CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: She always has something to teach. And that`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes starts right now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The resolution is adopted without objection. The motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.
HAYES: The impeachment resolution goes to the floor and the ayes have it.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (R-CA): The President`s misconduct has compelled us to continue to move forward with an impeachment inquiry.
HAYES: What we learned from today`s vote, what it means for the Democratic strategy moving forward.
PELOSI: I don`t know why the Republicans are afraid of the truth.
HAYES: And what we know about the President`s new plan to woo impeachment jurors with campaign cash.
TRUMP: No Republicans have raised concern.
HAYES: Plus, brand-new testimony from a sitting White House official confirming a quid pro quo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a lot more than a phone call. It was a coordinated campaign.
HAYES: And the new economic data that could mean impeachment may be the least of Donald Trump`s problems.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The impeachment of your president is a scam.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. For the fourth time in this country`s history, the House of Representatives voted to formalize an impeachment inquiry into the President of the United States. It`s a clear victory for Speaker Nancy Pelosi who called for unity even as Congress moved closer to impeaching the president.
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PELOSI: Hopefully, as we go forward with this, for the clarity of purpose, a clarity of procedure, a clarity of fact, a clarity of truth. It`s about the truth, it`s about the Constitution. We will do so in a way that brings people together that is healing rather than dividing. And that is how we will honor our oath of office.
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HAYES: The vote was a show of strength by Pelosi who kept together all but two members of the Democratic caucus. After winning a historic net 41 seats in 2018, many of them in districts Trump won by double digits two years prior, there was a question of whether these swings district Democrats would be willing to call the President`s lawlessness and abuses in the teeth of constituencies that voted for the president. But today they did.
People like Congressman Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, The Washington Post says his district leans Republican by ten points. People like Oklahoma Congresswoman Kendra Horn, the only Democrat representing that state in the U.S. House. The Post says her district leans also Republican by ten points. Congressman Ben McAdams of Utah, the only Democrat from his state. The Washington Post says his district leans Republican by a whopping 13 points.
Now, every member of the Republican Party voted against the resolution. But we should note, that`s only because the one Republican who came out for impeachment and voted for the resolution today Justin Amash was essentially ejected from the party for doing so.
You know, Trump`s Republican Party has this nifty bit of circular logic where if Democrats criticize the president, well that`s partisan. If a Republican criticizes the president, well then that Republican is a never Trumper and ergo not a real Republican and therefore also partisan. That`s basically what happened to Justin Amash. It`s what they do with Mitt Romney, the party`s last presidential nominee who Donald Trump Jr. mocked on Twitter calling him a Lib for liberal, not exactly.
The President is now facing a protracted public erring of his wrongdoing including his corrupt abuse of power. His approval rating continues to hover around 40 percent where it`s basically been throughout his presidency the Trump economy is now showing real signs of slowing. And he has almost no tangible legislative accomplishments after nearly three years in office other than a massive tax cut for corporate America.
You know, today, it`s worth taking a step back to put the vote in context. This entire thing has been a sort of remarkable turn of events. After waiting two years for the highly anticipated and secretive Mueller report, an extremely successful spin job summary by Attorney General William Barr that declared there was no obstruction despite extensive evidence there was, frame the coverage of that report.
And then when Special Counsel Robert Mueller himself testified on Capitol Hill, it was -- it was pretty underwhelming. Despite over 1,000 former federal prosecutor saying Trump would have been indicted for obstruction were he not president, dozens a member of Congress citing the Mueller report saying this is high crimes and misdemeanors, he should be impeached, President Trump looked like he was essentially going to walk away from the whole thing unscathed.
But then the day after Robert Mueller testified, Trump calls up the Ukrainian president to corruptly coerce him to meddle in the next election, telling him I would like you to do us a favor though. And now, here we are. The President is about to be impeached.
Joining me now is one of the Congress members who voted for the impeachment resolution today, Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch of Florida, a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committee. This -- I don`t think this was a difficult vote for you but how did you feel about casting this vote today? What did it mean what happened on the floor of the House today?
REP. TED DEUTCH (D-FL): Well, what happened on the floor of the House, Chris -- thanks for having me -- it was -- this was a very serious moment for the House of Representatives, a very serious moment for the Congress.
And while it showed the commitment of the House of Representatives to ensure that no one is above the law, to continue to dig deeper into what we already know about the president`s abuse of power and using his office to pressure a foreign government to help with a political campaign, the betrayal of our national security, while it was important for us to make that statement, it was also a sad day because defending the Constitution has never been a partisan issue, should never be a partisan issue.
