LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel.
We are going to begin tonight with yet another amazing thing that Nancy Pelosi has done. And I`m not someone who`s been tracking amazing things done by Nancy Pelosi over the years, but this year she has had a year. She has really had some moments, and this is one that you didn`t have room to include in your hour in that press conference, you know, when she was leaving the room.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Oh, yes.
O`DONNELL: And she did that turn around on a reporter who yelled out something that he should not have yelled out at Nancy Pelosi when she was leaving that room. We`re going to full that drama as it plays out. And I`m once again just stunned by how she handled it.
It`s an unscripted moment, so she had no idea it was coming. It`s like that moment in the White House when she stood up to President Trump in the cabinet room. Unscripted moment. It was provoked by the situation.
And it -- it`s just something that it feels like only she can do this.
MADDOW: Yes, and it was sort of an indelible moment. And I will say as a Catholic, seeing her invoke her Catholic faith in that moment at the apex of that confrontation was sort of a heart-stopping thing.
O`DONNELL: Yes, and it`s -- it`s all there. I mean you really -- she delivers those moments like no one I`ve ever seen in Washington.
MADDOW: Well done. Can`t wait. Thanks, my friend.
O`DONNELL: Thank you, Rachel.
Well, today in New Hampshire, Pete Buttigieg said something that many people including me criticized as soon as it was reported on Twitter by a "Boston Globe" reporter. And hours later, reporters asked Pete Buttigieg about it again. And he changed what he had to say, but he did not correct what was wrong -- what was very, very wrong in his first statement today.
We`re going to take some time at the end of this hour to show you all of that because at the heart of that story is a very important political lie, a political lie that has been told by Republicans for generations.
Well, as I was just saying to Rachel, Nancy Pelosi did it again today. It was like that electrifying moment where she literally stood up to Donald Trump in the cabinet room. It was unscripted. It was provoked by someone else, but she seized the moment, as dramatically as any fiction writer could have provided for any fictional politician in a movie scene.
And I am sure that she got a silent cheer from some people working at Fox News today when she did that. And she did that after making history first thing this morning. And we begin tonight with that history.
We begin tonight with an historic statement by the speaker of the House without any warning the night before the speaker scheduled an announcement for 9:00 a.m. with a hint that it would be something momentous because it was not scheduled for the press briefing room where she and other House members usually make announcements and take questions from reporters.
About 5:30 a.m. this morning, reporters first got the word that Speaker Pelosi would be making an announcement in a majestic location in the House of Representatives near the speaker`s office. Not a place she usually does this. And when the speaker made her entrance and stepped up to the microphone, she began at the beginning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Good morning.
Let us begin where our Founders began in 1776. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another. With those words our Founders courageously began our Declaration of Independence from an oppressive monarch for among other grievances the king`s refusal to follow rightfully passed laws.
In the course of today`s events, it becomes necessary for us to address among other grievances the president`s failure to faithfully execute the law. Our democracy is what is at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt once again the election for his own benefit. The president has engaged in abuse of power undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections.
His actions are in defiance of the vision of our Founders and the oath of office that he takes to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our Founders and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment. I commend our committee chairs and our members for their somber approach to actions by which the president have made necessary.
In signing the Declaration of Independence, our founders invoked a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Democrats too are prayerful, and we will proceed in a manner worthy of our oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic. So help us God. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: And with that, Nancy Pelosi guaranteed that Donald Trump will be the third president of the United States impeached by the House of Representatives. The House Judiciary Committee will write and vote on articles of impeachment. Those articles of impeachment will pass in the committee and then be voted on by the full House of Representatives and some or all of the articles of impeachment will pass the House of Representatives, and Donald J. Trump will take his place in history as an impeached president.
