>> this is "new day" with alisyn camerota and john berman. >> we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is "new day." it is tuesday, december 17th, 6:00 here in new york. and tomorrow president trump will likely become the third u.s. president ever to be impeached. in just a few hours, the house rules committee will provide the final groundwork for this historic event setting guidelines before the full house votes. democrats are signaling that they have the numbers including votes from several members whose districts supported president trump. now this comes as a brand new cnn poll finds that americans are split on impeachment but support for it has dropped. it is at 45%. that's how many believe that president trump should be impeached and removed from office, 47% do not. breaking joefr nigovernight president's personal attorney rudy giuliani admitting to some of the very action that helped lead to impeachment, or you

might call it confessing, maybe even bragging. in one interview giuliani said he needed to get the former ambassador to ukraine out of the way because she was going to make investigations into the president's rivals difficult for everybody. that's a quote. and then in a new interview overnight, giuliani sort of implicated his boss. he said he briefed president trump a couple of times earlier this year about removing ambassador marie yovanovitch, and the president said basically turn it over to secretary of state mike pompeo. again, all this is coming out a day before the president is almost definitely going to be impeached. giuliani is basically running around saying, yeah, i did it. a lot to get to this morning beginning with what we will see today on capital hill. cnn's suzanne malveaux is there. >> reporter: good morning, john. the impeachment process is moving at a rapid pace now. the scale and the scope of the full house vote, that is going to be determined today in the rules committee as house lawmakers are now preparing for this very historic occasion.

>> the house on the brink of a historic vote tomorrow to impeach president trump. in just hours, the house rules committee will hold what is likely to be a contentious hearing to mark up the two articles of impeachment charging the president with abusing his power and obstructing congress. democrats signaling they have the votes after several democrats in districts president trump won in 2016 announcing they support impeachment. >> it took me quite some time to kind of get through all of the data, all of the testimony, and make a good choice. the evidence is overwhelming, and it is my constitutional responsibility to make that difficult vote. >> congresswoman elissa slotkin holding a town hall in michigan monday causing a mixed reaction. >> i made this decision out of principal and out of a duty to protect and defend the constitution. i feel that in my bones, and i will stick to that regardless of what it does to me politically

because this is bigger than politics. >> reporter: across capitol hill, the senate prepares for its impending trial. in a letter to mitch mcconnell, chuck schumer calling for four crucial witnesses including acting chief of staff mick mulvaney and former national security adviser john bolton. >> trials have witnesses. that's what trials are all about. these people know better than anybody else the facts. there is no reason on god's green earth why they shouldn't be called and testify unless you're afraid of what they might say. >> reporter: the white house responding saying senator schumer's letter is just more proof that the only evidence the house produced actually proves president trump did nothing wrong. the senate needs a 51-vote majority to passkey measures regarding the trial so democrats only need four republicans to join them to compel witnesses to testify or other procedural

motions. the debate putting a handful of vulnerable senate republicans in the spotlight. sources tell cnn the white house and gop leaders are worried about the uncertainty of how those senators would vote on trial-related issues. >> i think that for all senators and certainly senate republicans, they have to make sure that this process doesn't seem like a sham, like it's a slam dunk as senator mcconnell has said. >> reporter: house judiciary chairman jerry nadler who would normally attend the rules committee pamarkup has a family emergency. he's not going to be doing that and said congressman jamie raskin will be filling in for him. >> our thoughts are with his family. suzanne malveaux live on capitol hill. we have a brand new cnn poll with revealing numbers on impeachment including where do voters stand in the key battleground states. maybe not exactly where you think. that's next.