And what you saw on the floor of the House today was a Republican caucus that sadly seemed more intent on defending the President than showing a willingness to do exactly what they said they wanted which is move forward with an open process, the next phase of this all to get to the truth. And that`s what was so unfortunate about today.
But the work is important. It`s been -- we`ve seen -- learn so much already and we`re going to move forward quickly as we need to on behalf of the American people.
HAYES: I`m curious if you can tell me a little bit about what the kind of mood of the caucus is. I mean, this was a very divisive issue. If you go back six or seven months after the Mueller report, there were many people who felt that what was shown in the Mueller report on its face constituted high crimes and misdemeanors. There was a fracture in the caucus about whether they should move forward on impeachment.
And then the whistleblower complaint comes out. The President pressuring the Ukraine president comes out. There`s now I think caucus consensus on this. But how are people feeling about entering into this next chapter?
DEUTCH: Well, I think after the past five weeks, there is a real sense of urgency to this. You`re right about what`s gone on the thus far. I`m on the Judiciary Committee. We spent a lot of time as did so many of my colleagues looking at the Mueller report volume one that detailed all of the ways that the Trump campaign was only too happy to have the support of Russia in the 2016 election, volume two that documented ten cases of obstruction of justice. That was a real focus.
But after -- as you point out, after the President made this call, we`ve now learned about the call and continue to hear from patriotic Americans who come from the diplomacy world and the national security world who understand that what the president did, what he`s admitted to, what his chief of staff has admitted to in creating this shadow foreign policy run by Rudy Giuliani with the help of Sondland, and Volker, and Rick Perry, that it puts our national security risk.
We need to go forward. There is I think -- there is a feel in the House floor that we came together today on behalf of the American people. We need to continue to move forward, expose the truth, and ensure that we defend the Constitution as we swore to do.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Ted Deutch on a monumental day, thank you for making some time for us.
DEUTCH: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Joining me now for what today`s impeachment resolution means as a legislator who voted against Bill Clinton`s impeachment as a member of the House of Representatives, now Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. From your side of Capitol Hill, what was the meaning of today`s vote?
SEN. DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): Well, it`s good to be with you, Chris. And by the way, I just want to first start by saying congratulations for all the great work you`re doing on your podcast and your live shows and everything. I think they`re wonderful. So --
HAYES: That`s very kind of you. I appreciate it.
STABENOW: Yes, absolutely. You know, from our side, and at this moment, our responsibility takes over once the House has completed its work. And there is a sense of seriousness about this. There is a sense of understanding that so many of our House members in tough races put country above politics and there`s tremendous respect for that.
I think people here are in awe of the Speaker and what she`s been able to do, and Adam Schiff, and all the members that have laid out and methodically a process and information that is incredibly serious, were a very, very serious moment for the country.
HAYES: You are not up in 2020. You were just recently reelected in 2018, but you represent a state that everyone identifies as a crucial swing state. It`s a state that obviously went for Trump famously that seemed to swing back from the direction of Democrats in 2018. Where things look from a state as evenly divided as yours, Michigan, as we`re about to enter into what will be an epic and cataclysmic kind of political and partisan battle?
STABENOW: Well, Chris, there`s no question that Michigan is really a major if not the focal point, a major focal point. And I think we are like the rest of the country with people who have felt for a long time that there should be an impeachment inquiry and that the president should be removed.
There are others who will never support that. And then we have I think a substantial number of people in the middle that are very thoughtful and listening and have been growing more and more concerned. And I think as you see the national polls where people are moving. I think that is true in Michigan.
Because when you`re talking about somebody abusing their office, using the country, our reputation, using military assistance to try to get help for your own campaign, people are very concerned about that. And if I could just jump in one more, and that is because this is Halloween. I want to say that I`m here in the middle of the Senate legislative graveyard Mitch McConnell has created as well.
And what I think is incredible is that Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats have really shown they can walk and chew gum at the same time because they`re doing a major effort that we`re talking about now. They`ve also passed more than 400 different bills over to the United States Senate on everything from election security, protecting health care, violence against women act, climate change, gun violence safety, background checks, on and on and on, and they have had seven times more votes than have occurred in the United States Senate. And here we are and we`re not -- we`re not doing an impeachment investigation.
HAYES: You know, I was going to actually ask you this. I don`t -- and I mean this not in an insulting way. Other than confirming judges, I don`t actually know what the Senate does right now.
