>> i haven't quite reached that level yet. nice to see you, friend. have a good afternoon. it is monday, november 11th. today, we come together as a nation. president trump uttered that rare message of unity at the new york city veterans day parade today in a week in which we will see the start of public hearings in an impeachment inquiry that has divided washington, the president, and the people vying to replace him. they all came together today to show their support for those who put on the uniform and serve this country. >> i think the most important thing is the promise that is a two-way promise made between a veteran who raised their right hand to serve this country and the united states of america. the promise is in return to take care of veterans. >> i want to salute all of the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend our country. we thank you very much. >> many of the democratic presidential candidates are spending today on the campaign trail in the early voting state of iowa. also, in new hampshire and south carolina. our reporters are out covering several of them.

like joe biden, vermont senator bernie sanders is spending veterans day on the stump in iowa. reporter shaquille brubter. and who have irgot there? i've got mike memoli and i've got josh lederman as well. good to see all of you. wlet let's start with shaq. what is the message senator sanders had today? >> well, his message is he was first celebrating veterans and talking about the importance of veterans in this country. this morning, he released a veterans than that he says will help veterans. he'll help staff up the va. he'll help reform and modernize va facilities but then his message today was on medicare for all. that is his signature policy. and it was a town hall. you see the setup still there behind me but there were people who got up, shared their personal stories with the health industry. shared struggling with sickness but also battling with bills and the cost of medicine. listening to senator sanders.

>> we are taking on an enormously powerful entity and that is why we are the only major country on earth. but the time is now. there's too much suffering in this country. too many people are uninsured, under insured, going bankrupt because of this dysfunctional and cruel healthcare system. we're going to take them on and we are going to defeat them and we're going to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. >> and sanders was also asked about how he is going to pay for medicare for all. and the distinction that he has with senator elizabeth warren and how she proposes to pay for it. she says -- he said that they are both on the same page in wanting to have universal healthcare. but there is a difference there in how to pay for it. he says his plan is better. he says that senator warren, of course, would disagree with that but that they have the same goal in mind. ali, this all comes at the end of what has been a very busy weekend for senator sanders here in iowa. we've been following him along and we've clocked in about 900

miles, nearly 1,000 miles, following him. he was with aoc earlier this week and had big rally in council bluffs. then came to des moines. his focus was on climate change. now,he's talking about veterans and medicare for all. ali. >> i want to bring in josh ledderman. his swing through the granite state comes as we get a new look at where things stand in the race. according to a poll released just moments ago, josh, former vice president joe biden has got a slim lead in new hampshire. 20% support. massachusetts senator elizabeth warren is next with 16%. pete buttigieg coming in, though, third at 15%. and senator bernie sanders after him at 14%. josh, what's the situation? what's the reaction from the buttigieg campaign? >> yeah. this is a change, ali, because really we had seen pete buttigieg polling in fourth place in new hampshire in the single digits. now, at least according to this

new qpac poll just out a few minutes ago, in third place in new hampshire. this comes as he's surging into second place in iowa. his campaigns wants to see that one-two punch of a strong showing in iowa and new hampshire so if he doesn't do well in some other early states, he'll have some momentum to carry him through. we just asked him about these new poll numbers. take a listen at what he had to say. >> the crowds we're seeing in the gyms, the enthusiasm we're seeing on the faces of the people i speak to is being reflected in the numbers. obviously, they're all the things that are important to say when talking about polls. any one poll is just any one poll. but i would hope that we'd start to see the numbers reflect the enthusiasm we feel on the ground and it sounds like that might be validated. >> and we have actually been seeing a lot of that enthusiasm on the ground as we've been touring pete buttigieg by bus for the last four days throughout here in new hampshire.