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. we have a brand new cnn poll showing where the nation stands on the idea of impeaching and removing the president from office. here's a tease, pretty split. cnn's political director david chalian here with these numbers. >> you're absolutely right. this is a country divided when it comes to this issue of

impeachment. look at these brand new numbers. 45% say yes, the president should be impeached and removed from office. 47% say no. take a look at this yes number over time. i want to show you that once the ukraine scandal became public in september, support for impeachment has hovered between 45 and 50%. that's nearly half the country saying the president should be impeached and removed from office. take a look at our poll by party, and i think it's really instructive. the little bit of decline that we see in support for impeachment mostly driven by democrats. it was 90% support in november, now down to 77. independents hold steady a little decline among republicans as well. how about the next step. is the senate trial going to change your mind? is that likely or not? look at this number, 50% in this poll say not likely at all to change their mind in a senate trial. and will this help or hurt the president's re-election chances we asked? the plurality, 37% say no difference, but look among those

that say it is going to make a difference, 32% say it's going to help the president. 25% say it's going to hurt, and look at this by party, john. i think this is fascinating. 40% of democrats say it's going to hurt the president, but 54% of republicans, a majority of republicans think this impeachment matter is going to help the president get reelected. and of course his overall approval rating still rock steady, 43% approve of his job in this poll, 53% disapprove. when you look at that number over time, his approval rating just this year in 2019, john, look at this, he operates in such a narrow band whether it's months before impeachment was on the radar or now on the cusp of being impeached by the house of representatives. this president's approval rating remains very steady. >> really interesting. thank you very much. stay with us if you would, we have more questions for you. joining us now rachael bade cnn

political analyst, i'm interested in the democratic support that's gone from 90% down to 77%, which i think is notable, and i think that you have heard democrats behind the scenes. i think you have, at least expressing some cold feet about some of this, and so it's just brea interesting as the elected officials have to make a decision tomorrow and particularly the moderates and you're seeing that public support even among their party drop. >> yeah, i mean, it's really interesting. cleary you're seeing democrats, at least some of them come around to nancy pelosi's thinking. i mean, the speaker has always said that impeachment is a political loser. i mean, she didn't think this was something that would hold, that would sort of rise to 60% or higher in terms of support for impeaching and removing the president, and i think that that is what you're starting to see because, you know, the public, they've sort of been watching this for a while. perhaps people are becoming numb, and those numbers that

were at the 50% mark are starting to come down, and i think that a lot of moderate democrats who are in these battleground districts have been predicting this and worrying about this, and now they're starting to see it. so they're really taking a second look. should they vote for this or not. i will say, you know, there was a big day for democrats yesterday in terms of getting a bunch of moderate lawmakers that they thought might vote no actually coming out on the record and saying they will vote yes. a part of that calculus is to realize these moderates are in a bad place either way they go. either they're going to upset republicans in their districts or they're going to alienate their base. what i've been hearing from a lot of them. they might as well vote their conscience. they're going to get hit either way from either side. they're going to do what they think is best, and a lot of them think that trump deserves to be impeached, even if they're worried about the politics. >> i think that's the biggest story from overnight is that a number of these more moderate democrats in trump districts

have come out in favor of impeachment early, in fact, indicating to me that maybe it wasn't as hard of a decision for them as we might have thought. if you had asked me two of the top five democrats who would vote against it, i would have said mcadams from utah and joe cunningham from south carolina, and both of them came out in support of it last night. i wonder why you think that might be, and i just want to point to one other number here in our poll, which is that you break down the numbers by battleground states, the 15 battleground states in the country, and it's pretty much dead even. >> which surprised me, john, i've got to say. i was expecting to see a difference between those 15 most competitive states in the country versus the overall national picture. you're right, it is a still split country when you look at those battleground states. i think that explains why those moderate democrats. i think everybody in their camp on this showed a lot of those moderate democrats that there wasn't huge political danger in voting against the president

here and voting for his impeachment and removal from office, and i'll also just offer one other thought about the dedlid decli decline, and i don't want to overdo the decline of democrats. that 13 point decline is not necessarily earth shatshatterin. it's just where the movement was in the poll. the last poll was taken right on the heels of the house intelligence committee hearings when all the evidence was being put forth publicly. since then, it's really been much more about the politics of this. that's when you might imagine the democrats were most engaged and enthused about this process be -- prospect. >> we have a good example of what moderate democrats might have to face at their town halls and just the split reaction they're getting everyon from th own constituents. elissa slotkin from michigan was trying to state her case to her