STABENOW: Well, it`s not insulting to me at all. I mean, Mitch McConnell has proudly called himself the Grim Reaper and none of what the House has sent us will pass. And he is laser-focused only on judges, preferably very young. It doesn`t matter if they`ve ever practiced, you know, in front of any court, let alone a federal court, but he wants to pack the court.
So what we`re doing as Democrats, we have -- we are very focused and we last week brought up seven different motions on election security on different bills that were objected to protect our vote, to protect us from foreign interference. This week again it`s health care, protecting people with pre-existing conditions and trying to protect people from being sold junk plans.
Two weeks ago it was pensions. We are every week focus on something that the American people that they want us to be focused on to make their lives better.
HAYES: All right, Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, thank you very much.
STABENOW: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Joining me now are two reporters who have been covering today`s historic vote, Sheryl Gay Stolberg Congressional Correspondent for the New York Times and Matt Fuller Congressional Reporter at HuffPost. Sheryl, this was not always a fait accompli. And today, by the time the vote was taken, I think it felt like that. What was the mood like on the Hill today?
SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I think the mood was very somber. I think it was fated, you know, with the weight of history. We saw in the debate a very impassioned debate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi quoted from the Constitution. Kevin McCarthy the Republican leader quoted from Alexander Hamilton.
So I think it was infused with a sense of history. But you`re right, this was not a fait accompli. Just two short weeks ago, Nancy Pelosi put the question to her caucus should we have a vote authorizing this impeachment inquiry. And the answer was resoundingly no. The idea was scuttled by moderates who were nervous that voters in their districts, their Trump- friendly districts would have created a backlash.
But by the time this vote which was not an authorization vote but rather simply a vote laying out procedure going forward, by the time this vote came to the floor, there was a clear sense that Democrats had united behind it. And it was really a credit to speaker Pelosi for how she can pull her caucus together.
HAYES: You know, Matt, there`s -- Republicans have pointed out that previous inquiries open with bipartisan votes in favor of them. That`s a little slip shot here just because they kicked Justin Amash out of the party more or less because he supports this. But it does show that like this is -- we`re undergoing this at a time of maximal partisan polarization. It`s -- were in a different universe now even than we were under Clinton.
MATT FULLER, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, HUFFPOST: Yes, that`s totally right. And I would -- I would add that the mood is yes somber, historic, but it was also underneath that the familiar partisan lines. I mean it was a very partisan day. Whether it was you know, Republicans basically throwing a fit over regular order in the House and looking for procedural issues here.
You know, it`s noteworthy that every single Republican you know, notwithstanding Justin Amash, was an independent voted against this process, a process that they were saying themselves you know, just a few days ago that this is integral, that they need the process. They want to establish this public thing. And you know, here`s the vote and then they all just said, you know, oh no.
And so it`s familiar -- it`s falling into the familiar partisan line here, and I think that that`s, you know, very substantial because it looks like a preview of you what the overall impeachment vote was going to look like.
HAYES: Yes, Matt`s point there is great that Republicans have been attacking the process for being behind closed doors, for not having you know enshrined due process rights, the president`s lawyers, minority. All of that exists in the resolution they voted on today which they all voted against.
It strikes me also, Sheryl that everyone here is kind of in for a penny in for a pound, right? Like this vote may not be the impeachment vote, but everyone understood what the vote is today, and no one is going to really be able to get away with separating out like the different procedural votes and the eventual vote.
STOLBERG: I think that`s exactly right. This vote was tantamount to an impeachment vote or at least a vote that said either you`re for this process or you`re against this process. And I think that`s why Republicans really held together. It was very important to President Trump frankly that not a single Republican voted in favor of this, and it enabled Republicans afterwards to say you know what, the only bipartisan vote today was a vote against going forward, and that`s going to be a key talking point that we are going to hear going forward from Republicans.
HAYES: This was a Mitch McConnell discovery in the era of Obama which is that if you -- bipartisanship is produced by whether you hold your caucus together. So if you hold your caucus together, you can by definition unilaterally make a thing not bipartisan, right?
And there`s also the thing here mat that I think is fascinating. You know, the Constitution gives the President a lot of power and that`s expanded throughout the sort of imperial presidency. The Constitution gives the Senate a lot of unique power. There are things only the Senate can do particularly when it comes to confirming judges and others.
There aren`t a ton of things only the House can do and impeachment is one of them. And it`s a striking moment in the balance of power to watch the House sort of rise to that power.
FULLER: Yes. And I think that that was, you know, I think everyone was sort of aware of that today that there was that again the sense of history. We`ve had you know, all these sort of bad faith arguments that we`ve heard over the last few weeks including you know, this is basically that this is a court of law, basically that this is, you know, whatever they`ve discovered to this point is fruit from the forbidden tree.
