from white house acting chief of staff, mick mulvaney, to determine whether he has to comply with a subpoena from congress to testify. mulvaney was a no-show on friday on capitol hill.

joining me is josh dawsey and kim whaly, a former federal prosecutor. she served as an associate independent council in the white water investigations. thank you so much for being here. josh, you have this great reporting about mulvaney's move on friday to join this lawsuit that's been kind of lingering out there, asking a judge to decide who he should follow, white house guidance to not testify or a congressional subpoena. how surprised were folks about this move and why were they? >> well, john bolton and his deputy have been going through the legal process to figure out if they could testify or not, and have been asking a judge to rule whether they should listen to the executive branch's demands or the legislative branch. and suddenly, mick mulvaney joined this lawsuit. john bolton and mick mulvaney were not exactly spympatico in the white house, had a number of disagreements, were barely on speaking terms when they lost and then late he joined the lawsuit. the president has essentially

told aids to stonewall. do not testify, do not do anything, do not cooperate with what he considers to be a sham process. but mulvaney said, i don't want to be held in contempt by the house. i want to know what my legal rights are and joined this lawsuit. it was a move that surprised bolton's team and surprised many in the white house. >> one of the words that's not often used, but definitely seems to apply here, flabbergasted, as you described it, folks were with this move. kim, so mulvaney is now sitting in the same place as josh was talking about, as john bolton and his former deputy saying, essentially, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. are they stuck between a rock and a hard place in the legal sense? >> legally, this claim of absolute immunity from testifying by virtue of a relationship with the president, there is no basis for that. the president himself does have absolute immunity in that he cannot be sued civilly for money damages for actions that he

takes as president. beyond that, there's something called privilege. so communications between him and high-level officials can be basically protected on an issue-by-issue basis. but this notion that there's kind of this massive umbrella that loops in anyone that has a relationship with donald trump that basically protects them from any participation inform congressional oversight, there is no basis for that legal at all, but i think it's probably not good news for mr. trump that mick mulvaney is interested in joining this lawsuit. because congress had withdrawn the claim respect to the original parties. they had, listen, we're going to move on without this court ruling. we're just going to withdrawal our subpoenas. so mulvaney was not under -- he could have just said, listen, i'm going to sustain wahl like everyone else, make congress come forward and invoke the courts. and it looks like mulvaney and

his lawyers are saying, we want to have some cover, potentially, in responding to a subpoena. s so a court order in addition to a congressional subpoena gets the courts to say, yeah, by the way, this is meaningful. and to defy a court order is much more treacherous for a witness than defying a congressional order. so i think this doesn't bode well for keeping mulvaney from testifying before congress, which will be quite devastating for the president. >> and one element that -- a lot is unknown in terms of the timing and how this fits in with the calendar the democrats are laying out. we don't know what's really going to come from this conference call that's going to happen later today, because the original kind of date for the judge to see it was in early december. as it was originally set. so there's a lot of lack of clarity in terms of what the next step is going to be, no decides or makes any moves f - today. but josh, you're talking about

john bolton, and something that bolton's attorney has said is getting a lot of attention or maybe creating a lot of heartburn, i guess, maybe amongst white house folks. saying, kind of teasing up that his client has some real stuff to tell congress outside of what the previous witnesses that we have had to date have told congress. in this letter to white house counsel, that bolton can speak to this, this is how it's put. quote, many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed. what are you hearing about that one line? >> well, it was tucked away, as you said, and that's -- it took many people by surprise. john bolton was certainly in a number of oval office and white house meetings on ukraine. there's allegedly another meeting where top officials tried to convince the president to restore aid and john bolton was supposedly there for that. what bolton is saying there is, listen, you may want to move on without having us testify.