We don`t yet know the exact timetable for all of that, but it could happen before Christmas. The House Judiciary committee has its next impeachment hearing scheduled for Monday when they will consider the evidence in the House Intelligence Committee`s written report of its impeachment investigation of the president`s solicitation of help in his re-election campaign from the president of Ukraine by asking the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
After making her historic announcement this morning, the speaker of the House went about her regular duties including conducting, later, her regularly scheduled press conference about House of Representatives business in which she discussed the 275 bills that she has passed through the House of Representatives with bipartisan votes that are all now on Mitch McConnell`s desk in the United States Senate where he is ignoring them and refusing to allow them to come to a vote.
And then when the speaker was leaving that press conference, a reporter decided to shout out a question. The reporter is James Rosen who spent almost as much time working at a Fox News as disgraced sexual predator Bill O`Reilly and who left Fox News, according to "The New York Times," quote, after the network began scrutinizing sexual misconduct allegations against him.
James Rosen now works for a much less prominent right wing so-called news organization. And he asked Nancy Pelosi the kind of question that would have made his former Fox boss, sexual predator Roger Ailes, very, very proud.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES ROSEN, REPORTER: Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?
PELOSI: I don`t hate anybody. We don`t hate anybody, not anybody in the world. So don`t be accusing me --
ROSEN: I did not accuse you.
PELOSI: You did.
ROSEN: I asked a question. Representative Collins yesterday suggested Democrats are doing this simply because they don`t like the guy.
PELOSI: I have nothing to do with it.
Let me just say this -- I think the president is a coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence. I think he is cruel when he doesn`t deal with helping our Dreamers of which we`re very proud. I think he`s in denial about the climate crisis.
However, that`s about the election. This is about the -- take it up in the election. This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president`s violation of his oath of office.
And as a Catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don`t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is full -- a heart full of love and always pray for the president, and I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time.
So don`t mess with me when it comes to words like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: I wanted to let you see her walk away from that microphone and walk out of that room so that you could feel -- you could feel the power of the silence that she created in that room.
Rooms full of reporters in Washington are never silent. I`ve never seen anything like that. I`ve never seen any member of Congress ever leave a room full of tough Capitol Hill reporters in stunned silence. James Rosen cowered in that stunned silence and did not dare throw the word hate at Nancy Pelosi again after she crushed him in front of every other Capitol Hill reporter. And now the millions of people who have watched James Rosen get crushed in that video.
Like so much Nancy Pelosi does in her unscripted bursts of eloquent moral indignation, this one was multi-dimensional. There she was standing up against hatred as her Catholic religion has taught her to do since she was a little girl. And there she was standing up for the Constitution as she has sworn an oath to do, and surely, surely there were some women still working at Fox News today who silently let out a cheer for Nancy Pelosi for standing up to one of the men who thrived at Fox News during the Roger Ailes, Bill O`Reilly predatory reign of terror.
The most powerful elected woman in the history of American government once again today did something that only she could do.
Leading off our discussion tonight are Democratic Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont. He`s a member of the House of Intelligence Committee.
Ambassador Wendy Sherman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs in the Obama administration. She is an MSNBC global affairs contributor.
And Mieke Eoyang is with us. She`s a former staff member of the House Intelligence Committee and an MSNBC contributor.
And, Congressman Welch, I want to begin with you and, first of all, get your reaction to not just how Nancy Pelosi made this historic announcement this morning, but how she handled that challenge from the propaganda side of the news media about what you in the House of Representatives are doing in this impeachment proceeding which over there on the right-wing side of the world, they want to claim is all about hate.
REP. PETER WELCH (D-VT): Right. You know, I found what she did and how she did it both moving and reassuring. In her announcement, she really laid out what the question is. It`s the debate we`re going to have about the preservation of the presidency of Donald Trump, or is it about the preservation of the constitutional principle of the rule of law?
And that question from Mr. Rosen demeaned the significance of the question that Congress is going to face. And when he used the term hate, it was stunning to me. Nancy Pelosi has an immense amount of energy, but I`ve never seen her have energy -- waste an ounce of energy on hating anyone. And actually that`s what makes her I think so intimidating to some of the folks who are her adversaries. She is totally focused straight ahead and this is a debate on the preservation of the constitutional principle that no person is above the law.