he had a crowd of about 1,300 people on his first day here. that was the largest crowd he's had in new hampshire of the entire campaign. and so he does think that that is now starting to show up in the polls as we saw just from this new poll today, ali. >> all right. josh, thank you. for former vice president joe biden is in iowa today but his wife dr. jill biden is campaigning for him in another early state. south carolina. nbc news political reporter mike memoli talked with her a short time ago. he joins us from st. helena island. mike, what's the situation? >> as you know, joe biden is a natural campaigner. this is -- politics runs through his blood. his wife, she's talked about how she is a very reluctant political spouse. she prefers to be in the background. but she has been on the campaign trail regularly for her husband and it's been clear this campaign is different especially with the attacks on her family. i talked to her just a short time ago and let's take a listen to her talking about impeachment. >> what goes through your head when you hear this weekend republicans on capitol hill

talking about bringing your son and bringing your husband potentially to testify in an impeachment hearing and impeachment trial? >> you know, this i think has been -- donald trump -- this plays right into his hands. because this, for him, he's trying to distract the voters. you know, what donald trump did was wrong. flat-out wrong. calling a foreign leader and asking them, you know, and holding back foreign aid unless he investigated my husband and my son. you know, that is just flat-out wrong and i think that the american people see that. i think the people in congress see that. and they're going to stand up to him. >> ali, there's a story that dr. biden likes to talk on the campaign trail about and it's about when she was 13 years old and she punched a neighborhood bully. she didn't necessarily say that president trump is a bully but i asked her what she would say to him if she would go face to face with him. she put her hand up and said stop, my husband's going to beat you. >> all right. mike, thank you. mike memoli on the trail with

dr. jill biden in south carolina. all right. butte j buttigieg and sanders are using veterans day to promote their plans for veterans. both say they would address veterans affairs chronic staffing shortage. buttigieg says he'll address the staff shortage and make sure the agency is fully funded. when it comes to mental health, sanders says he would expect -- expand access to mental health and suicide prevention programs, including to national guard and reserve soldiers regardless of whether they served overseas or in combat. buttigieg says he would increase the number of mental health and addiction professionals treating veterans and increase investments in suicide prevention programs. while the plans are fairly similar, there are some differences between them. sanders wants to include dental care as a benefit for veterans. he also wants to spend $62 billion to upgrade and maintain va facilities and he wants to improve and simplify the claims process. so veterans receive what they need quickly and accurately and

eliminate the claims back log. buttigieg says he would establish a white house coordinator to facilitate record sharing between the defense department and the va so that records transfer seamlessly. he also wants to increase the number of physicians and other healthcare providers in rural areas. and make it easier for veterans to be treated at or near home by investing in telehealth services. i want to bring in army veteran, chairman and co-founder of votevets.org. the largest progressive veterans group in the country. john, good to talk to you. look, the -- the light that needs to be shined on the specific needs that veterans have, not just because they're veterans and should get healthcare, but they have, as a population, there are certain specific issues they face that have fallen by the wayside in terms of the public attention to them. >> absolutely. every war we like to say new wars have new wounds. and i think what makes all these plans great, you mentioned senator sanders and pete

buttigieg's plan, along with senator warren released last week, they all strengthen the department of veterans affairs. when we've been in a time of privatization. and why that's so important is when veterans come back from war, there are certain challenges that they face we don't always know about. in this war, it's been traumatic brain injury. in wars prior, it's been agent orange exposure. so veterans go to the va for the same reason i did when i came home. it was the only place i knew to go. and so there are some areas of expertise that the va has, where they're the absolute best in the world because we're getting a clu cluster of veterans coming in with similar challenges. whether it's prosthetics to post-traumatic stress to traumatic brain injury. so what's great about these plans is they strengthen the va and that means better care for veterans because the va is most prepared to deal with these clusters you're seeing that you wouldn't get with a decentralized private system. >> john, one of the things we worry about and president obama sort of put a push on dealing with is veteran homelessness.

