>> i was on the phone call. >> that july call at the heart of the house impeachment investigation, with pompeo now in a stand-off with democrats, accusing them of bullying state department staff, and president trump throwing a grenade into the mix, tweeting impeachment proceedings are a koup. you know the house speaker will have something to say about that. she is appearing live with the chairman who has tasked on running point on impeachment. the president is going to hold his own press conference this afternoon right around the time when we expect the inspector general to brief staffers. we've got our nbc news team here with another day of fast moving developments, along with analysis from former white house state department and national security officials. we also have a live report from moscow with vladimir putin apparently has the president's back. i want to start with peter alexander with the latest from the white house, jeff bennest following the action on capitol

hill inside the room where we will see house speaker nancy pelosi later on this hour in just about 40 minutes or so. peter, i want to start with you. for the first time we are hearing from secretary of state mike pompeo who is overseas about his role, his involvement in that call that's at the heart now of this whistle-blower complaint and impeachment inquiry. >> hallie, you're exactly right. this is the first time that we are hearing mike pompeo address the reports, confirmed by nbc news that he was on that july phone call between president trump and ukraine's president, president zelensky there. as you noted, pompeo is traveling today in italy and he did not elaborate on the call, though he was pressed on it beyond that. he didn't say anything else about whether it raised any red flags for him. but here's what he did say and notably on the back end of this sound bite you'll see he addressed the u.s. policy toward ukraine more broadly. take a listen. >> i was on the phone call. it's what our team, including ambassador volker were focused on, was taking down the threat

that russia poses there in ukraine. it was about helping the ukrainians to get graft out and corruption outside of their government. >> he says the u.s. policy toured ukraine has been remarkably consistent here, but recognize the backdrop to all of this, of course, is this real clash taking place right now between the secretary of state, mike pompeo, and house democrats with both sides trading accusations effectively pompeo accusing the democrats of trying to intimidate state department officials who house democrats want to hear from. the democrats say that basically he is trying to obstruct right now, if he is to block them from testifying. and then the backdrop to all of this is the president's real frustrations about this whistle-blower call. let me show you this tweet that the president posted only within the last several hours that's raising -- or last night that's raising a lot of eye browse. he writes as i learn more and more each day i am coming to the

conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a coup. those are the words of the president of the united states. of course swore an oath to protect the constitution, impeachment is ensh rind in the constitution as the way that a president can be removed from office, as opposed to a coup, which is an illegal, often violent means of overthrowing a government, hallie. >> jeff bennett, i imagine that house speaker nancy pelosi when we see her in just over a half hour here may have a thing or two to say about what the president has to say. she's going to be joined by chairman adam schiff of the intelligence committee, which is a really indication that she and he will want to talk about this impeachment inquiry, no? >> you're right about that, hallie. and it will be a rare press briefing, rare because the house speaker doesn't typically brief reporters while congress is on break. and it will be the first time we'll hear from leaders pelosi and schiff together since speaker pelosi announced the opening of a formal impeachment inquiry into president trump just some eight days ago. so that's what we're tracking this morning. later this afternoon, sometime

in the 3:00 hour we're expecting to see the state department inspector general ig, or inspector general, is going to show up on the senate side for the urgent briefing that he's requested with those senior congressional staffers of the relevant committees. we don't know the specific substance of this urgent matter. we do know, however, that it came after the secretary of state mike pompeo initially brushed back those house democrat demands for the depositions for those five current and former state department officials who are relevant in this ongoing impeachment inquiry. we know from a staffer that this letter was kript clee worded and we also know that it has to do with documents that the ig's office obtained from a legal adviser in the state department. so that suggests that there's a paper trail that could be material to this ongoing impeachment inquiry. the timing here is important because the briefing happens before these relevant committees will hear from at least two of the five current and former state department officials that they've deposed, hallie. >> including curt volker

tomorrow, and i know this is staffers, right, not lawmakers that are going to get briefed bri the ig over at stay? >> that's right. >> jeff bennett, peter alexander, thank you both. we also want to get to other breaking news this morning. relaltd to this, vladimir putin speak wg our team here at nbc news. and you know what, he has some things to say about the whistle-blower complaint that is the center of this impeachment investigation. nbc's senior international correspondent joins us from moscow. the only journalist questioning the russian president this morning at the forum. a couple of headlines, including president putin seems to give president trump some backup on this whole impeachment thing, right? >> reporter: that's right, saying that president trump's critics are using any pretexts to attack president trump, that is president putin weighing in on behalf of president trump in this political battle in washington, and equating that call to ukraine and