constituents and she got the gamut of responses in this town hall. watch this moment of jitters. >> what was fundamentally different to me is that the president decided to do this for his own political gain and not for the national security interests of the united states. >> there's just a lot percolating there, rachel of people, some people were calling out objecting to what she said, and then when she said i've decided to do it, some people gave her a standing ovation. >> i talked to her last week, her response was i'm hearing from a ton of people in my district. the phones are ringing off the hooks. people just keep calling, and she said most of the calls she was getting were telling her to vote against impeachment, but she said there are some decisions that leaders make, and she was elected by the people of her district to make these tough choices where she's got to think about what she thinks is right, and it was pretty clear at that moment, that even though she

didn't say she was going to vote for impeachment i could sense something was sort of weighing on her conscience in terms of the voters not wanting her to back it in her district but feeling like she had an obligation to do so, and she thought that that was the right choice. i will also say one other thing that's getting moderates through is this sort of sense that they're ripping the band-aid off as i heard from one moderate democrats, getting this over before the holiday season and are able to turn back to legislating in the beginning of 2020 to give them, you know, more than three quarters of a year to campaign on legislative issues that they hope will get them reelected. >> not even turning back in the new year, they're turning back thursday when they get to vote on trade issues and today when they get to vote on the budget. nancy pelosi made sure of that. friends, stand by. we have this question, what's rudy giuliani doing? seriously. what is he doing. more or less admitting or confessing to some of the conduct that has led to the impeachment of his client, the president of the united states, his astounding new comments

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so we are on the eve, well, the morning of the eve of donald trump -- >> really getting ready. >> donald trump's about to become the third president in u.s. history to be impeached. >> it looks that way. >> what is his personal attorney doing overnight? basically confessing to some of the conduct that has led to this impeachment. this is what he told the "new york times" overnight. giuliani said on monday that he provided president trump with detailed information this year about how the united states ambassador to ukraine was in mr.

giuliani's view impeding investigations that could benefit mr. trump setting in motion the ambassador's recall from her post. i want to bring back david chalian and rachael bade. there was also this quote from the new yorker, they did a piece on this too, where giuliani said i believed that i needed yovanovitch out of the way. she was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody. >> thank you for clarifying, mayor. we really appreciate you putting a finer point on it, which everybody's been talking about. >> i'll just say this again, this is what makes republicans nervous. it's what makes mitch mcconnell nervous. when rudy giuliani goes out there and says words out loud, it's a problem for republicans depend defending the president. >> yeah, i know, before the break you had the question what is rudy doing? i hear that all the time on capitol hill from republicans, but it's sort of funny because they try to silo him, everyone though he's causing problems for trump by bringing this all back up and even admitting something

we knew before hand. they try to silo him and saying oh, it's just rudy being rudy. rudy being crazy rudy. this is the president's attorney, and he is acting on behalf of the president when he goes to ukraine in the middle of an impeachment investigation and tries to do what he was doing before, which is get these investigations on trump's political rivals. i think the striking thing about these stories is the lack of remorse he has shown for what happened to yovanovitch, who had this amazing career and she's still at the state department. now, she's on leave right now, but she still considered an active state department employee, and here he is, you know, bringing this back up. you would think he would want to stay away from the limelight and keep this under the radar. no, he does two blockbuster interviews on this and totally admits with no remorse. >> david, as fbi director chris wray warned everyone last week, consider the source. when you hear right wing talking

points, he said you must consider the source. you know what the source is for rudy giuliani's theories and everything that he has been working on for the past year? these two demonstrably corrupt disgraced prosecutors who internationally were known as the diamond prosecutors because when police raided their team's offices and homes, they found bags of diamonds which i don't think was part of payroll, and police put two and two together and felt that everybody was on the take for accepting bribes. oh, by the way, those two, you know, we're talking about lutsenko and sh lutsenko shokin who wanted marie yovanovitch out. and they also have admitted to fabricating the information they gave giuliani about her. these are the sources that giuliani i guess is still believing and president trump has come to believe.