You know, it`s sort of ludicrous but the -- you`re right, the Constitution lays out that the House is in charge of impeachment and this is really them asserting their constitutional authority.
HAYES: Yes. And it`s a fascinating moment for that reason among others. Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Matt Fuller, thank you both. Next, the mountain of incriminating evidence against the President keeps on piling up. Why today`s testimony from a sitting White House official was so damning for the president in two minutes.
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HAYES: Another day of damning evidence against the President where once again a witness is confirming that yes indeed there was a quid pro quo. This time it comes from a sitting White House official who sources say was very careful not to directly criticize the president but who in his testimony reportedly did corroborate previous testimony from the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman of the National Security Council that there was, in fact, a quid pro quo. That a White House meeting and almost $400 million in aid were contingent on manufacturing dirt on the President`s political rivals,
This comes just two days after the damaging testimony from Vindman himself which were still learning more about including an episode in which he was immediately freaked out by Trump`s phone call with Zelensky and went to a White House lawyer whose response was essentially to bury the call notes in that highly classified server.
For more on what we learned, Mieke Eoyang Vice President for National Security Program at think-tank Third Way, a former staffer on the House Intelligence Committee. I want to start on that episode. As someone who has worked around the national security apparatus of this country, how normal or abnormal is this kind of thing that a presidential phone call triggers someone going to the lawyer for the National Security Council who then buries it in a classified system?
MIEKE EOYANG, VICE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM, THIRD WAY: This is very abnormal. Normally, a conversation like this, you`d want it widely disseminated so that everyone who works on Ukraine would know this is what the president of our country said to the president of their country. And now we can all work from that understanding which is a shared understanding with the other country.
By burying this phone call in this highly classified database where very few people had access to it, they knew that there was something wrong there. They were trying to hide it away from all of those people. But that creates huge national security risk because now the other country knows what happens and our diplomats, our national security apparatus is in the dark. And so they are wondering what is going on. Why are -- why is this country reacting the way that it is. It`s actually quite a strong indicia of a guilty conscience here.
HAYES: Yes. It does seem -- I mean, Mr. Morrison whose testimony is the top Russia expert, he is still at the National Security Council. I think he`s on his way out. He`s leaving tomorrow. It`s striking all these people have been coming forward. I mean, you`ve got some who are pursuing a sort of court challenge to whether they have to.
But by and large, even people working -- I mean, in the NSC as the top Russia expert, you`re working in the White House. And even though reporters indicate he was careful not to directly criticize the president, and even said of the President`s phone call that I did not think it was a crime, that he`s still coming forward because clearly they kind of know something was wrong here.
EOYANG: That`s right. And look, you don`t expect someone who is a nuclear weapons expert to know the ins and outs of campaign finance law and what`s prohibited in terms of asking a foreign government for a personal campaign benefit here. So that his judgment about whether or not it`s legal is sort of irrelevant to whether or not it was, in fact, illegal or a real problem.
But they very clearly knew it was a problem. They knew that there was a secondary channel. They knew that Trump was conducting foreign policy away from what normal looked like and what you know, it was right, you could do it in this channel. They had all these other people running around this aide to Devin Nunes, the President`s personal lawyer.
There were a lot of indications that the President was doing something really wrong here and that we were very, very far from perfect.
HAYES: Interesting about sort of meta-story here which is Tim Morrison`s a testimony, it leaked today that one of the things he said was, I want to be clear. I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed. That`s on the phone call. He was one of the people who listened. And that`s what you`re referring to about whether he`d be qualified to make that judgment.
But what`s striking to me is this is the first plausibly exculpatory statement of testimony that I have heard leaks in two weeks which makes me think if there were others we probably would have heard, right?
EOYANG: That`s certainly true. You`ve got Republicans in the room with the Democrats taking this testimony. If there was anything else exculpatory that they thought would give the president a reed to cling to, you`d think that they would have put it out.
This person`s judgment seems, you know, not really something you could rely on. And everything else that the White House lawyers have done since then or before this has also indicated that they think this is wrong. They wouldn`t be opposing the production of witnesses and documents, they would not be saying we`re not going to cooperate with you if they thought the record would show the president was doing things the right way for the American people instead of the wrong way for himself.
HAYES: Mieke Eoyang, thank you so much for sharing your time. Ahead, President Trump`s new play dangle campaign cash over key Republican senators up for re-election who would be crucial in a likely upcoming impeachment vote. That story next.