investigation into that call with the investigation into russian meddling in the 2016 election. hallie, i asked him specifically about robert mueller's conclusion that russia had attempted to influence the 2016 election and in that evidence to congress that russia was going to -- was already trying to intervene in the 2020 election, and president putin responded to that with a classic piece of what you could call putin trolling, joking about it. take a listen. >> is russia, as robert mueller alleged, attempting to influence the 2020 elections in the united states? >> translator: i'll tell you in a secret, yes, we'll definitely intervene, it's a secret, so that everybody can laugh and so

we'll go big. but don't tell anyone, please. >> reporter: as you can hear there, i think it went down well with the audience here in moscow, but i'm not sure how it will be received in washington. support from president putin for president trump, you can see that that will be pretty divisive. and another thing, i pressed him on the question of how he would interpret if the administration published rough transcripts of calls between president putin and president trump the way they have between president trump and the leader, the new leader of ukraine. he seemed pretty relaxed about this, and hallie, senior russian official said to me if they published transcripts of the conversations between president trump and president putin, president putin would look good, hallie. so we made news on a number of front. i don't know if you remember, back at the g-20 in germany you

and i both tried to get a question to president putin a few years ago. i think i managed to get about 30 questions to him. so you've got a bit of catching up to do. >> you're varsity, i know where i stand. thank you, great work out there in moscow. i appreciate i. thank you, that's really interesting stuff. i want to bring in our national security and diplomatic experts. served as ambassador to russia under president bush and john mclaughlin also served in the bush 43 administration as cia acting director. also on set, former white house senior director for national security and economic policy in the obama administration, and was also a former state department senior adviser. we have brought you on because you are all experts in your fields here. and what we're talking about, ambassador, i want to start with you. voi vladimir putin defending president trump in his whistle-blower complaint. he knows what he's doing politically, as you have now the secretary of state saying, yeah, i was on that phone call with

the leader of ukraine. what stands out to you in the new developments this morning? >> well, first of all, i think president trump will see putin as paying him a compliment by taking a page from his book and dismissing the whole issue of election interference, a very serious issue, with a joke. and i think it reflects the fact that putin is in a very good mood about all that's happening in the united states. this plays to russia's advantage. russia is the big winner in all of this. he can revel in the further polarization of the person political system and he can also take comfort in the fact that trump is clearly putting his own personal interests ahead of the security of ukraine, which has been the victim of russian direct aggression. and i think he can say to ukraine the u.s. doesn't have your back anymore, trump doesn't care about you, so you're going to have to settle on terms that are more favorable to moscow than would justifiably be the case. >> he's playing this geo-politically? >> definitely. he's been pursuing a very clear goal in ukraine since he annexed

crimea, and he wants to prevent ukraine from getting any closer to nato and the european union. and if it means making ukraine into a failed state, he'll do that. and i think, as i said, by focusing much more on domestic politics than on ukraine's security, trump is playing into putin's hands. >> you also as we look ahead to the activities in the events that are going to unfold over the next 40 minutes, we have adam schiff, nancy pelosi coming up soon and then this later, and you know this well, the state department inspector general with this urgent concern that he wants to talk with congressional staffers about. this feels unusual. have you seen this before? >> no, and this is part of the challenge. this is usually something that works internally and is responded to respectfully. but to have a president of the united states use word salad and word bombs effectively like coup, civil war, it's very obvious that he's trying to distract from what is a formal legal proceeding. when president trump was first elected, a lot of national

security professionals and folks in general started talking about how there will be adults in the room to help manage him. and what we're seeing now, that the actual adults in the room is the democratic leadership and congress. they're doing this calmly, methodically, making a case to the american public and following rule of law, where as the president of the united states is the one who is trying to to be the toddler in chief. >> and yet, john, we have the secretary of state who is out trying to defend his state department employees. here's what he said this morning. i think we have the sound bite we can roll about the idea that congress is bullying some of the people who work for him. what he said, bottom line, john. what do you make of that? is secretary of state mike pompeo defending his people or playing politics? >> this is a classic case of where you stand depends on where you sit. when secretary pompeo was in the congress he spoke very differently about this sort of thing. he was the most aggressive questioner when secretary clinton was on the firing line

