wassermann schultz, thank you for joining us. you get tonight's last word. >> thank you. >> that is tonight's last word. this sunday night please watch "impeachment: white house in crisis" at 9:00 p.m. and "the 11th with brian willia williams" begins now. tonight as the president ends another difficult week on the road rallying his base there are new details on extraordinary steps taken to keep the so-called perfect phone call under wraps. plus, as trump and his allies consider an impeachment defense we talk with a watergate prosecutor about what may and may not work. and the big, political headlines coming out of iowa tonight. beto is done and a front-runner has put a hefty price tag on her healthcare plan. "the 11th hour" on a friday night starts right now. good evening once again from our nbc headquarters here in new york. i am steve kornacki in for brian

williams. day 1,016 of the trump administration and there is plenty of news on this friday night including democratic presidential candidate beto o'rourke abruptly dropping out of the presidential race. we will have more on that ahead. the current occupant of the white house, meanwhile, tonight is ramping up his re-election bid in the midst of a snowballing impeachment inquiry. tonight just a day after the house voted to formalize the inquiry and one year away from the general election, donald trump went on the attack while speaking in tupelo, mississippi. >> corrupt politicians nancy pelosi and shifty adam schiff. shifty. and the media are continuing with the deranged impeachment -- to me it is a dirty word. yesterday the democrats voted to

potentially nullify the votes of 63 million americans, disgracing themselves and bringing shame upon the house of representatives. but i'll tell you, the republicans are really strong, the strongest i've ever seen them. the most unified i've ever seen them. >> over the past five weeks there have been 23 subpoenas issued and lawmakers have heard about a hundred hours of testimony from 13 different witnesses. those witnesses a combination of career officials and political appointees who have provided testimony that may prove quite damaging to the president. that includes testimony that there was indeed a quid pro quo with ukraine linking military aid to a meeting with trump and investigations into political rivals. witnesses have also testified about a shadow foreign policy being run by trump's attorney,

personal attorney rudy guiliani. tonight we are learning even more about what one witness, lieutenant colonel alexander vinman told house investigators this week, the national security counsel ukraine expert who was listening in on the july 25th phone call between president trump and the president of ukraine. politico and "the washington post" are both reporting that several days after that phone call john eisenberg the top legal adviser for the national security counsel told vinman not to discuss his concerns about the leader's conversation with anyone. nbc news has also confirmed this report, "the washington post" adds, quote, the interaction between eisenberg and vindman suggests there was a sense among some in the white house that trump's call was not as he has claimed perfect. it threatens to undercut his argument in impeachment inquiry is politically driven.

john aisenberg is scheduled to testify on monday along with rick perry and russell vought. tonight an energy department spokeswoman says secretary perry will refuse to appear before a closed door session with lawmakers issuing a statement that says he, quote, will not partake in a secret, star chamber inquisition where agency counsel is forbidden to be present. if they are interested in conducting a serious proceeding they are welcome to send for the secretary's consideration an invitation to participate in an open hearing where the department's counsel can be present and the american people can witness. perry could be a key witness. he met with the president of ukraine earlier this year. speaker pelosi told bloomberg news she expects the hearings to go public sometime this month. she says any case to impeach the president, quote, has to be iron clad. she also added that the case to impeach could go beyond the ukraine phone call. >> there were 11 obstruction of

justice provisions in the mueller report and perhaps some of them will be part of it. again, that will be part of the inquiry to see where we go. >> senator lindsey graham a staunch trump ally was also speaking out again today slamming house democrats and casting doubt on their motives. >> i don't trust this process in the house. it's motivated by sore losers. if you are going to impeach the president based on this phone call you are wasting your time. this is motivated by democrats to try to get an advantage in 2020. >> as for what the public thinks about all of this there is a new "the washington post"/abc news poll showing 49% believe the president should be impeached and removed from office. 47% say he should not. here for our lead-off discussion on a friday night, susan page washington bureau chief for "usa today," and white house correspondent for npr, and senior legal affairs contributor for politico. thanks to you for being with us.