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HAYES: As the impeachment inquiry kicks into high gear today, the President is essentially giving a kind of cash reward to senators who have his back. Politico reports the Trump campaign sent out a fundraising e- mail yesterday asking for donations that would be split between the President and three Republican senators who have condemned the inquiry. Cory Gardner of Colorado, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
All three are up for reelection in 2020. They all represent states where the President`s approval rating is underwater. And their votes will be critical if the Senate votes to remove the president from office. Notably absent from the list is maybe the most vulnerable Senate Republicans Susan Collins of Maine who unlike her other three colleagues has so far avoided taking a position on impeachment.
It certainly makes it look like the president is worried about a future Senate vote and that his solution is to try to essentially kind of bribe his way out of a conviction. For a look at the President`s tactics, I want to bring Asawin Suebsaeng, White House Reporter at The Daily Beast.
It was such a tell that you had those three senators and not Collins and struck me that it`s not that the White House is desperate but they`re not unconcerned about where this goes in the Senate. Is that fair?
ASAWIN SUEBSAENG, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE DAILY BEAST: No. Well, I think that`s fair especially with regards to President Donald Trump himself, some of this -- not all of it but some of it is coming from the place of insecurity shall we say. A few days ago at The Daily Beast, we reported that President Trump had been complaining for a while to close aides and advisors that he felt Senate Republicans, Senate Republicans specifically, weren`t defending him hard enough, or going to the mat for him hard enough during this entire impeachment drive. They weren`t messaging hard enough. They weren`t pulling out enough hard core tactics or theatrics and he wanted something done about it, mainly for his supposed Republican allies on the Hill to buck up a little bit more.
And one of the ways in which this manifested itself is exactly what you`re talking about right now. And it`s absolutely no mistake that Collins was not on that roster because in this presidency the number one ideological element of this isn`t tax cuts or kicking immigrants out of the country, it`s abject fealty to Donald J Trump, and especially -- please.
HAYES: Well, so what`s fascinating here is what the president wants is he behavior from every Republican on Capitol Hill on both sides, House and Senate, that looks like Matt Gaetz, that looks like Louie Gohmert, right. He wants essentially full-time trolls who will attack his enemies and say whatever, and that`s fine if you`re in a 20 plus Trump district as a lot of those folks who occupy the House are. It`s just not the case in the Senate.
So, the behavior he`s demanding from them is not the most productive for them to be reelected.
SUEBSAENG: Right. And it`s also behavior not just that resembles some of his closest allies on the Hill, such as Representative Matt Gaetz or Lee Zeldin, it`s specifically behavior that represents, and perhaps even mirrors, Donald Trump himself.
HAYES: Right.
SUEBSAENG: For a -- I`ll give you an example on the White House side. When weeks ago, when White House Counsel Office sent that pretty insane sounding letter that that was signed and ostensibly written by White House counsel Pat Cipollone to Capitol Hill saying that the White House will not cooperate with this sham or whatever word they used of an impeachment investigation, footnote is obviously the White House even with that note was not able to stop these administration officials from testifying and cooperating and testifying in front of Democrats and Republicans, but setting that aside for a moment, that letter that the White House sent saying that we will not cooperate was angrily and enthusiastically dictated to Pat Cipollone by Donald Trump himself.
So, when it comes to crafting not just the messaging and the politics of this, Donald Trump even wants the legalese to sound a lot like him.
HAYES: The problem quickly here is that for Cory Gardner, particularly, or even for Tillis, I just don`t think that helps -- no amount of money that the president can raise for them is going to make up for the political discomfort of acting like Matt Gaetz for the president`s approval.
SUEBSAENG: Sure, absolutely. But I think that -- no, I think according to people I`ve talked to in the administration, most of the people in the upper echelons of Trump world, including the president of the United States himself, have come -- have sort of resigned themselves to the idea of the House impeaching them. He`s going to hate the hell out of it, but they`ve sort of come to the idea that there`s nothing they can really do about that.
But even with all this insecurity, as we were discussing before, and them pulling out all the stops to ensure as much a Republican defense as is possible in the Senate, they do realize that at the end of the day they`ll be there for him, and I think there was an under 1 percent chance in their minds that the Senate won`t keep Trump in office. I mean, it`s just not going to happen. We`re not going to see a President Pence in 2020.
HAYES: Asawin Suebsaeng, thank you for joining me.
Still to come, with the impeachment inquiry about to enter a public setting, how will that change the Democratic strategy? The next phase ahead.