over events in the administration. so where you stand depends on where you sit. i think -- you know, i think secretary pompeo, who is a smart and capable person is starting to feel the heat here because of his support for president clinton and he's also a smart politician who i think we don't see evidence of this yet, must be now calculating just where is this going. i think we do look with great interest to the inspector general's report from the state department today. >> ambassador, how significant is it to you that pompeo was on this call? >> well, i think it's significant only because he first appeared to deny it and only later admitted it. so it creates some suspicion about just how deeply he is involved in all of this. but i also am very concerned that his sudden concern about the interests of the professional diplomats at the state department doesn't ring very true when he did nothing to

stand up for the ambassador when she was being smeared by rudy giuliani and suspect characters in ukraine. all of the sudden he's caring about not bullying those professional diplomats. that's a little hard to take. >> you also served as an adviser to speaker pelosi back before she was speaker. can you talk about what you expect to see from her today given the developments and given how she has handled these proceedings so far? what is the ex sppectation. >> she was certainly not on the forefront of any impeachment inquiry and was not -- has always been saying that this is a matter of what is happening right now, we're not trying to relitigate the 2016 election. and that's what's most important to look at now. these are actions the president of the united states took using government resources against a political opponent now, as recently as july. this falls in the realm of

exactly what they should be looking at and the intelligence community is concerned and the inspector general is a career civil servant who is a justice department lawyer there, looking at this very much from the institution side. >> what about the idea the president throwing around the word coup? it's not the first time he's done that. i want to play a little bit of him talking about that before. >> this was an attempted croup or an attempt to take down the president of the united states. this was a coup, this was an attempted coup. they tried for a coup. didn't work out so well. >> you've watched actual coups in other parts of the world. >> i do know something about coups. this is no coup. the striking thing to me is when you look at this, everything we need to know is knowable under

policies. so we have politics clashing with what is knowable. i think over the next few days, over the next week or so, we're going to learn a lot of facts and people will be shouting about coups and everything else, but the facts will rule here. when i think of the inspector general in particular, i remember dealing with inspector generals all the time and they are independently confirmed by the senate. they don't have to report to secretary pompeo or anyone else. and most of them, when they see something like this happening, they realize they're going to get pulled into it sooner or later, so they might as well step forward and seize the initiative. i think that's what's going on here. >> it seems as though that is what the inspector general may be trying to do. we're watching to see what the house speaker has said. thank you all. coming up, we're keeping an eye on all of the live developments and looking at this extraordinary report in the "new york times" today saying president trump suggested u.s. troops shoot migrants at the

border in the legs to slow them down. the new phrase we just got that you're going to want to hear. and ten top 2020 contenders descending on las vegas today for a gun reform forum you will only see here on msnbc. we've got the breakdown in a minute.

we've got breaking news from capitol hill right now. the chairs of three house committees just releasing a memo and draft subpoena asking the

white house, compelling them to produce key documents. let me bring back in nbc's jeff bennett following the action. tell us what the letter says and what the lawmakers are looking for. >> here's what we know. in about 20 minutes we expect to hear from house speaker nancy pelosi and the chairman of the house intelligence committee, adam schiff. what nbc news has now learned is that you do have the three committee chairman from the respective committees that are looking into this question about what happened between president trump and his interaction, his phone call with the ukrainian counterpart and so what we've learned is that the three chairman are releasing a memo and a draft subpoena that would compel the white house to turn over any related documents. i think it's interesting that we're learning of this now, the subpoena will be released formally on friday. but this is still in a memo form, as i understand it, that cummings has shared with members of the house oversight committee. we have seen a dramatic shift in the approach from house democrats. i think the speed of this

impeachment inquiry has really rendered a lot of the legal ramifications moot. they used to say in the face of white house stonewalling if you don't give us what we want, we'll see you in court. now they're saying they don't really have time to let court proceedings play out, so they're saying that any obstruction from the white house will be grounds for a potentially separate article of impeachment, which would be a congressional obstruction. so watch for that when the subpoena finally lands on friday. >> they're writing the chairman, in their view has a flagrant disregard for the voluntary requests for documents, citing some documents that they had asked for that the white house has blown past deadlines. >> you're right about that. this is the kind of thing that the committees have asked for voluntarily repeatedly in the past. with the impeachment inquiry, you hear from democrats that it has to be fast and folk id and they are now upping the ante, telegraphing that the subpoena is on its way at the end of the week.