sanders wants to spend nearly $32 billion over five years to end veteran homelessness. the money would go to grants to build permanent supportive housing. buttigieg also wants to invest in permanent support of housing, as well as in-state and local partnerships to end homelessness. how -- how success have we had on this front? and what do you believe the solution is? >> it's hard. you know, when you think about veteran homelessness, you can build the shelters. right? but what you really have is the mental health challenges and the challenges that veterans are having coming home. maybe they don't find employment because they're quote, not qualified, which is just a terrible trope that seems to have permeated into the presidential race towards veterans. or they get a drug addiction, you know, maybe they have, you know, been overprescribed drugs. and veterans end up on the street. and so, yes, you can deal with the symptom of the homelessness and -- and build more, you know, these shelters or places for the

va to have housing. but the core issue is, you know, bringing veterans in and giving them the mental health treatment they need, which would be the core issue that's driving the homelessness problem. >> there's another issue, and this has been going on every time we send people to war and it's a transition from military life into civilian life in terms of employment, in terms of healthcare. sanders wants to make it easier for veterans to transfer the skills they learn during the military service to the civilian workforce and he wants to expand and improve incentives for companies to hire veterans. buttigieg wants to expand options for using benefits from the gi bill, as well as expanding programs to increase awareness of the benefits that military members have. he wants to vebinvest in transin assistance programs for service members and spouses leaving the military. for people who are not in the military, it might be hard for them to understand why it wouldn't be obvious about how you transfer the skills you learned in the military or developed or practiced into civilian life. it would seem obvious that those skills have a place in civilian

life. 0. >> i think this is a huge civil military divide right now. there are some jobs you have when you sign up for the military that are easily transferrable to the civilian workforce. maybe you're a truck driver. we, you know, there's a transition program there. you can go work in the -- in the truck industry. the labor union specifically, the building trades unions in the united states do a tremendous job of putting that were infantrymen and armor tanks or whether they're in the marines and sort of give them the skills. but not every job you have in the military is transferrable to the civilian sector. often, veterans are told that they don't have experience in that field and they're not qualified. and, again, in the presidential race, we're beginning to see these narratives used against pete buttigieg and these are the tim types of narratives veterans face every day. it's very unfortunate. there are stills veterans do have even if they're in a combat military occupational specialty. they have leadership, management experience, they can pass drug

tests, they show loyalty to an organization and a cause. and a lot of the times, people who leave the military go into management positions because they've been leading troops for 20 years. and so there's a tremendous amount of transferrable skills. but there's huge, huge roadblocks to people telling veterans when they leave the service that they're just frankly not qualified. and that is a basically an employment discrimination issue that veterans have been facing this entire generation. >> john, thank you for your help in analyzing these proposals. john is the chairman of vote vets.org. coming up, former ambassador of the u.n. nikki haley is out with a new book claiming two of president trump's top advisors tried to recruit her in their efforts to undermine the president and quote save the country. later, rudy giuliani's business partner or business associate lev parnas reportedly says he is-let one who delivered the message tying ukraine military aid to the investigation into the bidens. you are watching msnbc. e bidens you are watching msnbc ome at wa, you get more than free shipping.

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u.n. nikki haley is defending her claim that she resisted efforts from trump's two senior administration officials to circumvent the president's policy decisions and quote save the country. on the eve of her memoir's release, a passage reportedly says former secretary of state rex tillerson and john kelly tried to recruit haley and undermine the president but she refused. "the washington post" released quotes from it writing, kelly

and tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren't being insubordinate. they were trying to save the country. it was their decisions, not the president's, that were in the best interest of america, they said. the president didn't know what he was doing. the post says tillerson did not respond to a request for comment and kelly declined to comment in detail but said, quote, that if providing the president with the best and most open legal and ethical staffing advice from across the government so he could make an informed decision is working against trump, then guilty as charged. here's more of what nikki haley told cbs. >> it absolutely happened. and instead of saying that to me, they should have been saying that to the president. not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan. it should have been go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you don't like what he's doing. but to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing. and it goes against the constitution and it goes against

what the american people want. and it was offensive. >> joining me now is washington post white house reporter ann garan. ann, i want to read a piece from your article in which you quote nikki haley when she's asked about running for president and she says i'm not even thinking that way. i'm thinking more of we need to do all we can to get the president re-elected and then from there, deciding how i will use the power of my voice. i think that's what a lot of people are wondering about. the choice nikki haley has used because she does have some voice in my lighting this issue that tillerson and kelly, she says, were trying to undermine the president in recruiting her. what's the analysis of this? >> yeah. ali, i mean, i think she's doing a couple of rather complicated things here. one is she is clearly hitching herself to trump's wagon. her affiliation with him is what has made her the national figure