susan, let me start with you. we heard from the president tonight in mississippi. staunchly red state. staunchly pro trump state. i have to ask you those clips we played where he addressed the impeachment question there head on, he demeaned the process, went after democrats, all of the things on twitter he said in front of that audience, republican members of congress, was this an attempt to remind them that in his view the base of the party is with him and essentially to deliver them a witness? you don't want that base turning on you, do you? >> you know, this has been a very successful argument for president trump. you look at the impeachment vote that we saw in the house and they were zero republican defections even among some republicans who have been critical about trump's behavior in this matter, raised questions about it, and who are not running for re-election chose not to break with the president

on this vote. that is a sign of the strength the president continues to command with the base republican voters who can see this process as political or describe the behavior as maybe it was the wrong thing to do but doesn't rise to the level of impeachment. we don't have an argument that he didn't do these things. that he didn't have a conversation with ukrainian president, that he didn't raise the issue of investigations as a quid pro quo for the meet org release of military aid. instead we hear the argument the president made tonight. doesn't rise to impeachment. the democrats are politically motivated. >> josh, again, this question of whether republicans are going to continue to stick with the president through this process not just in the house but ultimately in a senate trial, the question is will they stick with him through all of the different revelations that continue to come out? it might be a good moment late at night here of what has been a very busy week even by the very busy standards washington has

been held to lately. what were the major pieces of testimony that were presented this week that moved the ball on the question of evidence the democrats are going to use against the president here? >> well, i mean, one, you pointed to earlier, steve, which was this thing that's just come out today about lieutenant colonel vindman being told by a white house lawyer not -- that he should not discuss the contents of the phone call that the president had, the fact that the phone call was moved on to this nice system which is the sort of ultra top-secret system at the white house in order to perhaps prevent other people from learning about it and then there's also some disagreement i think between some of the witnesses, you know, ambassador sondland had sort of downplayed the significance of some of these interactions and other witnesses who came in were in

direct conflict with him. then he started to back off from some of his testimony. so that raises the possibility that if we do have open hearings, you might hear differing stories from different witnesses and at least the possibility of some drama or some revelations. whether that is going to be enough to cause any republicans in the house or in the senate to change their views i don't know. but it is worth noting that some republicans in the senate are signaling that they're already breaking to a degree with the white house line and saying this was not a perfect phone call but it still doesn't amount to an impeachable offense. >> let's take a look at what you are mentioning there, josh. this in "the washington post" tonight. on what may end up being, what they are saying is an emerging line of thought among some republican senators, growing number of senate republicans they say are ready to acknowledge that president trump used u.s. military aid as leverage to force ukraine to investigate former vice president joe biden and his family as the president

repeatedly denies a quid pro quo in this shift in strategy to defend trump. these republicans are insisting that the president's action was not illegal and does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense. the president has frustrated senate republicans by seeming to change his messaging strategy every day rather than present a coherent defense of his actions. franco, it is interesting because i have gotten the sense from some republicans, the ones who are not offering the full throated defense of trump that they are trying to find a middle ground where they can take issue with the call and some of these actions that have come to light with regard to ukraine without reaching the point where they say, okay. he should be impeached. he should be removed from office. reading this article in "the washington post," though, what strikes me is that if they take that approach, what is being outlined here, it still puts them directly at odds with the president whose official line is this call was perfect. >> it is a very difficult position for the republicans to be in. i mean, you know the republicans

and president trump keep talking about the july 25th call. but as just stated there have been so many people coming forward, so much testimony, but that the charges go back way before the july 25th call. you have ambassador taylor. you have vindman talking about concerns about this shadow foreign policy starting well before then, this year, fiona hill talking about last year, concerns that guiliani, the president's private attorney, kind of leading this charge to put more pressure on the ukraine to do this investigation of joe biden and his son. republicans can no longer, at least it is making it much, much harder for them to just talk about this phone call and also becoming harder to not say that the president put this pressure on the ukraine government. so they need to find a different way to say it and now they're putting out this, that it is not

an impeachable offense. >> susan, back to the politics and the public opinion on this we mentioned the new poll out, abc news/"the washington post" today. 49% say yeah impeach and remove the president. 47% there no. look at the party split there. just mirror images of each other. you also look at the 49/47 split and it really resembles the 2016 election result and it sort of raises the question, is this thing just reverting to where the country's been for three years? >> you know, isn't it exactly where we were on election night in 2016? where the president was about 47% of the vote and hillary clinton got about 49% of the vote though the electoral college put president trump in the white house. that is one remarkable thing about this. this has been the most turbulent presidency in modern times with the steadiest approval ratings we've ever seen. those two things would seem to be in conflict. that said, for a president to