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REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D) CALIFORNIA: We are legislating. And yes, we are investigating. And today we moved further down the path in our inquiry by putting forth our procedures, which are very transparent and open and frankly more transparent, more open, giving more privileges to the president and his argument that were given in the past.
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HAYES: Republicans have been criticizing the Democrats` impeachment inquiry on process grounds, especially for keeping the action behind closed doors. But in those private rooms away from the cameras they`ve been building a case against the president and corroborating it, at the same time not providing any opportunity for ridiculous theatrics from Republicans -- the storming of the congressional secure room last week a notable exception.
And now, for both better and worse, the inquiry is about to enter a new phase. As the Democrats move forward with a new strategy in public, the stakes are going to get a lot higher.
Here to talk about what that`s going to look like are Jill Wine-Banks, former assistant Watergate special prosecutor, legal analyst, and former Democratic Congressman Elizabeth Holtzman, who served on the House judiciary committee that approved three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.
So I think everyone agrees that you can`t impeach a president in closed setting, right? You`ve got to have open hearings. But it`s also striking to me that even more than 1998 with Bill Clinton, the Republicans here do not view this as a legitimate process, like fundamentally they don`t view themselves as mounting an argument. They view it as a process they want to subvert. And that`s going to play out I think in how this actual process goes out. How do you think it will play out?
ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN, FORMER CONGRESSWOMAN (D) NEW YORK: Well, yeah, I`m very troubled to see all the Republicans voting against an inquiry. I mean when I was there during the Nixon impeachment, the vote was over 400 to only 4, because people said, well, there needs to be an inquiry. These charges are serious, we need to look at the facts. What are the facts?
At that point people voted for the inquiry, but most Republicans on the committee in the end decided the facts didn`t warrant impeachment. Just because you are voting for an inquiry doesn`t mean you have to come out for impeachment.
HAYES: Well, that`s my point. We`re in a different universe right now. They`ve made up their mind.
HOLTZMAN: That`s the problem.
So the Democrats have two things they have to do. One is to complete the investigations, and two to have the public hearings.
The question is how are the Republicans going to respond? Are they going to act as clowns, are they going to try to be disruptive, as we`ve seen, or are they going to act in a serious, sober, responsible way? And I`m losing confidence that they`re going to do that.
And so the question is how are Democrats going to respond to that.
HAYES: One interesting point in the resolution that was approved today talks about allowing for staff questioning, which strikes me as important. Do you think that`s an important aspect here?
JILL WINE-BANKS, FORMER WATERGATE P ROSECUTOR: I am so glad you raised that, because I haven`t heard enough about it today. I think it`s one of the most significant features, the five-minute rule that said Democrats get five minutes, Republicans get five and you change the topic every time. That is not an effective way. As a trial lawyer, I can tell you I can`t do in five minutes an effective development of a narrative. And then if you change the subject, nobody is going to get anywhere. The American people will not get a story that they can understand.
So, what they`ve now done is said 90 minutes can be used -- and it can be extended -- but Democrats get 45, Republicans get 45, and staff can do the questioning. And then you go to the five minute rule with the congress members doing the questioning. That`s such a good way for America to understand what the...
HAYES: It`s a really important point. And the 45 minutes, obviously, the Republicans will be able to use that by staff questioning themselves, right? I mean, presumably they would be smart to do that.
WINE-BANKS: Yes. I mean, all you had to do was look a t the Barry Berk (ph) questioning of Corey Lewandowski and compare that to how much was accomplished in the five minute segments, and you could see now by the time Barry Berk (ph) started the questioning the networks had all turned off. It was over. They had covered the congressmen. If we had started with that, it would have been a much more effective case.
So that`s very important as to the rules that are very good.
HAYES: Here`s a kind of philosophical question, what is the purpose of these public hearings? Is the purpose to enter facts into evidence? Is it to persuade members of congress? Is it to show things to the American people and move public opinion? How do you see the purpose of this next phase?
HOLTZMAN: All of the above.
WINE-BANKS: Yes.
HOLTZMAN: All of the above. It`s primarily an educational function for the American people. They will also help to move members of congress, but this also helps to educate members of congress because they don`t know all the facts here.
HAYES: In fact, that`s been the complaint Republicans have been making for 37 days.
HOLTZMAN: But the fact is that when you have a live witness just as happened when you had John Dean on during the Watergate hearings before the U.S. Senate, the American people can listen to the witness, they can judge the witness` sincerity, they can judge the witness` credibility. They can say, you know something, that witness is telling the truth, or you know something, I don`t believe that person.