O`DONNELL: Wendy Sherman, I`m so glad you`re with us tonight because on historic nights like this, to have people who think -- we get to think we`ve seen it all in Washington, and then days like this happen and realize, well, we haven`t seen it all. And that`s partially because Nancy Pelosi hasn`t done it yet. This was one of those days. Your feelings about what you saw today both in her announcement for what`s to happen in the impeachment proceeding and, again, how she handled that challenge.
AMBASSADOR WENDY SHERMAN. FORMER UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS: Well, I`m a Baltimore girl, Lawrence, and I`ve known Nancy Pelosi for a very long time and known her family and her dear brother who just recently passed away. And my heart is completely filled with pride.
How can we not be as the congressman said, she moves with such dignity, with such grace, with such moral authority. And I think as to her responding to Rosen who is really no reporter at all as you point out, I think her daughter Christine Pelosi, one of her five children and she has multiple grandchildren, she knows how to multitask, God knows. Christine said, don`t mess with mama, and I think she`s got it just right.
Over all the Twitter sphere tonight, there are many, many, many women who are speaking out and saying, you go, girl. You tell it like it is, and you do it with such dignity, such incredible dignity.
O`DONNELL: Mieke Eoyang, I think one of the important things about her answer to that challenge was it gave her the opportunity to make this very clear distinction about what the election is about, which is about Trump policies that she sharply disagrees with and what the impeachment is about which is Trump violations of the Constitution which can only be addressed through impeachment.
MIEKE EOYANG, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE FORMER STAFF MEMBER: Yes, and she`s been very clear about this. There`s been members of the caucus eager to impeach the president over family separations, over some of the policy things he`s doing. And she`s very clear here that`s what an election is for to deal with the policy differences.
But what she and Adam Schiff have so eloquently laid out is that the danger the president poses to the 2020 election, that even though you may not have every single last jot of evidence you might want to take to trial, the evidence is clear enough. And the risk the president poses that he might do it again, his lawyer in Ukraine today means that they feel like they need to move right now. This is about preserving our system of government.
O`DONNELL: And, Congressman Welch, Donald Trump tweeted something today I think he actually firmly believes about this. He says she says she prays for the president, I don`t believe her, not even close.
Now, Donald Trump, I -- there`s reason to suspect has never prayed in his life. And there`s reason to suspect he does not believe anyone really does actually pray. And so, he may very well mean every world of that honestly, that he doesn`t believe she prays.
But it`s one of those moments where Donald Trump is actually seeing something happen that there`s no level of it that he understands.
WELCH: You know, I think that`s exactly right. I think he`s bewildered by Nancy Pelosi. She`s centered. She`s grounded. She`s truthful, and she`s focused.
And he`s erratic. He`s all over the place. And he doesn`t understand that she means what she says.
And the fact that she`s totally committed to this constitutional principle of the rule of law, that no person is above the law, and she`s absolutely committed to this concept we have three branches of government that have to be a check and balance on each other bewilders him. He`s not accustomed to dealing with a person who`s as centered and grounded as she is.
And that`s what`s giving us I think some moral authority and confidence going forward. This is not about Donald Trump. It`s about the preservation of the rule of law and foreswearing the crumbling of our system of checks and balances.
O`DONNELL: And, Wendy Sherman, as we see this case move into the Judiciary Committee, we`re going to see something again procedurally that we`ve never seen before. Here`s the House Intelligence Committee supplying basically the first draft material of articles of impeachment that will be written by judiciary. This is an intersection we`ve never seen before.
SHERMAN: Indeed, it`s quite unusual. The first time as you said and it will be very interesting to see who the speaker chooses as the managers to present the case to the Senate. I think I`ve heard the speaker say more than once that when Benjamin Franklin came out after the signing of the Constitution, he was asked do we have a monarchy or do we have a republic, and he said a republic, if we can keep it.
And what Speaker Pelosi is all about is keeping that republic. Those are the stakes that are in front of us.
O`DONNELL: Mieke, what do you expect in terms of what ware going to hear in the testimony next week when its the Intelligence Committee findings being brought to the judiciary committee? How will they present that?