and presumptive -- that she is and she doesn't want to endanger or damage that relationship both with the president and with his supporters. many of whom are also very vocal supporters of hers. the other thing she wants to do, it's clear in the book, is show that how over two years in the administration, she was willing to kind of buck precedent and ordinary protocol whenever she felt that she needed to make a point. when she felt she needed to say something directly to the president. she paints a portrait of others in the administration, all men, who stood between her and the president and appeared to resent her access to him. it's obviously a one-sided portrait but it is also one that i think she is presenting deliberately to show what she did and give a rational for why she did it. >> this does seem to be a bit of

image building from her perspective. as you mentioned and i want to read from our article, she does point to several examples of disagreements with trump. she said she went privately to the president with her concern that she had seated authority to russian president vladimir putin after the two leaders met in helsinki with her objection to what she calls trump's moral equivalence in response to a deadly white supremacist march in charlottesville before. these are layups, right? they're anything -- i'm curious what the white house has said if they've said anything about it yet because i don't think donald trump would enjoy the fact that nikki haley is writing about saying he didn't do the right thing on charlottesville or in helsinki with putin. >> yeah. the white house has not commented either for my story or just in general since the book came out. but i'll note that the president tweeted a essentially a go-by-the-book notice yesterday. so he -- he -- he's not telling

people either to avoid the book or making any suggestion that he doesn't agree with what's in it. at the time of the charlottesville case, haley let it be known that she did not like the way the president responded and that she had made a private complaint to him. but she didn't say what that complaint was. so i think the news in the book is that she lays it out. she describes how that conversation went. but to your point on that one and on helsinki, one would think that if you disagreed with the way the president was presenting himself on those two things, which are often the two elements that people point to as, you know, the president's biggest public missteps in those first couple of years of office, you would think that someone like haley would have taken issue with those. and she does make a couple of other sort of glancing complaints or suggestions that he should have done things

differently in the book. but not many. >> and good to talk to you. thank you. ann, white house reporter for "the washington post." and a quick programming note, nikki haley will be on today tomorrow morning. check your local listings. nikki haley is also weighing in on the impeachment inquiry. >> i think it is not a good practice for us ever to ask a foreign country to investigate an american. i don't. but did the ukrainians call for an investigation? no. did the president hold up aid? he released the aid, as he should. and so for that, you know, impeachment's a serious issue and i just -- i don't see it as impeachable. >> no harm no faoul i guess. and with the first round of public hearings set this week, rudy giuliani now denying claims he's the one who reportedly directed his associate, lev parnas, the guy on the right to pressure ukraine into investigating the bidens. you are watching msnbc. vestigats you are watching msnbc ♪

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that he traveled to ukraine to tell the country's new president that u.s. military aid would be withheld if investigations into trump's political rivals were not opened. and it was all at giuliani's direction. the times reports parnas told a representative of the incoming government that it had to announce an investigation into mr. trump's political rival, joseph r. biden jr. and his son or else vice president mike pence would not attend the swearing in of the new president and the united states would freeze aid, the lawyer said. the other giuliani associate, who was arrested on the same charges, igor fruman, said parnas's claim was false. giuliani's chimed in. he responded quote, categorically, i did not tell him to say that. now, all this comes as republicans reportedly are ramping up their defenses for the president. including claims that it was trump's associates who were acting on their own. not on behalf of the president. "the washington post" rights quote, amid the torent of testimony, it's easy to forget the crux of the historic house

impeachment inquiry boils down to a simple question. what did trump want from the ukrainians and what exactly did he do? joining me now, nbc's hans nichols and national correspondent for politico and msnbc contributor. hans, let's talk about the white house and republicans and what they're actually doing to prepare because since the beginnings of this debacle, there have been so many potential defenses. i didn't do it. it was about extra money from european countries. it was about corruption in ukraine. now, it's about the fact that it could be giuliani or mick mulvaney or gordon sondland running side hustles and it wasn't really the president. what's the defense going to actually look like? >> well, you have several lines of defense. and let's just state the obvious and it all comes back to the president himself who has said i am the team. i don't necessarily need a lot of help even though they're bringing in additional officials to manage the public phase of this. well, you heard from the president's congressional allies over the weekend was really two