>> you're basically going to co host this next show with me because you are going stick around for the press conference in just a few minutes. we also have new reporting on rudy giuliani. we have a new response we want to share on you from the white house on a different topic. it's a very interestingly phrased, fafcarefully worded response about the report in "the new york times" that the president as one point suggested shooting migrants in the legs crossing the border. the new piece says the president wanted to put in a water-filled trench at the border stocked with snakes or alligators. he wanted the wall electrified with speck on top that can peers human flesh. and after publicly suggesting that u.s. soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks the president backed off when staffers told him that was illegal. but the "times" says aides remember him suggesting to shoot migrants in the legs to, quote, slow them down. we asked the white house for a response and we have now down, and talking not about specifics

but defending the president's policies overall. saying president trump has clearly and publicly stated many times that he wants to make american communities safer by building a wall, closing dangerous loopholes that incentivize child smugglers and drug cartels and implement a merit based immigration system. you caught that, right? the white house isn't directly denying what's mentioned in the "times" police. i'm joined by the former acting director of u.s. immigration and customs enforcement. thank you for being with us. we wanted to have you on because you know the agency and you know the issue just about better than anyone. your reaction? >> look obviously these are insane ideas. what concerns me are two things. one is the president seems to have been serious at least in part about many of these. secondly the people who stood up to him with no longer employed with the department. who is going to stand up to him when you lose your job when you stand up for the basic rule of law? this was back in march of 2019, the meeting where some of the ideas were floated and was the

department of homeland security going through a major upheaval. >> i think all of this predated that. the president was pro peasing these ideas because he's frus stated by the border. these are the same folks who pushed family separation. this wasn't a moral reluctance or soft on border security. it was simply based on these are a violation of the law and not going to work. nevertheless, the president fires all of them as a result of that. kevin mcaleenan is still there, he's now the acting secretary. is question is for how long will he be there. what concerns me, what if is numbers come back up? this is traditionally the time of year when numbers go down. it's hard to say whether or not there's a permanent or temporary change. let's say they go back up next year and we're in an election season. what kind of ideas will he have to stop the flow during an election season. >> you mentioned kevin mcaleenan, the current acting secretary. he is battling, according to the "washington post" to keep dhs as

being used as a tool for partisan agenda. he said what i don't have control over is the tone, the message, the public face and approach of the department in an increasingly polarized time. that's unkmshl, he says, as the accountable senior figure. you've been in his shoes before. does the president's rhetoric put him in a tough spot. >> it puts him in a tough spot. the fact that the president continues to promote his staff, they put him out on the sunday talk shows and out at the white house to talk about things far outside the scope of his agency. all of that sends a message undermining the secretary within the department. i i didn't think kefren deserves a lot of credit. he's undertaken some of the higher profile things that the white house has pushed out and spent a lot of time working on the situation at the border. i do think we're seeing results. "the new york times" story says kevin had to tell the border patrol agents not to engage in unlawful activity after the president told them directly to do it. it does appear to me that kevin is being undermined by the white house. >> john, your perspective is so interesting.

thank you for bringing it to us. first ukraine, now china. president's new accusations against joe biden and his son. we've got the reality check coming up in the show. first we're also watching a courtroom in dallas because the sentencing hearing is about to start for amber guyger. she's the former dallas police officer who shot and killed her neighbor in his apartment in what her defense team described as a tragic mistake. it is possible we could hear from guyger herself ahead of today's sentencing set to start in moment. she's facing anywhere from 5 to 99 years in prison. yeah i feel free ♪etting cl, ♪ to bare my skin ♪ yeah that's all me. ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand ♪ ♪ nothing on my skin ♪ that's my new plan. ♪ nothing is everything. keep your skin clearer with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. of those, nearly 9 out of 10 sustained it through 1 year. and skyrizi is 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses.