have 49% of americans say he ought to be removed from office is quite an extraordinary thing. an incredible challenge to this president. a sign of hard times ahead. because we have these witnesses coming forward with pretty consistent stories about what happened even if they put different interpretations on how seriously we should take it. >> josh, i want to ask you about what is coming next week, what might be coming next week i should say. we mentioned the nsc lawyer john eisenberg in the news tonight scheduled to appear, democrats hoping he'll appear next week. we mentioned rick perry of the energy department tonight saying he is not showing up for a closed door hearing. democrats are hoping to hear from john bolten who apparently won't go voluntarily next week. what is your expectation on who will actually appear in the coming days? >> i mean, we've seen an incredible amount of defiance, that really cause titic letter white house put out last week

saying there would be no cooperation whatsoever from this administration. the top headline was it was widely ignored by officials from the state department and even the nsc officials. the nsc is part of the white house. it is on the white house website and grounds. so to have somebody in the nsc defy the white house counsel and go testify on the hill is an extraordinary event. that said, for folks like john eisenberg who is an attorney in the white house and works pretty much for the white house counsel i would be extraordinarily surprised if someone like that showed up except in the circumstances where they had a direct, court order to do so. i think for him possibly for john bolten it would be quite surprising to see them. bolten's lawyer has already suggested he might join a pending lawsuit seeking to obtain some ruling from the courts about whether the house subpoenas are valid in the face

of this presidential direction not to appear. >> josh mentions there is that pending litigation now as charles kupperman, i believe his lawyer is also john bolten's lawyer, bolten's former deputy there, that is going to slow this process down obviously to some degree. democrats, nancy pelosi, the house speaker talking about beginning hearings this month, you know, what is the time line that is emerging here? is there one in terms of hearings, in terms of articles of impeachment potentially being introduced, in terms of the house actually having a debate and vote on articles of impeachment? is there a sense of a time line for the process now? >> well, they're moving as fast as they can. they want to move it forward. adam schiff talked about not wanting, not going to allow these court hearings to delay their process. he said he is not going to get into or they're not getting into a rope-a-dope with the white house by allowing these court hearings to move forward. they are moving forward. they just had the vote on the

resolution, which will lay out new ground rules for open hearings. they have not said who yet specifically they want to talk to but they say that the american people will hear who they need to hear from. eventually, they have talked about possibly someone like william taylor, ambassador william taylor coming back and testifying but they certainly feel a deadline and they want to get it done as quick as possible. >> all right. franco ordonez, josh, susan, thank you all for joining us. really appreciate it. coming up the president and his allies are starting to argue he can't be impeached if he has done nothing illegal. we'll ask one of those three watergate prosecutors if that is accurate. and later it is a big weekend for politics in iowa tonight. there is one fewer democrat out there running for president. "the 11th hour" just getting started on a friday night. m. ex. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. nice. but, uh...

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the house of representatives today voted almost unanimously, 410-4, to grant broad subpoena powers to the house judiciary committee in its inquiry into the impeachment of the president. only once before has the house taken such a vote, in the matter of the impeachment of president andrew johnson. 99% of the members voted for the unqualified subpoena powers. >> no one argued against the impeachment investigation. the only disagreement was whether to put a time limit on the resolution.

>> john chancellor there back in 19 please 4, the nbc "nightly news" in 1974 the year the republicans ultimately abandoned richard nixon and forced him to resign as president. thus far this has not been the case when it comes to trump and today's republicans. the house vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry was split mostly along party lines. there were no gop defections this week a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the president. >> with all of this that is happening i think the republicans have been amazing. is we had 195 or 196-0. we have tremendous support from the senate. we have tremendous support from the house. we even had democrats go over to the republican side yesterday in the house. >> thursday's vote essentially directed the chairs of six house committees to continue their impeachment inquiries. that means the scope is not limited to trump's dealings with ukraine. "the washington post" reporting tonight, quote, the center piece of house democrats' eventual