But the public is not going to support an impeachment effort unless they have a sense of how credible and how sincere the witnesses are, so that`s the key thing.
Now, of course if the Republicans try to disrupt that process, that`s going to make it a lot more difficult. And I think Democrats really need to be ready for the worst possible scenario here, and that`s unfortunate.
WINE-BANKS: Two things to add to that, which is nowadays the problem is that`s there`s going to be a group of people who will never hear the evidence as presented, because Fox will obscure it. People on MSNBC will see the facts, they will cover the witnesses.
And so far we`ve seen very clear evidence of how the Republicans are going to approach this. they have not addressed any of the facts. They have diverted to other subjects, and that`s I`m afraid what will happen here. And that could cause I think a very bad result.
I`m hoping that the facts will matter, that people will pay attention, and that like the Manafort juror who said I`m a loyal Trump supporter, but I heard the evidence and I voted to convict him on all 18 counts, because the facts were really compelling. And that`s what we need. That was the difference in Watergate where you saw the facts.
HAYES: That`s a great point. Jill Wine-Banks and Elizabeth Holtzman, thank you both.
Coming up why Donald Trump and Richard Nixon may have more in common than just impeachment, and why the biggest threat to Trump may not be today`s vote in the House. That`s ahead.
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HAYES: Before he was the president`s personal lawyer and fixer, before he was running a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine, before he was under federal investigation by his own office, Rudy Giuliani had a very important position on team Trump as the president`s first cyber security adviser.
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TRUMP: Rudy`s very much of an expert on cyber security. It`s been a very important thing to him and what he does. And maybe I`ll ask Rudy to say a few words.
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK: Well, thank you very, very much, Mr. President. First of all, congratulations on what is in fact a historic administration.
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HAYES: He`s literally sitting right in front of you. Just one week after that really inauspicious introduction as the president`s expert on all things cyber, Rudy Giuliani`s bona fides became apparent. According to NBC News, on February 7, 2017, the president`s cyber security adviser found himself standing in line outside an Apple store in San Francisco. The reason, he was locked out of his personal phone, because he had entered the wrong password too many times.
NBC News obtained a photo of the internal Apple Store memo recording the interaction with Rudolph Giuliani, quote, "customer came in with an iPhone that had forgotten passcode and the phone had been disabled."
Apple had to eras his data and set it all up again.
Very sloppy, a former Apple Store employee who was there on the day that Giuliani stopped by, told NBC News. Trump had just named him as an informal adviser on cyber security, but here he couldn`t even master the fundamentals of securing your own device.
Actual experts in cyber security were even more horrified, one telling NBC News, there`s no way he should be going to a commercial location to ask for that assistance, another noting it`s unnerving to think this individual has access to most powerful person in the world and that sensitive communications could be disclosed to people who should not have access to them.
And Rudy Giuliani exposed those potentially sensitive communications years ago at the very start of the Trump administration. The only reason we know about it now is because NBC News reporter Rich Shapiro dug up that Apple memo, that would be the same Rich Shapiro who Rudy Giuliani butt dialed twice, leaving accidental voice-mails about his need for cash and trashing the Bidens.
Then, just over an hour ago, Giuliani responded to NBC News on Twitter in a tweet that he edited at least once with a comparison that doesn`t make a ton of sense. All in all a great choice for the top cyber security adviser to the president.
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TRUMP: Rudy is very much of an expert on cyber security. It`s been a very important thing to him and to what he does. And maybe I`ll ask Rudy to say a few words.
GIULIANI: Well, thank you very, very much, Mr. President.
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HAYES: July 1974 with U.S. gross flagging, inflation shooting up, and the energy crisis squeezing consumers, President Richard Nixon asked and received time from the networks to give an evening address on his plan to revive the American economy. Of course, as NBC`s John Chancellor noted at the time, Nixon was making this speech smack dab in the middle of his own impeachment.
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JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC NEWS: The president has spoken on the economy on national television. He spoke, actually, during the dinner recess of the House Judiciary Committee`s debate on his possible impeachment.
The president did not talk about the impeachment problems in Washington, but these are rather unreal times in which we lead.
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HAYES: This week, we learned that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate about 1.9 percent in the third quarter. And that chart, which shows real GDP year-over-year growth is a scary one for Donald Trump and the Republican Party, because the economy is near full employment, though wage growth remains paltry. There`s now a manufacturing recession, thanks in large part to the president`s trade war, and most crucially for Trump`s reelection chances is growth appears to be slowing.