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we're back with breaking news. this is a live picture of bradley airport just outside hart ford, connecticut. the airport has confirmed what we're calling an incident with a world war ii aircraft. what's going on? >> i don't know if you're able to pan that camera, because there is in fact a large plume of smoke, as one point at the airport. >> we're not able to pan it, i'm told. >> this is not a commercial aircraft, however, bradley international airport right now is closed because a vint inl world war ii aircraft, a b-17, which was as you may recall from your old history lessons, that is a classic bomber that was

used during world war ii built in the 1930s. it apparently crashed while it was attempting to land on runway 6 this morning at bradley international airport. the airport tweeting out that a collins foundation world war ii aircraft, collins foundation world war ii aircraft crashed this morning. fire rescue teams are on the scene. the runway is closed, and in fact the airport is now closed. we do know that this is a registered aircraft. therefore it is not a military aircraft. it is a vintage aircraft and we do not know the number of people on board. again, no civilians -- or rather no civilian aircraft is involved. we do not believe that the terminal itself is involved. but the plane does appear to have run into some sort of a structure. you see ambulances rolling by on the runway right in front or the road right in front of the airport. again, a vintage bomber from world war ii, b-17, according to the faa and according to the

airport, going down on runway 6 or near it this morning at 10:00 a.m. as the airport now is closed. and there you have a much better shot. that is the plume of smoke coming off of it looks like the fuel from that burning b-17 there at bradley enter initial airport. >> i believe this is a photo from a local firefighter i'm being told that had tweeted this out. and i know the rescue operation is happening now. it's only been a few minutes here. any idea, tom, of injuries or people on board or anything of that nature? and if it's too early, it's too early. >> it's too early at this point. we have none of that right now. we have no idea. typically because this is a vintage bomber, it's not going to be probably loaded with civilians or tourists or passengers. if you had -- you know t number of people on board would probably be limited. but we really do not know the number. ntsb says that it's monitoring the situation right now as this is now an emergency on the ground with local authorities.

the ntsb would only come in in an investigative capacity after everything is cleared. >> got it. although they are, i'm told, monitoring it at this point? >> that's absolutely right. i think the immediate issue is, was there anybody on board, have they been rescued from the scene, is there anybody else on board. those are questions we simply don't have answers to, and of course this is up to the fire department at the airport right now to deal with this emergency. >> tom costello -- >> let me reiterate one last point. if you are trying to fly in through or out of or into bradley international airport this morning in connecticut, there is a very good chance you're going to be delayed. you may end up having to be rerouted or you may decide that you need to leave, rather, from either new york or boston. because this could be an ongoing situation for some time. >> and as you note, not a commercial plane. this was something else altogether. tom, i know you're working on

more details. it appreciate you bringing us that breaking news. >> the stage literally set in las vegas for something you will only see right here on msnbc. in a couple of hours democrats running for president will be there craig melvin to talk about america's gun violence epidemic. ten top contenders laying out what they would do in the oval office, including pete buttigieg. he's first up. joe biden is going to be there, too. this morning rolling out his plan to change the gun laws. >> let's get to ali vitali joining us. this is significant, this is going to be the first time we hear from biden directly in several days and you have to imagine it's not just gun reform on his mind, but all of the new developments in the impeachment investigation, the president's attacks on his family. is there a chance we're going to hear from him on that today? >> you're exactly right, because every day on the campaign trail is always a juggling act between these forums that are issue specific and then the news of the day that we have going on in washington. first on the forum front, vice president is out, as you said

with a new gun control plan. a senior aide on a call said that they were focusing on me thaurs enjoy broad consensus across the field, things like putting back in place an assault weapons ban and getting universal background checks, instituting a voluntary gun buy-back program that's part of a larger push to restrict assault weapons access. so you're right that joe biden, while he's focusing on gun control, is also going to be contending with news of day. because as much as all of these 2020 candidates are talking about impeachment and the new reporting that's coming out of washington every day regarding president trump's conversation with the ukrainian president, biden is the person who trump was talking to the ukrainian president about. so i'm interested to see if that comes up here today when he's on stage with our colleague, craig melvin. but i will say that this forum provides a really stark contrast between what we're seeing washington focus on, which is impeachment and the ongoing investigations into president donald trump, but here the focus is on gun control.

a lot of the people in the audience saying that they hope that washington can move to action on this issue. >> ali vitali in las vegas, thank you. you can see the gun forum live on msnbc.com. it's so streaming on nbc news now. that starts in just a couple of hours. it's going to be an interesting one with craig melvin there. we mentioned joe biden, of course, will be at the forum today, but it's his son, hunter biden, who is in the headlines back here in washington, thanks to the president's attacks against him. this time president trump is trying to highlight biden's connection to a country that's not ukraine but china, after a 2013 trip there. the president making more questionable allegations that, by the way, earned him him four stars from fact checkers. >> getting more attention for not what joe biden did, but for what he brought with him, his son hunter joining the then vice president on the official visit to beijing, along with hunter's daughter. unknown to the press back then, hunter biden was forming a