EOYANG: Yes, we`re expecting to hear the committee counsel, Mr. Goldman who we heard before during the question present that House Intelligence Committee report released this week and go through step by step all the different stages that the president took to try and put this investigation forward that would benefit him politically, the pressure that he brought to bear against Ukraine, all these different steps in setting up this channel, and then how he has tried to stymie this investigation by withholding key witnesses and refusing 71 different document requests that the investigators asked for.
I would expect a fairly compelling case to be laid out by the counsels. As you know, the staff less likely showboat than the members. So, I would expect a fairly factual recitation but the facts themselves are really compelling here.
O`DONNELL: Congressman Peter Welch, who never showboats, Wendy Sherman, Mieke Eoyang, thank you all very much for starting us off tonight. Really appreciate it.
SHERMAN: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: And when we come back, Neal Katyal says there really is only one piece of evidence the Democrats need, really need in drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump. It`s the smoking gun. Neal Katyal has it. He`ll join us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: With the House of Representatives now ready to begin drafting articles of impeachment after Speaker Pelosi`s announcement this morning, former Obama administration acting solicitor general, Neal Katyal, offered some help this morning.
In an op-ed this morning in "The Washington Post" in which he suggests that they begin with the smoking gun. The White House transcript of President Trump`s phone call with Ukraine`s President Zelensky in which Neal Katyal says there are two acts of bribery clearly specified in what President Trump says to President Zelensky.
Neal Katyal reminds us that President Trump`s language in the phone call is so blatant that at first, Republicans had no idea how to defend it.
We do have some video here. I guess we don`t have it.
Neal, I was going to show this video that you remind said us of. It`s 60 minutes video in which Kevin McCarthy is asked about the, you know, we need you to do us a favor, though, and Kevin McCarthy says he didn`t say though, he didn`t say though. He understood immediately how important that word was, and Scott Pelley had to tell him oh, no, that`s what`s in the transcript, that`s what he actually said.
NEAL KATYAL, MSNBC LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Exactly, Lawrence. I wrote that "The Washington Post" and indeed my book "Impeached" that came out last week because of the central point, which is all you need to understand whether Donald Trump should be impeached and removed is to read the transcript of the July 25th call, because in that call you see not one but two different quid pro quos. The withholding of aid and the holding of a - - the prevention of a White House meeting all until that favor is done for the president so that he can get dirt on his political rival.
And, you know, the essence of impeachment has always been as was said by a congressman in 2008, when a president puts his personal interests above those of the American people, and that congressman was Mike Pence then sitting in Congress now the vice president. That`s always been the standard of this July 25th phone call transcript -- we don`t even have the full transcript but just what the president himself has released is so damning. And this president and his allies throw up chaff and distraction.
This witness yesterday all the stuff happening at the hearing and this and that. There`s only one thing you have to look at. It`s the transcript, and it`s a core impeachable offense.
O`DONNELL: And, Neal, it`s rhythmically strange for people who grew up on the architecture of the Watergate investigation as the classic Washington investigation or on all TV drama throughout history. The smoking gun is never revealed in the first act. It always comes -- you always build to it. This is one of those cases where we got the smoking gun very early in the investigation, at a point where someone in the White House apparently convinced the president that putting out this transcript could actually help him.
KATYAL: Exactly. And, you know, that was obviously a huge miscalculation. And the Republicans have been trying mightily ever since then to come up with any defense. I mean yesterday, Lawrence, the hearing the Republicans had one witness a guy named Jonathan Turley and I`m certainly not going to attack his motivations or anything like that, but I will attack his consistency, because this was their one witness. And this witness is the same guy who said there was a low standard for high crimes and misdemeanors when Clinton was being considered, a really low standard.
And indeed when President Obama was in office he said, oh, you don`t need to commit a crime in order for an impeachable offense. And then he goes and turns around and takes all of that back in yesterday`s testimony and then says a whole bunch of outlandish things. Like for example he says this is an unprecedented investigation in terms of the speed of this impeachment. It`s never happened before.