tracks. number one, they continue to question the substance and just how close the alleged quid pro quo went to the president or, as you're suggesting, was it more centered around his aides, ie mick mulvaney and potentially national security officials. and the other line is on process and you really saw the president open this up trying to demand that he had direct access to the whistle-blower and you're hearing his congressional allies making a similar argument and that is that the president, under our system, any system, someone who is accused getting to face their accuser. so you saw house republicans saturday night put out a letter with their witness list, including hunter biden, as well as the whistle-blower. and then you saw pretty quickly adam schiff dismiss that out of hand saying that this is both redundant and unnecessary and that there's no need for the whistle-blower to appear in public because much of what the whistle-blower initially alleged has been corroborated by what we've learned since then through the testimony, as well as what was in the call log or the

transcript. and that's where it gets interesting because the president clearly wants to have this discussion just on the transcript or call log. so much so that he's even talking in his promise to release an additional transcript from the april 21 call. so that's where we are on a monday afternoon. the president's here in trump tower. he's been largely quiet today. participating in that veterans wreath laying ceremony earlier, we'll see if he takes to twitter later and tries to refresh his defense. >> natasha, the defense of the president has been all over the map and maybe it will become a little more focused this week. it does get tricky, or does it, for democrats to deflect from these various lines of questioning. or are they just working backwards from the information they already have from those depositions we've seen some of the transcripts from? >> i think that's exactly right, ali. i don't think the republicans' strategy here is making it any more difficult for the democrats to say, look, we have the call record. we have the president of the united states specifically asking a foreign president to investigate a u.s. citizen and

his son. and we have the fact, also, that when he did so, there was an aid -- there was a hold on military systems aid that was placed directly by the president to -- to prevent the ukrainians from having that aid to fend off russian aggression. so i think right now, they're just working backwards and trying to fill in the entire picture of this conspiracy that surrounded the president that perhaps we don't know for sure yet but we have a good idea of the fact that the president was directing his attorney, rudy giuliani, to work directly with the ukrainians, to work with diplomats in the united states, in order to pressure ukraine to launch these politically-motivated investigations. nancy pelosi has already said that the call itself is the smoking gun here. it's something that we didn't have in the mueller investigation. the president directly asking for help from a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 election. what they want to do now is they want to have as rock solid a case as they can. and in doing so, they have heard from about, you know, over a dozen witnesses at this point from state, white house, and

pentagon attesting to what happened. >> so maybe the president was -- has been watching this segment because i forgot one thing that the president has used here and he has just reminded us because the president has just tweeted i want to put the tweet up. where is the whistle-blower who gave so much false information? must testify along with schiff and others! so, natasha, this is the whole part of this strategy that i've -- like it's just gone from my brain. the idea that somehow this is the whistle-blower's fault. the whistle-blower's a liar. the whistle-blower didn't have first hand information, which one would think has been effectively debunked by the fact that they've had person after person testify to exactly what the whistle-blower said in detail. people who were in the room or on the call or have inside knowledge about how this all came to be. but the president's thinking about the whistle-blower and his supporters has not evolved or maybe it's a sophisticated strategy to make everybody who wants to believe the president say, well, where's the whistle-blower? >> i think there is some

strategy to it. i think that by pinning it all on one person, he's trying to make the case weaker. but as you said, the whistle-blower doesn't really matter at this point. now, democrats have talked to about 13 witnesses, more transcripts are supposed to be released today. about the wide-ranging, long dating back conspiracy to pressure the ukrainians to launch these politically-motivated investigations. now, we have one of giuliani's associates saying that as early as may they were threatening the ukrainians to hold up this aid and saying that the white house summit might be on the line unless they investigated the bidens. so there are a lot of people here who seem to have receipts and the more the president pushes back and throws these people under the bus, it seems like the more it's going to come back to bite him. >> natasha and hans nichols, thanks to both of you. hans is outside trump tower. and the list gives pretty good indications wh indications of what they're focusing on and it's not the president or his administration. according to the washington post, the list includes hunter