that's what the house was saying, but i have relevant information that has not been put out yet. and it certainly is likely to make folks in the house reconsider their strategy to know if there are additional meetings, additional phone conversations, additional things that have happened that have not heretofore been discussed that john bolton purports to know. he was the national security adviser, you can imagine he was in on almost any conversation that involved ukraine in the white house. >> absolutely. this fits in the category of stand by to stand by. but i really appreciate it. coming up for us, former u.n. ambassador nikki haley writing in her new book that is to come out tomorrow that two top trump officials tried to recruit her to undermine the president. how did she respond and why is she telling this story now? i'll talk to susan page, who also just interviewed hailey about this book. also, coming up later today, the nation honors all of those

who have served in the armed forces. vice president pence, looking right there, he will soon be participating in events at arlington national cemetery. president trump just spoke at the annual veterans parade in new york. we'll talk to one veteran about what today means and about why he's boycotting the event where the president is attending. sher. we chose eleanor. it was great-grandma's name. so we're in this little town near salerno and everyone has dad's eyebrows. help your family discover their unique story, with a gift from ancestry. help your family discover their unique story, aveeno® with prebiotic striple oat complex balances skin's microbiome. so skin looks like this and you feel like this. aveeno® skin relief. get skin healthy™ well you remember what happened last year. you can't bring a backup thanksgiving to my sister's house. it's not like we're going to walk in with it. we'll bring it in as we need it.

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undermining the president or saving the republic. that was a real debate taking place inside the white house among some of the president's senior-most advisers. then secretary of state rex tillerson and then chief of staff, john kelly, confiding in then ambassador to the united nations, nikki haley. this is according to the new book out tomorrow by nikki haley. she takes those two men to task. according to the "washington post," the debate was sparked over whether to cut off u.s. funding to a u.n. agency that served palestinian refugees. hailey claims tillerson and kelly tried to recruit her to quote/unquote save the country and she explained further in an interview with cbs yesterday. listen. >> and instead of saying that to me, they should have been saying that to the president. not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan.

it should have been, go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you don't like what he's doing. but to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing. and it goes against the constitution. and it goes against what the american people want. and it was -- it was offensive. >> and though you apparently will not find it in the book, hailey has been able to walk a fine line where others have not, which is publicly breaking from the president on certain issues and also being able to remain in his good graces then and now. he's even promoting her book on his twitter feed. for more on how -- on what hailey is revealing and also what this says about her future aspirations, joining me is the washington bureau chief for "usa today," susan page. it's great to see you, susan. >> good to see you, kate. >> thank you. you also had early access to the book and you just wrapped an interview with hailey. what was your overall impression, susan, after reading the book and sitting to interview her. why is she speaking out? why now? >> i think she had something she

wanted to say about a year ago. she left the u.n. job. you know, she's clearly someone with ambition. she writes about how ambition can be a -- be seen as a dirty word when it's applied to women, but she is an ambitious person. i think it is pretty clear she is positioning herself to run for president when the trump era is over. and she comes to this with some credentials. she's been elected and re-elected governor of south carolina, she has some national security experience with her two careers years at the united nations, and she might help the republicans deal with some of their current problems with attracting women voters, for instance, or dealing with people of color. so i think she is someone who intends to stay on the national scene. >> absolutely. that definitely comes through in your interview. let's talk about some of these details. that episode between tillerson and kelly and hailey, tillerson hasn't responded in questions after the fact as far as we can see. john kelly's reaction seems to be pretty telling, declining comment -- to comment directly on the details to "the

washington post," but also saying this. if providing the president, quote, with the best and most open legal and ethical staffing advice for -- from across the government, so he could make an informed decision is quote/unquote working against trump, then guilty as charged. not denying it, i guess we could say. what was hailey trying to convey in picking these moments to detail, do you think? >> this was an extraordinary moment that the white house chief of staff and secretary of state are trying to enlist the u.n. ambassador to defy the president? this is really something that's pretty remarkable. and it very much fits with that explosive op-ed that the "new york times" ran on september 8th of last year by anonymous. you know, you go back and look at the language in that op-ed and the language that nikki haley uses in describing this exchange. they are very similar and this conversation she had in the chief of staff's office took place a week or two before the column ran in "the new york times". it made me ask her, does she