impeachment charges is widely expected to be trump's alleged abuse of power over ukraine but obstruction of congress is now all but certain to be introduced as well according to multiple democratic lawmakers and aides as it was five decades ago when the house judiciary committee voted for articles of impeachment against then president richard nixon. with us now, an attorney, former assistant watergate special counsel and msnbc legal analyst and also author of the forthcoming book, "the watergate girl, my fight for truth and justice against a criminal president" due out in february. jill, thanks for being here tonight. appreciate it. we just put the clip up. so the closest thing to a comparable vote in 1974 with nixon and what happened this week was the vote we just showed the clip of. 410-4, basically unanimous in the house. democrats and republicans. i don't need to tell you there were very divided feelings about nixon but unity on the question of the investigation and this week near absolute total

partisan division. what is the difference? >> the media. the fact that we had nbc, abc, cbs, and all of them had the same facts. there was no argument about facts. that was clear. john chancellor had the same story as huntley brinkley, etcetera. now we have total bubbles of information so that people believe totally different things even though only one can be true. i believe that what we are hearing here on msnbc are the facts. they represent what is really going on. we have to remember although it was 410-4, it also ended up at the end where there was a unanimous, not unanimous, but there was clearly going to be a conviction in the senate and the republicans went to nixon and said if you do not resign you will be convicted. he said i still have a lot of support in the senate. barry goldwater allegedly said

to him, you don't even have my vote. that's when he resigned. >> obviously the president, we showed you the rally tonight, talking about trying to keep republicans together. this is something he said. let's play this clip from the rally tonight. >> the republicans have great policy in many ways they're better politicians but they're not as vicious -- thank you, darling. i appreciate it. they're not as vicious but they have a tendency to split apart the democrats don't seem to have any mitt romneys. we do. >> so romney is on his mind. one of the most outspoken trump critics so far. how do you see the house vote this week? every single republican voted against the resolution. do you read that as if it comes to articles of impeachment that means they're dug in and will all vote against articles of impeachment or do you see wiggle

room that vote doesn't necessarily indicate? >> i think right now they are unanimous in their support because they are afraid of donald trump and he is obviously bribing them with money saying if you want money to support your campaign and if you don't want to have an opponent in the primary, you better support me, and he has raised an enormous amount of money. but i think in the end, once they go back home and start hearing from their constituents, who are starting to believe and understand and we now have 49% of the american people who say he should not only be impeached but removed. that is very dramatic. if you follow the statistics from watergate it is not dissimilar. in watergate you have a very popular president, someone who won 49 states, won the overwhelming popular vote and yet at the end as the facts started coming out those numbers switched so he went from having

over 64% approval rating to 20% approval rating and support for impeachment went from 20% to over 50%. it was really core latrelated t facts. the issue now is will people who watch fox news get the same facts? will they see the full hearings? will they see the live witnesses? it was very dramatic when john dean raised his hand and testified. there were three times more people watching than watched michael cohen. we need to get people to watch. the public hearings are extremely important. people are starting to understand ukraine in a way they never understood the mueller russia investigation. they seem to somehow inherently just get that what he did was an abuse of power. that he was basically shaking down a foreign government. and even though he, during the mueller report said maybe he didn't know it was wrong to take money from a foreign government,

after the mueller report there is no question donald trump and his entire family know that you cannot ask for or accept anything from a foreign government. and asking for help with your campaign is clearly something of value that is illegal. we don't need illegal. i don't want to focus on crimes because high crimes and misdemeanors does not mean a violation of the federal code. >> let me ask you this. february, 1974, the house launches the impeachment inquiry formally. end of july the judiciary committee votes on i think 27-11 articles of impeachment. within two weeks nixon is done. he resigns. it is over. that was about a six-month process there. how fast do you think things would move right now? >> well, the obstruction here, the stonewalling is much greater. actually, the count, the article of impeachment that i really think is significant, is the contempt of congress, which is just as bad as the obstruction, just as bad as the abuse. maybe even more so because it is

destroying democracy, which is built on having checks and balances and having oversight and if you say i won't have any witnesses come in from the white house for anything, he is not letting them come in to talk about immigration. we're not just talking about criminal investigations. it is the entire oversight process that is being challenged. everything happened really quickly during watergate and they are doing much better job of dragging their feet. the courts acted on -- they expedited cases and things went fast and the one thing you left out in what happened in that period was we had subpoenaed in the prosecution office 64 additional tapes one of which was the smoking gun tape and the minute that got heard it was like the final straw. it was one where you could hear the president and his chief of staff talking about using the cia to stop the fbi from following the money trail because the money came from the committee to re-elect the president to pay for the burglary at the dnc. and once people heard that, that

was the end. people said, this is real. we have to get rid of him. >> that broke everything. thank you for joining us. thank you. coming up, big political headlines out of iowa this weekend. go over to the big board. brand new numbers from the state that gets the first say in who is going to be the democratic candidate for president next year when "the 11th hour" continues. surprise! a new buick? for me? to james, from james. that's just what i wanted. is this a new buick?