biden, hunter biden's business partner devon archer, the original whistle-blower, researcher from fusion gps which commissioned a dossier. and a ukrainian american who worked with the democratic national committee. garrett haake joins me now from capitol hill. also, joined by our attorney pamela. she's former veteran prosecutor and served as counsel to the house judiciary committee during proceedings against chief judge walter nixon of mississippi. pier garret garrett, let's start with you and that list. i don't know. give me the right question to ask because the question in my head is, why are all those people on the list? >> those are folks on that graphic who represent all the other topics that republicans would like to have be part of the conversation on impeachment. hunter biden and one of his business partners from burisma gets us into the issue of what donald trump was trying to get investigated in ukraine in the first place. the anonymous whistle-blower is a perfect avatar of our times. the kind of figure and anonymous

quote/unquote deep stater. some unnamed person in the federal government who the president and his allies are trying to cast as out to get the president. and then two folks who represent other favorite conspiracy theories related to ukraine and the 2016 election. not pictured on that graphic are the witnesses who republicans have asked for who are far more likely to be called. those are folks who have already been deposed, including kurt volker, tim morrison, and david hale, a state department official. those three we have seen transcripts for one. waiting on the other two. it is entirely possible that those three will get called because although their testimony may line up more with what republicans want to hear, there's probably some rhetorical value for democrats to give republicans one, two, some of the folks they have asked for to say that the process has been more fair than republicans have claimed thus far. >> pamela, can you give me some analysis of the democratic strategy so far? the testimony, the depositions they've taken of which we've seen some transcripts and the fact that some of those people who have given depositions will

return to give in-person testimony live on tv, public testimony, this week. and then this defense that we are seeing being formed by the republicans. >> yes, absolutely. this is very similar to the iran contra hearings, which i also participated in as counsel to the select committee. wherein you do a lot of depositions before the hearings. the minority attends. the majority attends. everybody gets to ask questions. and then you narrow down the list of public testimony and public witnesses that will come to the actual televised hearings. so that's exactly how this is proceeding. and this is typically how impeachments have proceeded as well. in the nixon impeachment, we went out and did depositions and then we selected those witnesses that were key and had key information for the impeachment itself. i would also mention that the congressional committees can give immunity to witnesses. and this is something not many people have discussed.

>> that's right. >> but when i ran contra, we gave oliver north and john pointdexter immunity. it was very controversial at the time. but now that lev and igor are talking their own to prosecutors and the committee, they can be given immunity by the committees themselves. so that will be a very interesting development if that happens. >> to that point, pamela, how is that different from somebody sort of pleading the fifth? the idea is that they are free to say what they say and they are protected from further prosecution from it if they are given that immunity? >> they are protected from the government ever using what they say to congress in a prosecution against them. >> sorry about that. i didn't mean to interrupt you, pamela. >> no. so they are not immune from the prosecution. oliver north was still prosecuted. >> i see. i see. okay. >> but ultimately, he was -- the appeal was granted because the court decided that they used too much of his testimony before

congress, which was immunized, against him. >> and, garrett, are we expecting anybody to testify who would need that at the moment? lev parnas is not on the list at the moment, right? >> yeah. i mean, parnas and his associate fruman would be the only people you would think would qualify thus far. they're the only people to be charged with a crime. whatever you think rudy giuliani was up to in ukraine and there's been some reporting that he's under investigation for some of his activities, he's not been charged with any crime. certainly, none of the other witnesses who we've heard from so far in deposition would need that kind of immunity based on anything we know so far. >> thanks to both of you. garrett haake on capitol hill for us. all right. coming up. acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney wants to join a lawsuit that could determine whether senior administration officials have to testify in the impeachment inquiry. but he may not be welcome as a party to that suit. we'll explain next. but first, just days after announcing his run for his old u.s. senate seat in alabama,