chinese private equity fund, planning to raise money from chinese investors. years later hunter biden acknowledged that during the trip he met with the chinese banker, which his spokesperson describes as a social visit, not a business one. ten days after the bidens' trip, shanghai authorities issued the business license, something president trump was seized on as he pushes back against the impeachment inquiry. >> when biden's son walks out of china with $1.5 billion in a fund and the biggest funds in the world can't get money out of china and he's there for one quick meeting and he flies in on air force two, i think that's a horrible thing. >> but according to hunter biden's spokesperson, the company itself filed its paperwork a month before air force two took off for china with the fund in the works for months prior. as for the claim the company was worth $1.5 billion, not even close. his spokesperson says more like

just over $4 million, with hunter biden putting up 10%. and even that didn't happen until 2017, four years after the china visit. since biden was initially an unpaid board adviser, not a company owner, his spokesperson says. there have been no allegations of corruption or impropriety on the part of the former vice president. nbc's josh ledder man traveled to china on the trip. >> it doesn't strike us as unusual to see hunter biden on the trip. we didn't know behind-the-scenes he was meeting with a chinese banker that he was starting a equity firm with. >> donald trump's degradation of the office is unacceptable and speaks to his recognition of what 70 polls have made clear, joe biden would beat him like a drum. >> somebody who worked in the balm-biden administration joins me now. served as white house cabinet secretary and as chief counsel

of the house oversight committee. your response to what the president is now trying to allege against the bidens here, a claim of course that has been debunked by fact checkers. >> this is a little ironic. every story that mentioned hunter biden you could simply just substitute jump, jr., ivanka trump, mar a lag oh. the today that this president would try to make hay out of the scandals of his political opponents is laughable. even when you go and debunk stories like this, the president is succeeding in getting the allegations out there and having the media take another pass at them. and so in some sense, it is actually accomplishing what the president wants, even if there's nothing there. >> and that's the challenge when i talked to biden advisers. they say we see how the president trump play book worked in 2016 and there is why team biden is making an aggressive push against the baseless claims against their candidate. you mentioned ivanka trump or the trump kids. let's talk about ivanka trump

here because it's tough to talk about this without that. she was granted chinese trademarks around the same time president trump tried to save jobs at zte in 2017. she was granted chinese trademarks on the same day she dined with the chinese president. at the time we should note her reps said there was nothing improper. that there was the normal course of business. they said we've recently seen a surge in trademark filings by unrelated third parties trying to capitalize on the name. it is our responsibility to diligently protect our trademark. you raise the point that it's tough to talk about the president's kids when you talk about any of these stories. >> let's be fair. it is one of the challenges when you serve in government because you have relatives who are engaging in private business interests. for instance, right now the house of representatives is looking at the transportation secretary elaine chou who has been accused of using her position to help her family's shipping operations in china. i know the transportation people have pushed back on the story, but all of these stories are going to come out, and in the

end i think it's a little bit of a wash. i think the president is trying to muddy up the waters because he understands that biden is the strongest opponent. at some point these stories would have had to have been looked at part of now or a general election. and i think as your people and every other fact checker has pointed out, there's nothing there. >> appreciate you being on. thank you. you're taking a live look at capitol hill where in just about five minutes or so we think house speaker nancy pelosi and intel committee chair adam schiff will brief reporters. we don't know if they're going to be late or not but we are keeping an eye on the room. first, a year ago today, one year, journalists in washington post columnist jamal khashoggi was murdered in istanbul. today activists around the world, including this group from reporters without borders, are marking the anniversary with protests, calling out the saudi government and sharing their support for a free press. khashoggi's deyans say said his

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ithere's my career...'s more to me than hiv. my cause... and creating my dream home. i'm a work in progress. so much goes into who i am. hiv medicine is one part of it. prescription dovato is for adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment and who aren't resistant to either of the medicines dolutegravir or lamivudine. dovato has 2 medicines in 1 pill to help you reach and then stay undetectable. so your hiv can be controlled with fewer medicines while taking dovato. you can take dovato anytime of day with food or without. don't take dovato if you're allergic to any of its ingredients or if you take dofetilide. if you have hepatitis b, it can change during treatment with dovato and become harder to treat. your hepatitis b may get worse or become life-threatening if you stop taking dovato. so do not stop dovato without talking to your doctor. serious side effects can occur, including allergic reactions, liver problems, and liver failure. life-threatening side effects include lactic acid buildup