think that anonymous is either john kelly or rex tillerson? and she declined to speculate. >> fascinating. so if you add -- this is really -- i think actually, a really important point. when you take the episode that you're describing, that she describes in the book that you interviewed her about and the anonymous op-ed that you just talked about. because the whole point of that op-ed, right, is that there are people within the administration who were working to thwart some of the president's -- i feel like they put it, misguided impulses is kind of how it was written. and if you could add one more thing on top of that, this ukraine episode and all that is coming out in these testimonies of career professionals and -- that have been working for trump and for the government for quite so the time. what is the bigger picture that's coming into focus then about this white house? >> well, we see a white house that is dysfunctional. you can't have a functional white house when the chief of staff and the secretary of state are trying to manipulate and defy what the president wants to

do. it is a chaotic situation. it's one in which nikki haley says almost no one would speak truth to power. almost no one was telling the president when she was wrong. she says after his zradisastrou news conference with vladimir putin, she went to him and said, that was a mistake, you should have done that, and he told her that no one had told him it was a bad news conference. >> fascinating. one thing that this kind of gets to, kind of nikki haley reemerging, if you will, is something i've wondered for a while. she seems to be -- and tell me if there's another, the singular figure in the trump presidency that's been able to speak out publicly, break from the president on certain issues, but also leave the administration with his fall endorsement. and still today, having it, still. how do -- have you landed on why -- why that is? >> you know, i don't think -- i can't come up with another example of either, of someone who has been able to resign, got

an oval office sendoff. she wasn't dismissed in a derisive tweet. and yet managed to also declare her independence, at least on some issues. not on a lot of issues, she supports him on a lot of issues, but she's maintained a certain air of independence. and that is a tough thing to do. and i wonder if, as a woman who has been kind of an outsider, coming up in the south carolina republican party, where she was not art of tpart of the old boy network, i wonder if that's part of the conversation like this. >> that will be posting very shortly, her interview with nikki haley at usa today. still ahead for us, just days before public hearings begin, republicans are trying out another new strategy to defend the president of the united states against impeachment. why is the president then telling them to back off? hi, i'm dave. i supply 100% farm-fresh milk for lactaid. it's real milk, just without the lactose, so you can enjoy it even if you're sensitive.

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two days now. and while the witness list is set for the big first appearances this weekend, over the weekend, republicans in the minority submitted as required to the committee the list of witnesses they would like to hear from, and that includes the whistle-blower and hunter biden. two witnesses house democrats at the very least aren't likely to go along with. on top of that, republicans are testing out yet another defense of president trump in the face of impeachment. republican congressmen mac thornburry summed it up on sunday. >> i believe that it is inappropriate for a president to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival. now, it leads to a question, if there's a political rival with a family member who's involved in questionable activity, what do you do? just let them alone. but set that aside. i believe it was inappropriate, i do not believe it was impeachable. >> so the president's twitter

feed this weekend once again contradicts that defense as soon as they started using it with this. the call to the ukrainian president was perfect, says the president. republicans, don't be led into the fool's trap of saying that it was not perfect, but it is not impeachable. no, it was much stronger than that. nothing was done wrong. so what does this week mean for republicans in congress? here with me now, cnn political commentator, charlie dent. good to see you, congressman. >> good to be with you, kate. >> i heard mac thornberry, and i said, this is interesting. this is the place where you and i have had discussions before. you thought republicans should have landed a long time ago in terms of where they should be in terms of the ongoing inquiry. what does it mean if they're just getting there now and just as quickly, the president is undermining the argument? >> yeah, i mean, i saw the president's tweet. to me, it's -- the president's call was not perfect, but it was -- it was perfectly appalling and perfectly inappropriate and wrong. i mean, you look at -- you know,