You know, it`s been 75 days for this investigation. The Andrew Johnson impeachment, three days between act and impeachment. You know, and the Clinton one which he himself, this guy Turley worked on that impeachment, that was 75 days.
So, you know, there was a lot of stuff there that was really problematic. And you just asked about the Watergate analogy. I think the most telling thing in yesterday`s testimony was Jonathan Turley was asked has any president ever stone walled a congressional impeachment inquiry like this and prevented every witness and every document from coming forth, and he said I don`t know I haven`t studied that.
Well, the answer to that is obvious. It`s no, no president has ever done this. And that`s why not just as there`s this smoking gun about the July 25th transcript, but the way the president has reacted to this is itself impeachable. You know, the Watergate phrase it`s not the crime, it`s the cover-up, boy, that applies here in spades.
We have never had, Lawrence, a cover-up like this in which every single executive branch employee has been gagged.
O`DONNELL: And, Neal, are you arguing there`s one article of impeachment that is about the phone call?
KATYAL: No, I think that -- I think the phone call actually sets up two different articles of impeachment itself. One just interest abuse of power and the second for bribery which is an impeachable offense in the Constitution itself. But then Article 3 must be obstruction of justice because if this president is allowed to say on his own, oh, I think this impeachment inquiry is illegitimate, and I`m just not going to turn over anything and prevent the entire executive branch from turning over anything, any president could do that. President Obama could have done that. A President Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders could do that.
That is the complete destruction of our separation of powers. And the stakes here are immense. And so, even for those Americans who can`t really figure out what`s going on with Ukraine or this or that, I think the simple question they have to ask is, do you really want a world in which a president on his own can say when the solemn -- when there`s something as solemn as impeachment, I don`t have to play, I don`t have to participate, I`m above all of that?
And the answer to that from James Madison and Ben Franklin and all those founders you were just talking about earlier on your show is absolutely not. That`s not the American way. It may be the Russian way. It`s not the way we do things in America.
O`DONNELL: Neal Katyal, the author of the new, bestselling book must read book, "Impeached: The Case Against Donald Trump." Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Neal. Really appreciate it.
KATYAL: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: And when we come back, Donald Trump is the most dangerous president in American history but only because Mitch McConnell allows him to be. So what does that make Mitch McConnell? That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Donald Trump is a problem like Washington has never seen before but so is Mitch McConnell. There has never been a Senate Majority Leader like Mitch McConnell who prides himself on doing nothing.
Here`s what the Speaker of the House said about that today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We have 275 bills that are bipartisan on Mitch McConnell`s desk. The grim reaper says all we do is impeachment, no. We have 275 partisan bills on your desk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Donald Trump is the worst, most dangerous President in history because Mitch McConnell allows him to be. Donald Trump has illegally seized the House and Senate`s power to control terrorist by citing non-existent national security issues in raising tariffs on countries around the world, including our closest allies.
Mitch McConnell and the Senate could stop that in a day. Trumpism thrives in Washington only because Mitch McConnell allows it to thrive and now comes Mitch McConnell`s most important moment in the Trump spotlight and what has now become the Trump-controlled United States Senate.
And that is of course the impeachment trial of Donald Trump which will probably be conducted in the United States Senate chamber in January. Mitch McConnell can now establish the rules for the Senate impeachment trial which might or might not be similar to the previous impeachment trial rules.
And based on Mitch McConnell`s service to Donald Trump so far, Mitch McConnell writing the rules for the Trump impeachment trial is the same as Donald Trump writing the rules for the Trump impeachment trial.
This is the subject of a new article by Robert Reich, whose latest piece asks and answers the question, "Who is worse? Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell?"
And joining us now is Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton and currently a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.
He is the author of `The Common Good.` Professor Reich, your case about Mitch McConnell and who is worse, Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell?
ROBERT REICH, FMR. CLINTON LABOR SECRETARY: Oh well Lawrence, I think it`s a toss-up. It`s very close. Donald Trump is worse but I`ll tell you and you already indicated. Donald Trump would not be nearly as bad if there were not an enabler.