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i don't get helicoptered in to a golf course with my name on it while pretending to care about the working class. i don't even golf. >> that was just a couple hours ago. that is pete buttigieg of course one of the democratic candidates for president. where was he? he was in the hawkeye state. iowa. he's not the only democrat who is out there tonight. not the only democrat out there this weekend. all eyes on iowa, one of those big candidate cattle calls tonight. iowa of course they get the first say. february 3rd next year the first votes that are going to be cast and counted, the first meaningful contest when the primary season begins the iowa caucus is monday, february 3rd next year. remember it is four stand alone contests that define the first month. iowa, then eight days later the new hampshire primary, then the end of the next week nevada, then a week later south carolina. then you're into march and super tuesday. these early contests are the winnowing contests who decide

who are real contenders. the folks who can't compete, can't win, can't come close in the early states usually fade out very quickly. with that in mind with all the candidates out there in iowa what does it look like in these early states right now? here is where they are. here's iowa, brand gnaw ponew p today. warren leading in the iowa poll 22%. bernie sanders second place 19%. just three points off warren. remember, about a month ago we were all talking about bernie sanders. his health scare. oldest candidate in the field. was he going to start to fade out in the polling? this is proof right now at least this would strongly suggest he is very much in contention in iowa. if you're in contention in iowa you're in contention for the democratic nomination. pete buttigieg right behind sanders, 18%, doing much better in iowa than in the national polls, than in some of the other early state polls. he is in contention in iowa.

so is fourth place here joe biden only five points behind warren but it is fourth place in the pecking order sitting there at 17%. think about that if you are joe biden. if you can't win iowa, if you were to finish third, fourth place, something like that in iowa and you're running on the idea of electability that you're a winner what does that do to that image? what happens then? you got four candidates tightly clustered there. they could all point to a scenario where they win iowa. remember, iowa reshuffles the deck. look at this. this is where new hampshire stands right now. it is also cluttered. by the way, sanders' newest poll this week in first place in new hampshire. what happens if sanders sneaks up and wins iowa? does he roll it into new hampshire and win new hampshire? what is the track record of winning both iowa and new hampshire? on the democratic side in the modern era candidates who have done that are undefeated when it comes to winning the democratic nomination. if warren won iowa would she win

new hampshire? based on the momentum? if you win iowa, it is not hard to see any of them winning in new hampshire. if you win iowa and new hampshire, history says your campaign is going to look very strong coming out of that. this is a very unsettled race right now. there is an opportunity for any of the four candidates to win either of those first couple states. by the way, history says in iowa at this point you don't have to be at the top right now. candidates have come from the very back of the pack late in iowa. won iowa, and then gone on from there. long way of saying klobuchar may be at 4% right now. doesn't mean she is out of it in iowa. doesn't mean some of the other candidates are out of it in iowa either. we've seen candidates get hot very late in iowa, win iowa, and then the world changes. everybody is there right now. going to be an interesting weekend, an interesting few months. coming up the candidate who once said he was born to run is out. another candidate shuts down offices in a vital early primary state. two of our veteran political

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and i urge everyone who was part of this campaign or supported me in my bid for the nomination to do everything they can to support whoever the nominee is. >> beto o'rourke is out of the 2020 presidential race. the former texas congressman has been struggling in the polls and with fundraising in recent months. at this point he hadn't even qualified for the november 20th debate that is going to be here on msnbc. o'rourke's campaign said in a statement he will not run for senate in texas next year. politico is reporting that kamala harris's campaign has almost completely shuttered its new hampshire operation. quote, the campaign confirmed it is largely abandoning new hampshire, keeping only a skeleton crew and canceling an upcoming visit. harris also will not file in person to be on the ballot, a