the president is trying to suggest the facts are not it have facts. the facts are horrible. and i think mac thornberry was correct to acknowledge that the behavior was at the very least inappropriate. and there's no point in trying to defend this. and the whole question becomes, does this -- does this matter rise to the level of impeachment? and i think that's probably a better place for the republicans to land, as we discuss -- >> but congressman -- >> can they be there if the president is saying, don't be there, guys. it's not what i want. >> well, you know, the president doesn't have a vote on impeachment. but the members of congress do. and these members of congress, like mac thornberry and others who are retiring, you know, they have to think about their legacies. they're not thinking -- many of them are not thinking about the next election, because they're retiring. you know, others are thinking about the next election. but they all have to be concerned about their election. and if i were the president of the united states, i would be very concerned, since he was elected, i think there are over a hundred members of the house who have decided not to run again. that ought to send a real signal

to the president that a lot of these members simply don't like serving in washington with him. he's made it very difficult. >> i want to -- and add another one to the list in just a second. peter king, in general, i want to get your take on what does this week mean for republicans? all of the reporting that i have seen is that the democrats on the intelligence committee, they have been told to take these aer hearings extremely seriously. what do you think the republican game plan is? if they treat the whole thing as a charade, which is what i'm that potentially backfire on - them? >> yes, i do. in fact, i wrote an op-ed saying -- a few weeks ago saying, republicans ought to take this impeachment inquiry very seriously. because these will become -- these will be nationally televised events, and i think the american people will be wat watching. they're going to be seeing some very serious people present testimony, taylor, yovanovitch, vindman and others. and i think it's not going to be helpful to the republican cause to simply just and try to

undermine the proceedings. i think it would be an enormous mistake. there could be john dean moments coming out here. i vividly remember in the early '70s, the watergate hearings with my parents and we were driving across the country listening with bated breath. they were so enthralled by the whole thing. and i think this -- these hearings maybe have that same potential, as we saw during the watergate proceedings. >> so let me play for you what senator lindsey graham -- what his position is on the -- what's going to be playing out this week and beyond. >> i consider any impeachment in the house that doesn't allow us to know who the whistle-blower is, to be invalid, because without the whistle-blower complaint, we wouldn't be talking about any of this. and i also see the need for hunter biden to be called to adequately defend the president and if you don't do those two things, it's a complete joke. >> this whole -- where they are now is objectively beyond the whistle-blower at this point, though. it's not about that person

anymore, because there are multiple witnesses, current and former government officials that are putting their names on it and are corroborating elements of this complaint. do you get a sense that sticking on the whistle-blower is somehow having, i don't know, somehow having an impact? >> i think -- again, i think it's a mistake to go after the whistle-blower. the whistle-blower's identity must be protected at all costs. that said, i think it's fair for an investigator -- i'm not saying this person should go out and give testimony, the whistle-blower, but it's probably fair for an investigator, though, to speak to the whistle-blower and perhaps, you know, to biden's son, as well. but i think they should protect this whistle-blower at all costs. everybody else's testimony has confirmed and corroborated what he or she has said anyway, so what's the point? >> let me ask you, as we were talk retirements, congressman peter king, longtime republican congressman, he announced this morning he's retiring. he served in congress for 14 terms. and that now makes him, i believe, the 16th republican member of congress to say that they're not seeking re-election.

for comparison, there are only like five democrats in the house that are not seeking re-election. no matter his reasons, what does this say to you about the state of the republican party? when you see that list of retirements, does it tripouble you? >> yeah, it troubles me very much. as well as, peter king's seat will likely be a competitive seat for republicans to defend. so i suspect that members are retiring in part because they're frustrated with the current political environment and the president's conduct in office. that's a part of it. but, you know, peter served a long time. so i tell you what, if i were leadership right now, i would be alarmed with the numbers of retirements. and i think you have to still watch for more. look what happened just last week in these elections. those elections, i think, sent a bad side. they don't bode well for 2020, when you see what's happened in the suburbs of philadelphia where i am today or in northern virginia. i mean, this is -- they're in a bad spot. the party is going to have to have a debate and a discussion

about what this party should look like after donald trump. and i think those conversations have not really been occurring. they need to start now, because the party is in a terrible place. >> i was going to say, i think the most important question is, do those discussions happen anytime before donald trump has left office, no matter if that's in the near or far term after his second term. and that's a very big question. it's good to see you, congressman. >> they are happening. >> thank you so much, i really appreciate it. coming up, mayor pete buttigieg, he's risen to the top tier in his polls in iowa, but with his resume, would he be there if he was a woman? one of his democratic rivals says "no." that discussion, next. was provn superior to humira® in providing significantly clearer skin. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. serious allergic reactions may occur.