>> apparently team trump is only looking to root out certain kinds of corruption, not necessarily all kinds of corruption. but, guys, like lawyer like client here, right? what rudy giuliani is saying out loud, president trump has said out loud. he said it out loud to zelensky when he talked about yovanovitch on the phone call on july 25th and that she was a bad person and he -- on the south lawn also said out loud about wanting ukraine to investigate the bidens. they should absolutely do that. this is not just rudy giuliani on a one-off, this is a pattern of behavior from the president himself. >> yeah, and again, i think you both make the key point here, which is this isn't just an issue of giuliani. it's an issue of the president of the united states, and the president has admitted to or confessed to much of the conduct for which he will be impeached tomorrow, and the question

ultimately is do republicans want to give him a pass on that or do they feel in the senate that it's not worth the removal ratio. all i'm saying is that it just presents an appearance problem for the president. what possibly does he have to gain by giuliani talking today, tomorrow on the eve of the impeachment vote? >> nothing. i mean, bad headlines, again, this yovanovitch was somebody who had a stellar career, rooted out corruption in the places that she worked, and here he is openly admitting that he tried to oust her for reasons that, i mean, clearly siding with corrupt former ukrainian prosecutors who their legitimacy was very much in question. i don't see what he has to gain on this. i don't think any republicans on the hill would either. >> all right. rachel, david, thank you both very much. meanwhile, tornados are carving a deadly path of destruction through the south u.s. we are live on the ground in the

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gun town, mississippi. what are you seeing around you, nick? >> good morning, alisyn. those tornados, nearly 30 of them ripping across a huge swath of the southeast affecting states like alabama, louisiana, and here in mississippi. this is gun town mississippi, a bedroom community as described by the mayor, about 2,500 residents. most of them live here and work in nearby tupelo. this is the subdivision that took the brunt of the damage of the tornado that came through here yesterday afternoon. i mentioned they have 2,500 residents. the mayor said they're lucky. those who were injured, a man and a woman were actually trying to take shelter as that tornado was ripping through here. they were knocked down by the wind. the mayor credits a reverse weather alert system sent to land lines and cell phones to alert residents that a tornado was on its way. later this morning, you can see behind me here, a fire truck has just shown up. you have police personnel making sure people don't enter the subdivision. a mayor said emergency

management officials with the county will be out assessing the damage. they have a church entirely lifted off its foundation in addition to the subdivision that was hit. they don't know what they're dealing with here until daylight comes. they're going to figure out if they need state or federal funding to fix what happened here. >> nick valencia for us, please keep us posted as the light comes up. meanwhile, that storm system heading to the northeast bringing ice and snow. cnn meteorologist chad myers joins us live with the forecast. my boys have a three-hour delay this morning, chad. >> yes, and my son a two-hour delay in zionsville. ice is the problem today across parts of connecticut. snow to the north of there into massachusetts and upstate new york. but it's the ice that will cause the problem from binghamton to province. this brought to you by jared, dare to be devoted. state college northward, scranton ice, in the higher elevations you are going to see

significant icing on these very hilly roads. that's the problem today. take your time or don't even leave until well after the sun comes up. it will be rain across the south today, no tornados. there were big tornados yesterday. there were tornados with at least 150 miles per hour winds. these were not your just small things. they were large and on the ground a very long time. even tonight until 6:30. it's still snowing in boston. finally pulls away later on tonight, and things look a little better by tomorrow, just some lake effect snow and cooler wind. but if you're flying today, call the airline or look on your app because many of these planes will be late or even in some places canceled. >> i can't think of a better exasperated sigh than you just gave. i think you spoke for the nation with that sigh. thank you very much. just days before a crucial presidential debate, it is still unclear whether the candidates will show up. why all seven democrats say they muf might have to skip it next.