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side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, belly pain, and decreased appetite, which lead to dehydration and may worsen kidney problems. i have it within me to lower my a1c. ask your doctor about trulicity. okay. follow me with this one. acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney is attempting to join a lawsuit that could determine whether senior administration officials have to testify before congress in the impeachment inquiry. just a couple hours from now, a u.s. district court judge is going to hear arguments about mulvaney's request. now, for more on why this is important, i'm joined by my friend nbc justice correspondent pete williams. pooe pete, let's explain why is it important to mulvaney to join this suit? >> he wants to avoid having to testify before the house in the impeachment inquiry and he's decided that at least for now the best way to fight that is to piggy gak

piggy back on an existing lawsuit that was filed by charles kupperman, the former national security advisor in the white house. remember kupperman went to court in late october and said, look, i've got this subpoena from the house. on the other hand, i've got a letter from the white house saying i can't testify. over to you, judge. which do i follow? because no matter which one i follow, i'm going to be violating the law somewhere. so you tell me what i 'm supposd to do. that's the lawsuit mulvaney wants to join into. so here's the problem. number one, the house has withdrawn the lawsuit or rather withdrawn the subpoena for kupperman to testify. so they said, look, judge, this case should go away. the house has withdrawn the subpoena. there's nothing to fight over. and the judge hasn't quite gotten around to dismissing the case yet. so what -- that's one thing the house says is they say don't let him join in this lawsuit. it's running out of gas anyway. make him file his own lawsuit. and secondly, kupperman's lawyers say these two guys are not in the same position legally. kupperman basically says i'm

agnostic. you tell me. do i abide by the house subpoena? or the white house command to clam up? whereas mulvaney's motion to intervene names as defendants only the house. even though technically he's involved in a lawsuit that also names the president as a defendant, he's basically saying the house got it wrong. so there is a telephone conference call at 5:00 this afternoon to work all this out. why does it matter? it matters because if mulvaney has to file his own lawsuit, which he probably would, that stretches this -- this thing out even further. perhaps, that's what mulvaney is really all about here is trying to delay this in court while the house impeachment goes on. meantime, this is going to go through federal judge's ruling and then appeals court and maybe to the supreme court. and by then, you know, we'll be celebrating ash celebrating arbor day. so i think maybe that's what's going on here. >> is it fair that kupperman to rephrase what you said, kupperman is like you tell me what to do, i'll do it. mulvaney is trump's guy.

he's the white house guy. he would rather the outcome be that he not testify? >> well, he can -- we can deduce that from the way he structured his filing. he -- he's joining on to a lawsuit that names as defendants, kupperman's lawsuit names as defendants, the house intelligence committee but it also names the president. it names president trump. the white house because of his claim of executive privilege. in mulvaney's motion to intervene, he only says that his beef is with the house. he doesn't name the president as a defendant. i mean, as a technical legal matter, he has joined the lawsuit filed against among other people the president. so at the -- in a very crude way, he's suing his own boss but he's making it pretty clear that he has -- he hopes the outcome will be one certain way. >> now, tell me about the -- i just saw that the news organizations want to listen into this hearing today that is going to happen in probably less than an hour. what do we know about that? >> excuse me. i'm fighting a virus down here,

in case you couldn't tell. yeah. this is strange. this is a federal holiday. so the courts are closed. but the judge scheduled this 5:00 telephone conference call. we've all been trying to figure out how do we listen into that? we've been calling the judge's chambers, sending around e-mails to various court personnel without any answer. and here just a short time ago, a lawyer for a number of news organizations filed an emergency motion saying to the judge, make some way for us so we can listen in on this. >> pete, i'm going to nam night y nominate you to be the person who listens in so you get a chance to rest your voice. thank you. good to see you. drink lots of water and take care of yourself. pete williams, who has no time off coming because it's busy. call apparently happens at 5:00 p.m. eastern. mounting criticisms of facebook. ceo mark zuckerberg over the platform's decision not to fact-check ads by politicians. that is a next. you're watching msnbc. s. that is a next you're watching msnbc.