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balances skin's microbiome. so skin looks like this and you feel like this. aveeno® skin relief. get skin healthy™ would a 37-year-old woman who's served two terms as the mayor of a city with a population 100,000 people be taken as seriously in a presidential race as mayor pete buttigieg, a man with those same credentials? that is the very real question that is being debated right now in the democratic presidential primary. senator amy klobuchar is not shying away from that debate at all, telling "the new york times" this. could we -- and she means female candidates -- be running with less experience than we had?

i don't think so. i don't think people would take us seriously. and then she put it this way to cnn yesterday. >> do i think that we would be standing on that stage if we had the experience that he had? no, i don't. maybe we're held to a different standard. but my goal here is to get the best candidate to lead the ticket. i believe that's me. >> is senator klobuchar right? joining me right now is one of the very few women to run a presidential campaign and the candidate, a female, no less. former campaign manager for hillary clinton, patti solis doyle. it's good to see you, patti? >> good to see you, kate. so we're looking at a crowded field still. 17 democrats running for president, 5 of them are women. with your unique perspective, is amy klobuchar right? are women in politics held to a higher standard that we're looking at today? >> she absolutely is 100% right on this one. you know, it's no secret that sexism plays a role in politics

and government. it's no secret that women have to work twice as hard, be twice as good to get half the credit. and not just in politics, but in various industries. it's why we've never elected a president, a female president. and it's why we have relatively fewer ceos. i'll give you an example from membership experience. in 2018, when hillary was running in the primary against barack obama, she ran on being more experienced. that was her message. she was ready on day one. barack obama criticized her, however, on her foreign policy experience, saying that his first lady, having teas and cookies with foreign leaders does not translate into foreign policy experience. and that criticism stuck for us. we had to fight back pretty hard on that criticism. the irony, of course, is he ended up picking her as secretary of state, his, you know, lead adviser on foreign policy. in, you know, 2016, the most qualified person ever to run for president ran against the least

qualified person ever to run for president. one was a woman, one was a man. the man won. even today -- >> so, patti -- >> go ahead. >> but looking at today, so are you saying in this, do you think pete buttigieg is not qualified to run? >> no, i'm not saying that at all. i think he is definitely qualified to run. i think he's an inspiring candidate. i'm just saying that a woman with the same credentials would not be leading in iowa right now. >> so buttigieg was asked about this last weekend. and he more or less agreed, actually, with klobuchar's point, saying this. yeah, i think it would be naive for me to say that this hasn't played some role to the disadvantage of female candidates and to the advantage of male candidates. what do you do with that? that's -- that's refreshing. >> well, look what we have. we have two candidates in the democratic field right now with zero government experience, zero

political experience. both are successful in business. one is a successful businessman, one is a successful author and speaker. only one of those, the man, is actually on the debate stage today. >> hmm. >> you have to -- you cannot take sexism out of this equation. >> so what does it -- and this, i think is -- maybe the key question now, looking at this, right, it is what it is, right? but what does it do calling it out in realtime, in terms of an on the ground sense? how do you make the case to voters, you are holding me, as a female candidate, to a higher standard. that is not okay. and still get their vote? >> well, that's a very tricky question, kate. >> right? >> because when you call it out, you know, people don't like it. you know, people don't like their sexism being put out there in public, right? they don't like it. and they're not going to react well to it. so it's a very tricky thing that women politicians and women

candidates have had to deal with for, you know, decades and decades and decades. it's getting better, but you have to worry about things like coming off angry, coming off looking overambitious. you have to worry about these things when you run as a female candidate. and it's unfortunately, but i think with women like hillary clinton and amy klobuchar and senator warren, it gets a little bit easier every time. >> yeah, that resting you know what face is always something that women need to contend with when they're out in public. it's good see you, patti. thank you so much. >> good to see you. thanks. . programming note for all of you, former vice president joe biden will be taking questions from voters in iowa at a cnn town hall tonight. erin burnett will be moderating. tune in tonight right here on cnn at 9:00 p.m. coming up for us, it's a day of unity, to remember and honor all of those who serve, veterans day.