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a brand new quinnipiac poll shows former vice president joe biden expanding his overall lead over the democratic field. 30% of support among democratic and independent voters. this is nationally. senators elizabeth warren and bernie sanders are running neck in neck for second place with 17 and 16%.

joining us now is andrew gill em cnn political commentator and former florida political candidate. great to see you. >> good morning, you all. >> have you been surprised by joe biden's steadiness in the polls? >> we learned the lesson after probably the first debate when he got taken on in the debate stage and came out, you know, as good if not better even after that, and that trend has kind of continued. obviously for joe biden this is a good poll. obviously the one cautionary note is it is a national poll, and we've got iowa and new hampshire and nevada and south carolina to come before, and if you look back to 2004, john kerry was not leading at this point in iowa. if you look in 2008, barack obama wasn't leading at this point. that's not to say the same will be true for joe biden, but it is to say that i think there is still room for, you know, a shift to take place over the next month or so. >> there is a debate on thursday night on pbs, cnn is airing it as well.

it could not come at a more important time as far as i'm concerned. this is the last chance, i think, voters will get to see the candidates before the christmas break. coming out of new year's it will be shot out of a cannon heading to iowa and new hampshire. what needs to happen for these candidates, or what are the dynamic you're looking for thursday night? >> i think joe biden, the attempt to sort of take him down with attacks really isn't necessarily the stride you want to strike. i think you want to go high. i think you want to be aspirational. if you're elizabeth warren, i'm guessing you probably are going to entangle a little bit with pete buttigieg. you've seen some of the slippage she's experienced be to his benefit. she's come under some additional scrutiny since the last time they won the debate. sta stage. i am a little bit concerned about the fact that you're going to see not the most diverse stage that we have become accustomed to in the democratic primary field, and in some ways we're a little bit sort of

the -- we're being affected by our success. we saw a very diverse debate stage over the last year, and now we'll see a stage that will almost be exclusively white maybe with one exception. >> andrew yang. >> that's right. with one exception, and the harm to that is i think there will be a constituency of people out there who have now been exposed to the rich diversity of our party and will now look at this stage and say, wait a minute, something's different here. what does it mean not to have a booker or a harris or a castro who i think has been particularly effective with some of his racial analysis not on that stage. i fear what that might mean for the democratic base. >> at the moment, if you ask black voters, they don't seem -- they certainly seem to be rallying around joe biden, 52% is their support for joe biden. so in terms of there being a void on the stage, maybe

optically, but they seem to be very comfortable -- >> again, joe biden continues to grow strong support amongst the african-american community, and it has been a resilient one. that isn't to say, burglary for that group of voters that are still hanging out there yet to be decided that they aren't looking for certain elements, conversations, certain exchanges to take place on that debate stage to further cement them. we're not going to get where we need to go unless we have an enthusiastic riled up base of voters who are marching to the polls quite frankly, and i think, you know, i want to see us do everything we can to keep that enthusiasm level as high as we can. >> there's a labor dispute at this college where they're holding the debate, and right now all of the candidates who are going to be on the debate stage say they won't cross the picket line. what percentage chance in your mind mayor that this doesn't get resolved by thursday night? >> it better get resolved. one, i trust that each of the campaigns and the candidates are being sincere and honest, they're not going to cross a

picket line. that's a big deal for a party that embraces labor and organized labor so strongly. i've got to imagine that between our debate host, those of us here as well as the dnc will have to work very vigorously to ensure that this comes to some kind of a resolve. i expect that it will, and i'm also looking forward to quite frankly seeing the new dynamics that exist on this stage. >> i mean, it's a small stage. >> tiny compared to what we're seeing. >> it gives you a chance to pull back the layers a little bit. i think no one's going to get a breath. you're going to have to basically show your endurance through this debate. be prepared to answer tough questions. be prepared for follow-ups, and i think it will be illuminating to those of us who are going to be watching. >> great to see you. great to get your perspective. >> merry christmas, happy holidays. >> my wife made some christmas cookies. make sure you take some of the

way out. >> they're gorgeous. watch the pbs news hour, "politico" democratic presidential debate live from los angeles on cnn. coverage starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern thursday night. drew brees is a record breaker. what he's done more times than any other nfl quarterback in history. >> really? >> it's actually true, but you know the guy i like. >> i know the guy you like. >> he's like one pass behind tuat this point? >> but that's okay. >> drew brees record holder. we'll tell you why. no matter how much life pushes us around...