tradition that garners local media attention. earlier this week harris announced plans to restructure her campaign laying off dozens of aides at her baltimore headquarters to, quote, go all in on iowa. here to talk about all of it jonathan allen nbc news national political reporter and senior politics editor in iowa covering tonight's liberty and justice event where all the democratic candidates are speaking. thanks for being with us. let me start with you. i guess in what did they say micro or macro, the big one is macro i think. in the big picture sense it is not a surprise beto o'rourke is dropping out of this presidential race. didn't even look like he'd make the next debate. and, yet, this was a very sudden departure it sounds like. what is going on there? >> so sudden in fact, steve, i spoke to one of the supporters, big supporter from the west coast who had flown into iowa today for this liberty and justice dinner. didn't find out that o'rourke was exiting the race until she

landed. was not upset, i mean was upset obviously he was ending the campaign, was not upset she didn't feigned out before sind to iowa. understood this was something that was probably coming and that o'rourke was going to speak to his supporters and everything but it certainly was sudden for a lot of people who, you know, made plans to be there for the dinner tonight. >> so, beth, on the one hand there is beto o'rourke and on the other hand kamala harris. two stories this week with harris. number one, restructuring the campaign. that looked like discouraging enough news for her. now essentially pulling out of new hampshire. i have to say i've seen the move where the candidates say i'll skip iowa, try to jump-start it in new hampshire and later. she is putting everything in iowa but simultaneously pulling out from new hampshire. this seems like an unusual move. >> yeah. a lot of it is driven by budget of course. she didn't have a lot of well thought out strategy here in

terms of thinking shea could just play a little bit in iowa, play a little in new hampshire and somehow come up and do very well in south carolina. that is what her advisers sort of projected she could do to do that hat trick but you know that is not very feasible. you have to show some strength right out of the gate, strength in iowa, strength in new hampshire, one or the other. preferably both. or else you don't get that lift that you need to go on into south carolina and to the super tuesday states. so they had to really restructure their whole plan. i have to tell you, steve. kamala harris looked very strong tonight. she had one of those moments. we've seen her through the campaign have certain moments. she had the moment with joe biden on the first debate in june. she had the moment when she kicked off her campaign in oakland in front of the big crowd. this i would say is another one of those moments. she was strong. she had sort of a new message in her stump speech. she said justice is on the ballot and she ticked through the many ways in which she could say justice is on the ballot. shea got a really rousing response and not just from the people who have been brought in by her campaign to be there for

her. it was one of her better performances that i've seen. >> that is interesting because this event tonight i think it used to be the jefferson jackson event. they renamed it. >> right. >> the lore holds this is where in the fall of 2007 barack obama gave his speech that relaunched his campaign and gave him the momentum to win the iowa caucuses and everything else. what have you been hearing from the other candidates tonight? >> pete buttigieg was trying to model on the 2007 obama performance you mentioned, steve. he came in with a huge, huge cadre of supporters a lot of them from out of state. i saw a hundred who had come in from california. the first thing buttigieg said on the stage was the last time i was in iowa was to campaign for a young man with a funny name. he was talking about barack obama. he, too, is the young man with the funny name trying to draw that link and he gave a really

rip roaring speech that was effective and he did have a really strong organization here but i guess my point is that kama kamala surprised people by how well she did given she was on this kind of fade out for so long. >> beto o'rourke was up against the reality of not making the debate. in december they are raising the dnc criteria again. do you expect more drop outs in the next few weeks? >> i think we may see some of that, stuff. this is getting harder and harder for a lot of candidates. i think there is frustration among some of their supporters because we haven't seen any contests, any voting yet but the dnc rules are what they are in terms of the number of donors you have and the polling numbers they expect these candidates to get. i am hearing from some of my sources that they're upset what this does is essentially in some cases require these candidates to spend a lot of time raising money rather than spending time in iowa or some of the other states canvasing and trying to

get support. so we will see how it shakes out. i expect to see a little more winnowing. usually candidates drop out when the plane stops flying because they don't have enough money to keep fueling it. >> all right. we'll take a quick break. coming up elizabeth warren, her long awaited healthcare plan. she came out with that today. and the fighting words she offered about one of her chief rivals. ♪ (mom vo) it's easy to shrink into your own little world. especially these days. (dad) i think it's here. (mom vo) especially at this age. (big sis) where are we going? (mom vo) it's a big, beautiful world out there. (little sis) whoa... (big sis) wow. see that? (mom vo) sometimes you just need a little help seeing it.