The Enabler-in-chief, somebody who is right there, allowing him to do whatever he wants to do, putting up no fuss at all, acting as if there is not a separate branch of government called the Congress and that is Mitch McConnell.
And Mitch McConnell, it`s not just that Mitch McConnell as Nancy Pelosi said today, has made a graveyard at a bipartisan legislation coming from the House. It`s also that Mitch McConnell has given Donald Trump everything the Donald Trump wants and what Donald Trump is going to want with regard to this Senate trial, well, it`s probably going to be a showcase for Donald Trump.
O`DONNELL: And the rules about these trials are established for each trial which is needless to say unusual and Mitch McConnell`s been there when perfectly reasonable rules have been used in the for example, the Clinton impeachment trial. Those rules were agreed to by the Senate, the Republican leader and the Democratic leader of the Senate.
The chances of Chuck Schumer being able to agree with Mitch McConnell procedurally here just - just seem unimaginable.
REICH: It`s totally unimaginable. And in 1999, you may recall, those rules for handling Bill Clinton`s impeachment were agreed to by Democrats and Republicans unanimously.
I mean they came to an agreement behind closed doors and they understood that the interest of the country would be best served if there was unanimous agreement. The chances are and I hope I`m wrong about this Lawrence, but the chances that Mitch McConnell is actually going to seek any kind of democratic input is about zero.
I mean he`s got 53 Republican votes and he can do any rules that he wants and I wouldn`t be surprised if he had a rule - if he came up with a rule that said, sure, we`re - we`re going to subpoena Hunter Biden or we`re going to have Mike Pompeo tell Donald Trump side of the story or maybe we`re going to have a rule that says, only Republicans can interview and ask witnesses and one of our witnesses is going to be Donald Trump.
I mean it`s anything goes and that is the attitude of Mitch McConnell and that`s been the attitude of Mitch McConnell all along.
O`DONNELL: And on the confirmation process which Mitch McConnell is so proud of, confirming all these judges, Mitch McConnell could have done that and at the same time said to the Trump administration, they have to be qualified.
Send me more qualified judges. I`ll run them through just as fast if not faster, the better the qualifications but he hasn`t done that. He`s taken whatever Donald Trump has sent down there for confirmation.
REICH: Remember, this is the man who even before Donald Trump was in the White House said no to Merrick Garland that said - said essentially to Barack Obama, I`m not going to even have a vote on your nominee to the Supreme Court. This is unheard of.
He changed the Senate rules so that instead of 60 senators having to agree to a Supreme Court nomination, once Donald Trump was there, no, it could be done simply by 51 votes, which is - which gave Trump two Supreme Court justices.
Again, there`s no principle there, absolutely no principle. This is where Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are bedfellows. They basically don`t care about the constitution. They don`t care about the rule of law all they care about is getting what they want and that - what they want is power and they want their party to be of paramount and they want to entrench their power for the future.
O`DONNELL: Professor Robert Reich, thank you very much for joining us and I really appreciate it.
REICH: Thanks Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: And coming up what was Rudy Giuliani doing in Ukraine today?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Rudy Giuliani is back in Ukraine tonight. Our next guest recently returned from Ukraine, where he was reporting on Rudy Giuliani`s earlier attempts to interfere with Ukrainian government affairs.
Rudy Giuliani`s presence confounded the newly elected Ukrainian President and his team. Franklin Foer is a staff writer at The Atlantic and he joins us now. What did you find about - because we`ve all imagined what it be like for this newly elected administration to suddenly be dealing with one of the craziest people in America, who`s not the President of the United States.
FRANKLIN FOER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Right and everybody who saw Rudy Giuliani coming to Ukraine knew that it would be bad for Ukraine. That Ukraine has managed to have bipartisan support in the face of Russian, the Russian invasion of the country.
And they just knew that Rudy was coming to interfere - to interfere in the election and to stoke a partisan narrative and they knew that his presence would be bad news so they all advised Zelensky to stay away from Rudy Giuliani and by a stroke of almost dumb luck, he avoided having to meet with him last May.