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this was an incredible race among probably three of the top five quarterbacks in the game of football in all of its history, but it was drew brees, not tom brady, that caught peyton manning for the most touchdown passes in nfl history. andy scholes has more in this morning's breeleacher report. >> he's the perfect example of hard work paying off. he's never been the biggest or fastest, just 6 feet tall, but when it comes to heart and perseverance hard to find somebody better than brees. brees finds josh hill right here for a touchdown. with that score, brees passing peyton manning with the most

touchdowns in history. brees outstanding in this one, he completed 29 of his 30 passes, which is also an nfl record. the 40-year-old clearly still at the top of his game. the saints win this one 34 to 7 on a special night in new orleans. >> you know, you don't really think about these things, especially when you first enter. i can remember as a young player, was trying to become a starter someday maybe, maybe be able to make a little bit of an impact. it's hard to believe here we are 19 years later and having a chance to, you know, do some of these things. these special moments are special because of the people that are on this journey. joe burrow's acceptance speech has triggered more than $300,000 of donations to hungry children in southeast ohio. the lsu quarterback held back tears as he talked about the poverty in his hometown of athens, ohio. those words inspired a resident

to create a fundraiser for residents living under the poverty line. he set a goal of $50,000, and donations have already topped $327,000, and they're still climbing. pretty cool to see something so good come out of that speech. >> that's fantastic. >> and the power of the platf m platform. that is just remarkable that he's using his platform. you can use it however you want, you know, for good or bad, and he's using it and just -- i mean, i'm sure it even surprised him how much he's been able to raise with that. thank you. so president trump's ambassador in hungary is taking that relationship in a new direction, cozying up to the country's far right government and peddlining conspiracy theors that link back to president trump. clarissa ward is live in london with more. what have you learned? >> reporter: what ambassador david cornsteen may not be a household name in the u.s. but he's very good friends with many people, including the president, and also rudy giuliani the president's personal lawyer who

went to visit him in budapest the week before last, but let me tell you, in hungary he's making some waves. a controversial character. take a look. it was an independence day to remember hosted by one of president trump's oldest friends, the u.s. ambassador to hungary david cornstein. like the president, cornstein enjoys putting on a show. sunger paul -- singer paul anka flown in to serenade viktor orban. >> it is my distinct pleasure and great honor to introduce my partner and my friend the prime minister of hungary, our guest of honor, viktor orban. >> reporter: four years ago such a fawning display would have

been unthinkable, but under president trump the u.s./hungarian relationship is blossoming once again. and that's in no small part due to the appointment of ambassador david cornstein, an 81-year-old jewelry magnet from new york city with no relevant political experience beyond a decade's old friendship with the president. >> i became a diplomat. who the hell would have figured that. i became a diplomat. >> reporter: political appointees on both sides of the aisle are often inexperienced and sometimes ineffective, but cornstein has a direct line of communication with the president. he was as the result tall in arranging a white house visit for orban despite protests from both parties. >> probably like me a little bit controversial, but that's okay. that's okay. you've done a good job. >> reporter: one of orban's many controversial moves has been to

force the u.s. accredited graduate school central european university, founded and funded by george soros, out of hungary. cau president says that while cornstein publicly vowed to help the university in its dispute, privately he quickly capitulated to orban. >> why would he be unwilling to push for an issue that's so clearly in americans interests? >> i don't understand to tell you the truth, but somehow i think mr. cornstein began to think, huh, this is a liberal institution. i'm closer to a conservative like orban than i am to the ideals of the institution, and what's disturbing about that is that shouldn't be the issue. >> reporter: for the government here, his appointment has been a gift bringing hungary back into the u.s.'s good books while appearing to demand no real concessions. >> for the past two years, since the coming of the new ambassador, we believe it's a new chapter we have opened.

the previous chapter was a necessary burden with the kind of ideological debates and pressure that was coming from the democrats and was basically derailing u.s., hungarian relationships. >> cornsteen's office declined a cnn request for interview citing the ambassador's busy schedule, but when by chance we bumped into him at a budapest restaurant, he sat with us and let us ask a couple of questions on our cell phones. >> what do you say to people who say that you're too friendly with prime minister orban? what's your response to that? >> my response is the same as if you asked me about my r relationship with my wife. we're married 50 years, and we have a good relationship, but we have our days where they're not so good. the same thing is true with the prime minister. >> but that's a close relationship then?