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facebook has been under fire in recent weeks over itannouncement that it will not fact-check political ads or other political speech. mark zuckerberg says it's not up to companies to censor politics or the news. the wsj opinion agreed with him saying it's a battle between those who think american values like free expression still matter. and those who think trump's presidency is a license to dispense with them. joining me for a closer look at this is a person i always turn to when these conversations get big like this. michael is a harvard law school lecturer. what do you make of this? there is something appealing about the argument that free speech is valuable and important and we shouldn't infringe on it because you don't like trump. what does the "wall street journal" have wrong in its argument? >> well, you are exactly right. that is actually the

quintessential point. it's very appealing to wrap yourself in the flag. we all believe in that as americans and one of the things that americans all believe in. unfortunately i think the "wall street journal" which is so good i think they allowed themselves to get duped by the facebook current political message, why. facebook's very comfortable censoring speech even by the ceo's account speech that they deem in their own and their sole discretion that they deem to be inciting or violent. they are also pretty good at deleting speech their community standards being about privacy or respect or human illation or other things you'd want to deter. so they're capable of deciding what fits their agenda and what fits their community standards because they don't want facebook

to lose their usership. but they are completely comfortable in letting it turn into a political cesspool. so let's not be duped. >> let's be clear. we are two guys who believe very fervently in freedom of speech. like, we believe in the first amendment. >> and capitalism in my -- yes. >> i want to read to you from the editorial in the "wall street journal." imagine if facebook were in the business of approving or disapproving candidate claims about the cost of medicare for all and the efficacy of climate change policy. the company would need to take political positions. it count put its thumb on the scale of elections far more than it can today. again, an interesting point because if bernie sanders says medicare for all will save us all this kind of money and somebody disagrees with that, does it fall upon facebook to study it and determine the voluntary yasz of something of that nature? >> all for capitalism. let's call a spade a spade.

this is just them defending their capitalism. the numbers will determine this debate once and for all. facebook's revenue in the u.s. in north america, u.s., and canada is about $33 billion. that's of their total analyzed revenue. the estimated overt political ads spent in the 2020 cycle meaning not from the russian bots. is going to be over 3 billion. so that's about 9, 10% of what facebook could make this year. they are looking to make their money on that ad revenue. by the way they should. but when they start to say that they are wrapping themselves in that first amendment because they stand for something, no, that's not true. they stand for their revenue. the "wall street journal" is making a mistake or someone else is making a mistake in this case, perhaps, that, you know,

that facebook on one side of its mouth says, hey, we are very, very adamantly determined to deter certain kinds of speech but not that kind of speech and at the same time be able to wrap themselves in the flag. you either believe in it or you don't. a value is something you believe all day and all night. it's not something you believe sometimes. so unfortunately i think the "wall street journal" is backing up zuckerberg and i think they got it wrong in this case. >> michael, good to see you as always. he is the founder and managing partner at heroic ventures. we are going to have a look at the markets after this quick break. you are watching msnbc. break. you are watching msnbc new neutrogena® bright boost with dullness-fighting neoglucosamine. boosts cell turnover by 10 times for instantly brighter skin. bright boost neutrogena®.

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market wrap is sponsored by td ameritrade. we're back with a check on the markets before trading finishes for the day. i want to take a look at this dow. this is a really interesting chart. it was red for most of the day. then it was a little bit of green. and now we're struggling. it's off four points. four points means nothing. three points means nothing. two points, here, this is the thing. if it gets to positive, then we have another record. so there you go. the dow is now positive for the day. if it closes that way in 25 or 30 seconds, this will be the ninth record for the dow. on friday we had the eighth dow record, the 1th s&p 500 record, the 14th nasdaq record. the market's gained about 3% in the last month alone. normally i don't care about these things. but this will matter today. the difference between negative and positive will actually make

a difference. by the way it's all about boeing because boeing is going to resume deliveries of its 737 max jets. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm going to see you back here tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. eastern. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace begins right now. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. where in about 40 hours of the public phase of the impeachment proceedings into donald j. trump will commence. there is no shortage of damaging new testimony from a parade of witnesses. investigating whether donald trump abused the power of his office when he requested investigations into a political rival. the first two witnesses who americans will hear from in those televised hearings on wednesday have already delivered some of the most devastating and detailed accounts of the conditioning of both military aid and a presidential meeti