But - but here is Rudy Giuliani returning it to Kiev again. He`s been there many times over the years and when you look at his schedule, you can see why he`s so confounding to Ukrainians because he`s confounding to Americans too.
Nominally he`s representing the President of the United States and he`s going there to collect reporting for this counter-narrative that they`ve tried to spread about Joe Biden, about Ukrainian influence in the election but the people that he`s meeting with in Ukraine on the ground are representatives of oligarchs.
They`re some of the more shady politicians in the country and it begs the question, what is - who is Rudy Giuliani working for as he descends in Ukraine and who is he working for as he spreads some of these narratives.
We know he`s working for the President but we also know that he`s getting paid by other people and he just doesn`t disclose his client list. We have no idea, how much money Rudy Giuliani is making off the the Donald Trump administration.
O`DONNELL: Now is this an instance where it`s sort of the Trump playbook, when you are suspected are accused of wrongdoing, you then be publicly do more of the wrong doing like the moment, Trump was up the driveway and asked China to also investigate Joe Biden because if I`m doing it publicly, it can`t possibly be wrong.
Has Giuliani adopted that theory?
FOER: Yes, I think it`s something like that. It`s also, they`ve been fairly successful in holding the Republican line during impeachment proceedings by muddying the waters while - when we know that it was Russia who interfered in the election.
They`re adamant that it was actually Ukraine that did it. They cling to these - these false narratives and they won`t let go off them because they`re actually serving exactly the purposes that they were spread in the first place.
And you know it`s a very Putinisk tactic that they`ve been using, which is to sow as much confusion, to muddy the waters as much as possible.
O`DONNELL: Do the officials in Ukraine what - get American television input on this? Do they get the American news media take on this so that they can see the perspectives that we have on it?
FOER: You know, I think that at the elite level they`re actually relatively confused. It`s you know - it`s - it`s - you know, they see Rudy Giuliani go on Fox news and they see him talk about Ukraine.
They hear Donald Trump talk about Ukraine in an incredibly disparaging way. They know they`ve - they`ve heard Gordon Sondland quote him as saying that Ukraine is a country filled with terrible people and you know right now, Zelensky is on the brink of meeting with Vladimir Putin for the first time.
He`s having to negotiate the terms of peace in eastern Ukraine and normally, the Ukrainian President would feel like he had - he had the United States at his back. He knew that there was a major power in the world that would support Ukraine.
But in this instance, as he travels to meet with Putin, I think he`s incredibly anxious. He sees that his ally is potentially abandoning him and so I think, he`s going to feel like he`s going to be in a very soft position as he negotiates with Vladimir Putin and he`s probably going to give more than he would in normal circumstances if Donald Trump was a normal American President.
O`DONNELL: Franklin Foer, thank you for joining us. Really, really appreciate your invaluable perspectives on what`s going on in Ukraine, I really appreciate it. Thank you.
FOER: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: And when we come back, the Pete Buttigieg rapid response team has been rapidly responding to what I said about Pete Buttigieg at the beginning of this hour and they`ve sent me a statement that they really hope, I read when we come back after this break. I`ll read it during the break, then we`ll decide whether I`ll read it when we come back.
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O`DONNELL: The Pete Buttigieg rapid response team has rapidly responded to what I said at the top of the show tonight that sounded critical of Pete Buttigieg because it is. I`m going to talk about in the next segment, what Pete Buttigieg said today in New Hampshire about Democrats and deficits and a history of Democrats not worrying about deficits which isn`t true to put it mildly.
Here is the statement, they want me to read which I`ve decided to read for them. It`s a very strange statement, I`ll tell you why after I read it. "Pete has spoken about how in his lifetime, Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Clinton have reduced the deficit while Republican Presidents haven`t.
The point he was making today is that despite this history, it is remarkable another candidates haven`t spoken about deficit reduction very much in this election. People leaves we should feel confident in speaking about achieving progress of goals in doing so reasonably, responsibly because Democrats have proven we can do it."