>> it's a good relationship where we have established the trust with each other and where i can tell him where i think he's making a mistake with what he's doing in a respectful manner. >> reporter: ambassador cornstein soon asked us to stop recording, but off camera we asked him about his recent dinner here with rudy giuliani. he would only say that the men are close personal friends, and that he hadn't even asked giuliani about the purpose of his visit here. throughout the conversation, though, cornstein seemed unfazed by criticism that has come his way. he told us simply i report to one man only, and that is the president of the united states. and so far nobody has told me they don't like the results of what i'm doing. privately, though, some fear that the ambassador's actions undermine american interests here and that trump's disregard for diplomatic norms could deal

a blow that will last much longer than cornstein's tenure and have repercussions far beyond hungary. >> really fascinating to hear this story, but political appointees as we know are often inexperienced, so how is this situation different? >> reporter: that's an important point, alisyn, on both sides of the aisle. president obama famously appointed a producer of the soap opera "the bold and the beautiful" to be his ambassador to hungary. this is nothing new. the difference is traditionally, even if an ambassador is a political appointee, is politically very inexperienced, they work closely with the diplomatic service, with the staff, with those career diplomats and work towards implementing u.s. policy and, you know, forwarding or fulfilling u.s. interests in those areas. with cornstein what you see is he's really cut from the same clothe as his boss.

he believes the cultivation of personal relationships is much more important than diplomatic norms and protocols. >> great illustrations that you've brought us, clarissa, thank you very much for all of that reporting. the late night comedy hosts, they seem set for this week in history when president trump will almost certainly be impeached. that in your late night laughs. >> giuliani was recently in ukraine meeting with disgraced prosecutors and trying to dig up more dirt on the bidens. rudy claims we have found multiple crimes the bidens have committed, extortion, bribery, and money laundering and to back it up, he had a handwritten diagram titled bribery, parenthesis, crime. oh, i'm sorry, that's his to-do list. in an impeachment trial, the senate is the jury. it is their constitutional duty to be impartial. mcconnell sees that slightly differently. >> everything i do during this i'm coordinating with white

house counsel. i'm going to coordinate with the president's lawyers so there won't be any difference on us on how to do this. i'm going to take my cues are from the president's lawyers. >> how is that okay? that's like one of the jurors standing up at the beginning of a trial, your honor, we think the defendant's a really good guy. we're going to be coordinating with him throughout the trial. we'd also like to give him his knife back, there you go, jack, keep on ripping brother. >> rand told a crowd this weekend, i made up my mind. i'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here. really? you should at least pretend. >> he makes some interesting points. >> indeed. again, comedy or just reading the news out loud. >> all right, more moderate democrats are going on the record in the final hours before impeachment, and "new day" continues right now. >> today house leaders plan to begin bringing the articles to the floor setting up a historic

final vote tomorrow. >> when it came down to the articles of impeachment, there is no crime. >> the white house and president trump's top allies are concerned about a handful of republican senators whose views on impeachment remain unclear. >> mcconnell clearly wants to avoid this whole thing entirely. >> he hasn't heard all the evidence. he doesn't know all of the facts. >> there's no doubt this won't be a fair process. >> the president is entitled to due process. he has been denied that at every turn. >> there is no reason on god's green earth why they shouldn't be called to testify, unless you're afraid of what they might say. >> this is "new day" with alisyn camerota and john berman. welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is "new day." so remember these names because history will. andrew johnson, bill clinton, donald trump. by tomorrow night they will be the only presidents in u.s. history ever to be impeached. this morning there will be