So, where the economy goes at this moment will inextricably be tied to the president`s political fate. In Nixon`s case, a whole bunch of damning facts came out, but it probably didn`t help him that the economy floundered as well. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was probably helped by the economy during his impeachment, which continued to boom. So, for Donald Trump the slowing of economic growth should be cause for concern.
Here with me now, someone who helped steer that booming Clinton economy, Robert Reich, who was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. Where do you see -- we`ve got another rate cut from the feds who -- from the Federal Reserve. They think there`s a possibility of a slow down. We saw GDP growth not super robust. We know the economy is sort of fear full employment. Where do you see things right now?
ROBERT REICH, FORMER SECRETARY OF LABOR: Well, Chris, the big question mark, in fact the thing that has a lot of economists scratching their heads, is how can you have such low wage growth. I mean, wages are growing almost not at all, adjusted for inflation, when you have such low unemployment? We haven`t seen this in the post-war era.
At the same time, you`ve got an economy that is showing all sorts of signs of slowing down. And this must be, as you said, scary to Donald Trump and Republicans. I mean, you know, Halloween, this is night for scariness, but it goes way beyond Halloween.
I mean this is an economy that is not showing anything like the robust growth that was promised when Trump and the Republicans passed the tax cuts. Remember, they were talking about, what was it up to 6 percent growth. We`re now down to 1.9 percent growth, and you have a shrinkage of business investment over the last six months.
HAYES: Yeah, let`s talk about that. One of the arguments made on the tax cut, one of the prime ones was this will boost investment. Investment will lead to higher growth, which will boost wages. I just want to play a -- listen to how often this argument was being made about business investment. Take a listen.
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STEVE MNUCHIN, SECRETARY OF TREASURY: But I`d say the real focus, which is what the tax cuts act has been all about, is putting more money in companies. We`ve said all along we believe that 70 percent of this will be returned to workers.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY : First, we`ll cut taxes for the every day hardworking Americans. Second, we will make the tax code simple, fair and easy to understand. Third, we will cut taxes on American businesses to restore our competitive edge and create more jobs and higher wages for American workers.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R) KENTUCKY: What I can tell you is that every segment of taxpayers, every category of taxpayers on average gets significant relief.
PAUL RYAN, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This plan is for the middle class families in this country who deserve a break. It is for the families who are out there living paycheck to paycheck who just keep getting squeezed.
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HAYES: So we know that the actual tax cuts for middle class families were quite small, and they will get smaller over time. The big cut was for corporations, and the idea was we`re going to cut their taxes. They`re going to invest a lot. What has happened to business investment since we passed the tax cut?
REICH: Business investment, actually almost nothing, Chris. The big news there is that businesses used most of the tax savings to buy back their shares of stock, which created the kind of sugar high in the stock market for a time. And now when that sugar high passed, the stock market did not do as well.
But remember also that about 80 percent of the value of the stock market is owned by the top richest 10 percent of Americans, which means that most Americans, not only did they not get a wage increase, but they saw no value, no gain from all those stock buybacks.
HAYES: There`s also this manufacturing recession, which is really fascinating to me because there was a manufacturing recession that happens in basically 2015 and 2016. And that had to do with sort of commodity prices and energy prices. And I think there`s an argument to be made that that played a role in that 77,000 vote margin across the greater industrial Midwest.
Right now, we are seeing manufacturing in recession in those same states in the industrial Midwest at this point largely due to the trade war. Is that a switch that can be turned on and off if some big deal is struck with China?
REICH: No, you can`t turn it easily on and off because manufacturing, unlike a lot of industries, is really about bricks and mortar and machines and equipment. And you`re either expanding or you are contracting. And if you`re contracting, as we are right now, and 2,000 manufacturing jobs lost last month, you can`t just turn it back on. You actually are finding that, and we`ve seen this historically that when manufacturing starts to shrink, it usually continues to shrink for a while even if demand picks up.
HAYES: And that`s because of the -- this problem that you need need capital expenditures, you need to coordinate a lot of things to expand your business, you need planning out ahead of time.
REICH: Exactly. You also need a certainty about the future. And what is making all of this very, very difficult for manufacturers and for other big investors in the private sector is that they don`t know what the future is. There`s so much more uncertainty now, because of the trade wars, and primarily the trade wars, and all these manufacturing plants have supply chains all around the world. They don`t know what`s going to happen to any of this so that manufacturers are pulling in the reins.
HAYES: Yeah, that`s a great point. Robert Reich, thanks, as always, for sharing your erudition. I appreciate it.
REICH: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: That is ALL IN for this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END