That`s a Sean Sabbat rapid response team. I`m going to show you after the break everything, everything Pete Buttigieg had to say about Democrats and deficits in New Hampshire today. Guess what he doesn`t say.
President Obama or President Clinton so this statement is not true, we`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: In New Hampshire today, Pete Buttigieg said something very strange about Democrats and deficits.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My party is not known for worrying about deficits and the debt too much but it`s time for us to start getting into that business because what we`ve seen in Washington is that the party that talked a lot about the deficit, when they were trying to kill off programs, when it came time for this corporate tax cut, turns out they don`t care.
There is $1 trillion deficit now and created under Republican administration, which means that if my party doesn`t start getting interested in deficits and debt, nobody will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: In the middle of that, he attributed just the current $1 trillion deficit to the Republicans but twice - twice he criticize Democrats about the deficit, saying Democrats are "not known for worrying about deficits."
And he said, "if my party doesn`t start getting interested in deficits." Both of those lines our lies. They are Republican lies, that for some reason Pete Buttigieg decided to tell today.
During Pete Buttigieg`s entire lifetime, Republicans have increased the deficit and Democrats have worked hard to decrease the deficit and taken grave political risk in doing that.
Pete Buttigieg was 11 years old when Bernie Sanders in the House of Representatives and Joe Biden in the United States Senate cast politically brave votes on the deficit reduction bill that no Republicans voted for because it included tax increases as well as spending cuts.
Bernie Sanders lost a lot of Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives who cast that vote because they were defeated in their re- election because of that vote and the Democrats lost the House of Representatives because of that vote for the first time in 40 years.
The Democrats lost United States Senate after that vote. Those were tough votes for Democrats but they cast out of their sense of responsibility about the deficit. They cast those votes because they were worried about the deficit. Pete Buttigieg sure wasn`t interested in the deficit then.
When the Republicans got the White House back under President George W. Bush, the deficit and the debt skyrocketed again because Republicans and their reckless tax cuts and then when President Obama took office finally, the President was worried about deficits again because the President was a Democrat and President Obama managed to force a vote in the Congress controlled by Republicans.
President Obama managed to force a vote in the Congress to raise taxes even with the grim reaper, Mitch McConnell in control of the United States Senate because President Obama was worried about the deficit. Two current presidential candidates voted for that deficit reduction.
Bernie Sanders voted for it. Senator Amy Klobuchar voted for it because she was worried about the deficit and she stands on that debate stage beside Pete Buttigieg who has never done one thing in his life about the federal budget deficit or the national debt, not one thing and he blithely criticized Democrats today who have made tough political choices to control the deficit.
Three hours later, three hours after you just - what you just - what you just saw him say, reporters caught up with Pete Buttigieg again and they asked him about his earlier statements about Democrats and deficits and this time surely after some consultation with his rapid response team, he put the Republicans first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUTTIGIEG: Yes, so there are two things to think about. The first is Republican hypocrisy because I believe every presidency of my lifetime has been example of deficits growing under Republican government and shrinking under Democratic government.
But the second is that my party`s going to get more comfortable talking about this issue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: He couldn`t stop at the part he got right, the Republican hypocrisy. He had to go on to criticize his party and to tell Democrats, they`ve got to get more comfortable talking about this issue. Pete Buttigieg literally doesn`t know what he`s talking about when he talks about Democrats and the deficit or he`s deliberately lying and I`m sorry, but those are the only choices.
I`ll give him the benefit of the doubt at this point and let him plead ignorance now but as someone who stood on the Senate floor in the middle of the night in 1993 as a Democratic Senate staffer and watched with pride as only Democratic senators cast that brave vote on a deficit reduction bill, which later cost some of them their re-elections, I will always fight the Republican lie about Democrats and deficits.
There are plenty of things to criticize Democrats about. This isn`t one of them and every informed Democrat knows that. Pete Buttigieg, like all the presidential candidates is invited to join us on this program at any time convenient for him to discuss this and the other issues in the presidential campaign.
That is "Tonight`s Last Word." "The 11th Hour" with Brian Williams starts now.
END