and severe liver problems. if you have a rash and other symptoms of an allergic reaction, stop taking dovato and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis b or c. don't use dovato if you plan to become pregnant or during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy since one of its ingredients may harm your unborn baby. your doctor should do a pregnancy test before starting dovato. use effective birth control while taking dovato. the most common side effects are headache, diarrhea, nausea, trouble sleeping, and tiredness. so much goes into who i am and hope to be. ask your doctor if starting hiv treatment with dovato is right for you. we have some breaking news from the campaign trail just in. we are now learning that senator bernie sanders has undergone a medical procedure. he is going to be off the campaign trail for the next few days, canceling his events. he was found to have according to his campaign, a blockage in an artery and two stents

inserted. this is a tweet from another reporter but i want to read you the campaign statement. during a campaign event yesterday evening, senator sanders experienced some chest discomfort, following medical evaluation and testing he was found to have a blockage and two stents were inserted. weaver says that sanders is in good spirits and conversing, says he's going to be resting up over the next few days. that is why his events and appearances are canceled until further notice. they're going to continue to provide appropriate updates. ali vitali is back with us now. ali, this is obviously some unexpected information coming in from sanders' campaign. it looks like based on the timeline laid out this all happened just in the last 24 hours when senator sanders started to feel the chest discomfort. >> exactly, hallie. and we're getting the same information that you're getting right now. all of it rolling in pretty quickly that this happened yesterday evening.

they say that he is here in las vegas, we had an event yesterday that was closed to press. this clearly all happening yesterday evening and they're saying that they'll be canceling the rest of his public appearances and events until further notice. and one of those public appearances was supposed to be here at this gun control forum. >> i was going to ask you was he supposed to be there, yeah. >> so we were expect to go hear from him on stage about those issues. >> have you heard formally and officially -- and i don't want to put you in a bad spot. do we know if he has formally canceled his appearance at the gun forum? based on what weaver said, they're canceling his appearances. i would presume that means this forum as well. >> >> i would imagine that true, hallie, just reading the statement saying that they're canceling all of the events, i would imagine that includes this today. of course if we get any other guidance, i'll let you know. but from what the campaign statement says, i wouldn't expect to see senator bernie

sanders here. they do note in the campaign release and you said this as well, that the senator is in good spirits. but again, having the health issue last night and getting too stents put in and resting today. >> and it's encouraging for anybody who goes through a procedure like that that they are up and conversing. in your interactions with sanders and you kfcovering hip, any indication that he had been having health issues that we know of or not really? >> certainly not. i'm on the campaign trail with a lot of these cants. i saw senator cansanders about weeks ago and no signs of this at all. this is all happening in the recent, in the present. so obviously all of yesterday according to that campaign release. and if we get anything else on the timeline, we'll come back back to you. all of this coming in pretty quickly right now and all we know is that the senator is doing well, that he had a health issue yesterday and that we shouldn't expect to see him on the campaign trail today or in

the foreseeable future. >> no timeline on when he might be coming back to the trail, with jeff weaver saying simply that we will give you updates as appropriate. this is definitely a story we'll be continuing to follow. ali vitali, i appreciate you coming to the camera with that. if you hear anything more about sanders formally canceling his appearance in vegas, please let us know. after the break we're going to head back to capitol hill because we are not just waiting for house speaker nancy pelosi any minute, but there are some new tweets from rudy giuliani you may want to see as it relates to impeachment. we'll be back in just a minute.

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house speaker nancy pelosi and congressman adam schiff, the head of the intel committee will be at that mod podium you're log at. a little change in the usual solo weekly news conference. it was supposed to start roughly eight minutes ago. no surprise, it is a packed house. nbc's geoff bennett is one of the reporters you see in the room. geoff, we know speaker pelosi has a lot on her plate. likely she'll want to talk about this impeachment inquiry, and a lot of developments not just in the last hour, but the last couple of days she'll want to

address. >> reporter: you're right. she'll be joined by adam schiff, the house intelligence chairman. his committee is running point on this ukraine investigation. the house speaker has talked a number of times about how important she thinks it is to bring the american public along as democrats try to build the case against president trump. that's in large part why the two of them are having this press briefs today even though congress is on recess. i suspect we'll mary the house speaker convey the tone she used when talking to the house caucus on sunday saying members should be non-partisan, in large part because of the question they're grappling with here, potentially removing a sitting president trump from office. donald trump will be the fourth person in the history of the republic to face an impeachment investigation. andrew johnson in the 1800s was impeached for policies at the end of the civil war, not