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2020 is our time to win this fight for medicare for all and save our people. 2020 is our time in history, our time to dream big, fight hard, and win. [cheers and applause] >> today elizabeth warren

released details of her medicare for all proposal. the "new york times" sums it up this way, quote, warren on friday proposed $20.5 trillion in new spending through huge tax increases on businesses and wealthy americans to pay for medicare for all, laying out details for a landmark government expansion that will pose political risks for her presidential candidacy while also allowing her to say she is not raising taxes on the middle class to pay for her health care plan. earlier today during an interview on pbs joe biden was asked about >> elizabeth warren put out a estimate for the cost of her medicare for all plan. she put it at $22 trillion over a number of years. in the past the estimate was $34 trillion. she's talking about making it one the difference with targeted defense spending cuts, a wealth tax. cracking down on tax evaders. >> she's making it up.

look, nobody thinks it's $20 trillion. it's between $30 trillion and $40 trillion. >> and still with us, jonathan allen. and beth fouhy. beth, warren is making a big bet that the electorate is looking for something more than just beating trump. they're looking for something very big in terms of policy. biden, you can see there. you've seen other democrats do it as well. trying to tell people, that's way too expensive. what do you think the politics of that are on the democratic side right now? >> well, warren, as you said, has gone all in on medicare for all. she doesn't appear to be backing off. we've seen other candidates try their hand at medicare for all or a sort of gradual transition. she's going right for the heart of this and saying, this is where she'll put herself on the line. so you can look at the plan she laid out today and intellectually, it does, the

numbers add up and she talks about where she would get the money and middle class taxpayers would not see their taxes go up. she did check some important boxes there. the problem is politically, nobody believes any of this is something she can accomplish. with the senate needing 60 votes to pass anything, even if democrats were to regain the majority, the expectation is that they won't get majority of 60 votes in the senate. any time soon, perhaps in the next decade. even if they did, to have democrats sign on to something of this magnitude, it would be a very big list. so that's the part she has not answered yet. today she answered the question about how do the numbers add up. she hasn't answered the political question yet. >> we showed joe biden's reaction to it. warren was asked about that. she gave an interview saying here's what she said. according to bloomberg, she swatted back at biden's criticism and accused him of running in the wrong presidential primary. democrats, she said r not going to win by repeating republican talking points.

so if biden doesn't like that, i'm just not sure where he's going. john allen, that response from warren essentially saying that the biden criticism we just showed, that is giving aid and comfort to the enemy tribe. will that resonate with democrats? >> i don't think that's exactly a fair criticism of what vice president biden said. what vice president biden is saying is that elizabeth warren can't do what she wants to do. what republicans are saying, she shouldn't do what she wants to do. the case that she has to make to the public is, that this plan is not only the right plan but also the one that she can get done. and i think she started to make that case. i don't think this is just a plan for democrats. i think that there are certainly some independents out there that will be attracted to this. maybe there are some republicans out there who will find this to be appealing.

the $52 trillion she's talking about over a decade sounds like a lot of money but it is actually what americans will spend on health care oh the next decade without her plan. the only difference in the 27 million who are under her plan. the big changes and how all that works basically, whether it's a government system or a private system. but this is the big test for her. she says she wants big structural change. if she can sell that to the public in the democratic primary and the general election, she'll have a better chance and have a mandate as president to get it done. if she can't sell it, she's not going to be the democratic nominee and it won't matter. >> beth, every debate so far to date seems like she's been hit with that question, will middle class taxes go up. it has been notable her refusal to grapple to that question directly,

her direct answer today, at least according to her is no. why wasn't she ready to give an answer like that until now? >> well, you know, she's a wong and she wanted to green eye shade the whole thing and make sure her numbers add up without a middle class tax hike. the question is whether this comes off as believable to not only members of public but to the public. she would really have to bring along a huge public wave of support for this type of plan, for it to have any chance at all of getting anywhere if she were elected president. it's just people are going to have a lot of skepticism about this. they're not going to believe something of this magnitude could be accomplished without higher costs borne by everybody. she made an effort today to say that wasn't the case. it depends whether people will belief that. >> beth fouhy out there in iowa where all the action is right now and jonathan allen, thank you for joining us.

appreciate it. we'll have more "the 11th hour" after a quick break. wonks wong ♪ ♪

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