vice president pence took place at the wreath laying at the tomb of the unknown a short time ago. we'll talk to an outspoken veteran next about what today means and what veterans need from their country now. these are real people,

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to every veteran here today and all across our land, you are america's greatest living heroes, and we will cherish you now, always and forever. >> that was president trump speaking at the start of the annual veterans day parade here in new york city, taking time as everyone should on veterans day to thank them for their service and sacrifice they and all their families made across the country. there are 2,000 american soldiers deployed right now. what does this mean on a

platform that is supposed to be beyond politics? joining me now, the founder of the iraq and afghanistan organization, who has spent time helping veterans. good morning, paul rykoff. you were outspoken today on the president's choice to speak in new york and you made clear you were boycotting the veterans day parade. what did you make, then, of what you heard from the president? >> he was fine. he didn't drag us into politics, which is good. but his presence still politicizes an event that is not supposed to be about him. it's about unity, it's about cohesion, it's about no politics. with his avrrrival, it just politicized everything.

the kpacomparison i made was imagine he was coming to your wedding. there's no way it's not politicized. so now you're celebrating him and the grand marshals that are there. to me it's just politicizing our veterans over and over again. >> that's a fair criticism, and that gets to something you and i have talked about on the whole politicization of the military or using the military and service members as a political backdrop that you and i have talked about a lot. on a day where everything does feel overly political, how do you get it right? >> you try to put it on pause for one day and focus on the policies. don't talk about the politics. he did try to talk about the people who have served, battle of the bulge, all generations, but i wish all politicians would stay away for the day.

if it was up to me, the governor, all of them stay home. >> and then tell them not to criticize the president -- >> there's been times on political campaigns -- >> he's the commander in chief. >> but he's not our normal commander in chief, right? a week ago he was attacking lieutenant colonel vindman who was a decorated officer. the week before he was attacking john mccain. it goes on and on and on. he hasn't been to the parade any other year, and now he wants to come when everybody is talking about impeachment. he pivot to ss to the military uses them as a backdrop and a shield. >> let's bring attention to the common thread over the years that you've been nice enough to join me. the single biggest issue the veterans are dealing with is suicide. it makes me wonder if you see

any progress, or is there any hope? or what needs to be discussed? or what hasn't been done? our conversations don't change when it comes to this. >> there is hope. in the early days, we had to fight to get people to talk about suicide, to get them to talk about this mental health menace that is taking as many as 20 veterans a day. today is an example of a missed opportunity on behalf of the president. he could have launched a national agenda to focus on veteran suicide. that is something everyone would have rallied behind. it's a little more creative. it's definitely more strategic. but we're losing more veterans every day to suicide than any enemy. this could be a galvanized solution if done right. >> we need to focus on that as well, and we can remember that on this veterans day. if you would stick with me, because before we go, there is one tribute for veterans we want to live you with. last night veteran pete dupree

sang the anthem before the basketball game. he stole the show. listen to this. ♪ >> thank you, mr. dupre. our hat is off to you, sir, not everyone else. thanks to paul. we'll be right back. about vehicle quality. and when they were done, chevy earned more j.d. power quality awards across cars, trucks and suvs than any other brand over the last four years. so on behalf of chevrolet, i want to say

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welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing this veterans day with us. a critical new impeachment chapter. public hearings this week plus a rare holiday court hearing to help determine if the president's chief of staff and former national security adviser can be compelled to testify. plus the president draws a line for fellow republicans. do not, he says, say that quid pro quo in ukraine was wrong but doesn't warrant impeachment. but some republicans are making that case. the key now is whether public hearings cause