convicted by the senate. everyone knows about bill clinton, not convicted by the senate. richard nixon resigned before being impeached. trz is the first to face the impeachment question on national security grounds. the theory democrats are using is he used the office of the presidency for personal gain. as nancy pelosi puts it, the president tried to shakedown a foreign counterpart to dig up discredited dirt, stir speculation among one of his domestic political rivals. democrats see that as a breach of the oath of office. they see it as the president undermining national security and the integrity of our election. i suspect that's the message you'll hear leader pelosi and schiff convey. you'll also hear from the democratic side, hearing from president trump's side. his personal lawyer rudy giuliani this morning on twitter saying the trump legal team is considering legal action because of all this, accusing congress of trampling on constitutional rights.

last night he talked about the legal advice he's getting. >> we should bring a lawsuit on behalf of the president and several of the people in the administration, maybe even myself as a lawyer against the members of congress individually for violating constitutional rights, violating civil rights. they're doing extraordinary things. >> we also have new reporting from nbc news on rudy giuliani going after a ukrainian prosecutor who said jooid did nothing illegal. this is a prosecutor giuliani once praised. heidi, fill us in. >> reporter: this is a story of how rudy giuliani's efforts to tar the bidens with corruption charges in ukraine fell apart. this is based on my conversation with a top anti corruption activist in ukraine who said that the story of how this all blew up revolves around a man

named yuri lieu san co-the former chief prosecutor in ukraine. rudy giuliani was working with him for months. it's actually these meetings that helped form the basis for the charges that giuliani was trying to level against the bidens of corruption. that all fell apart when lewd zen co-was fired by yellen ski. it explains the july 25th conversation where he was admonishing him for firing the prosecutor. this is how much he was their inside man. now what we saw over the weekend, hallie, was a dramatic reversal. he is now out of office, has nothing to move, going on all media, including our media telling richard engel he found no there there, and he also told "the l.a. times" that rudy giuliani was, quote, obsessed with this story of trying to gin

something up on the bidens. >> heidi przybilla on capitol hill, thank you. as we keep an eye on that press con flens, we want to go back to that breaking news about senator bernie sanders. nbc's shaquille brewster coffers the sanders campaign. he's on the phone with us. shaq, i know you've been working your sources trying to find out more of this, about this chest discomfort that senator sanders started to feel apparently last night according to his campaign. >> that's right. his campaign said he experienced chest discomfort. he had a medical evaluation and in testing he had a blockage in an artery. so two stents were inserted. we know he was going to the gun control forum that many of the candidates are at right now. but let's put this in a little context. this is a candidate, 78 years old. there have been questions about his health, if not from his campaign, from voters. that's something people have brought up on the campaign

trial, a concern this is an older candidate, his second presidential run. he was off the campaign trail earlier this month for a few days because he had that raspy voice. you remember after the third debate, his voice was a little raspy. any time he would be asked about his health or his condition, it's something he said he felt good, he felt like he was in good health and it wasn't a concern. he keeps a very busy schedule on the trail. we're still trying to figure out exactly where he is and what kind of procedure was done. but it's something that is obviously a concern for the campaign. >> shaq, as you know, dr. john torres is a medical expert and our sort of in-house doctor at nbc news. we're getting early guidance from him. we should note senator sanders is not a patient of dr. torres. it seems like sanders, in his opinion doesn't seem to have had a heart attack and is more likely angina.

usually patients recover at home for a few days and are back to work after a couple of weeks. shaq, thank you for being on the show with us. our teams are actively getting more information to get it to you. the second we have more, you'll hear it here on msnbc. i turn it over to chris jansing in new york on what is shaping up to be another very busy morning. >> obviously we're wishing bernie sanders all the best. hello. i'm chris jansing at msnbc headquarters in new york. craig melvin is in las vegas for our gun safety forum. first, we have right now three big developments in the escalating impeachment fight that we're waiting for right now. any minute house speaker nancy pelosi and house intel chairman adam schiff will come before the microphones just minutes after house democrats released a memo and draft subpoena urging the white house to produce key documents as part of the impeachment inquiry. thates