the show. thanks to all of you for watching this hour of msnbc live. ayman mohyeldin has to work it out in new york. you have a lot on your plate. >> i don't know where we're beginning the show, where we planned earlier this morning and where we are now. we're going to roll with it. >> good look. >> good morning everyone. i'm ayman mohyeldin in for craig melvin at msnbc headquarters in new york. the key players to watch this the ukraine impeachment investigation, right now one is behind closed doors on capitol hill. a second says he is ready to do the same, despite the white house's efforts to try and block both of them. we have a great group of experts and reporters to lay out why their testimony is so critical in all of there. plus president trump in his element in front of a crowd and swiping at his enemies, hitting joe biden the hardest, as you can imagine. today we've got how joe biden is trying to fight back. we're following breaking news in california. thousands of families forced to leave their homes in the los

angeles area as a growing wildfire burns through neighborhoods. right now, behind closed doors as we mentioned a minute ago, it's all happening on capitol hill, a key player in the crumb ukrainian impeachment investigation is giving a high-stakes deposition to members of congress. it's former ambassador to the ukraine mariian kna yoef know v. he was initially blocked by the trump administration for meeting with congressional investigators. the other you may remember is gordon sondland, the president's ambassador to the european union. he was the one who exchanged text messages about the president, ukraine and joe biden. he now says that he's in for a meeting for investigators. that is scheduled to lap sometime next week. let's go right to the center of action in washington, d.c. nbc's garrett haake is live on capitol hill.

nbc's hans nichols is at the white house for us. garrett, let me begin with you. within the last hour or so. we saw marie yoef vich arrive. putting the clamp down on everyone speaking on this inquiry. >> it was a suspenseful morning on capitol hill. nobody was sure that marie yovanovitch would show up. members were optimistic. they had not heard that she would cancel. but members and aides were looking at that white house letter from earlier in the week thinking this would preclude any cooperation from anyone in the administration. so just the vakt that yovanovitch is in the building now is a good sign. that being said, we don't know how forthcoming she'll be in her testimony. the main thing democrats and republicans want to hear from her is why she's now former

ambassador yovanovitch. what led to her being benched, pushed aside. there's been a lot of reporting, her friends and allies telling reporters that she was pushed out essentially for not working with the shadow diplomacy of rudy giuliani and his cohorts in ukraine. we have not heard that from yovanovitch directly. this is a closed door deposition today. but we will hear some of what she had to tell congressional investigators when this breaks up which may not be until later tonight, if she decides to cooperate fully with this investigation. >> hans, ambassador sondland was supposed to testify earlier this week. the state department by orders of the white house blocking him from appearing there. now sondland says, in fact, he is willing to testify next week in defiance of the state department, but in compliance with the subpoena from congress. why are these officials now deciding to comply with the probe? >> reporter: we don't know. in part because they haven't made public statements about it. just to give you a sense of the confusion at the white house, they still don't know -- at

least officials i'm talking to, whether or not yovanovitch is cooperating in that deposition or whether or not she's deferring all questions to counsel. it was unclear whether she had state department counsel with her. remember, the white house's position is that unless state department counsel, lawyers are present with state department officials, they should not be testifying. so the white house is flying blind in as many ways as we are here. i think another important thing on sunderland's potential testimony is the white house almost reads it differently. i'm going to put up the statement here. to dispute or question about what is meant by notwithstanding. here it is. it says notwithstanding the state department's current direction to not testify, ambassador sunderland will honor the committee's subpoena. we read that as that was sond land defying the white house, going ahead and strongly signaling that he would testify regardless of what the white house said. i talked to one white house official who said i wouldn't

read "notwithstanding" that way. i think it's holding out the possible that sondland will actually honor the objections from the white house. so there's confusion. it is clear, though, amidst all this confusion, the white house strategy preventing officials from talking to congress may be falling apart. and that has implications not just for the state department, the energy department, department of defense, omb. if individual officials feel they have to comply with these subpoenas and disregard that white house nine-page letter that laid out basically the no kwop rakes at any cost, then that means we're at a different phase of this inquiry, one tha implications for the white house. ayman? >> one other thing. president trump held one of his longest campaign rallies in minneapolis. by some accounts, exactly where he wanted to be, going off the rails and going after everyone. how did he address the impeachment pressure he's up against? >> reporter: he criticized, questioned the authenticity,

legitimacy of the probe. listen how the president put it and tell me if you think this is a president that feels like he needs to cooperate with a coequal branch of government. >> when all of their ludicrous hoaxes have been exposed as frauds, these sinister fakers then try to impeach you for daring to call out their own corruption. we just got rid of the russia hoax and a week later the ukraine hoax started. i had a week of, like i can think about everything perfect, it's so beautiful. >> reporter: that was about 14 hours ago, guys. we should all be refreshing the president's twitter feed to see what he's saying about his donor ambassador gordon suondland and marie yovanovitch. until we hear from the president, a lot of what house officials are telling us isn't necessarily meaningless, but they might not have the best sense of the strategy because

the vat gee clearly rests with the president of the united states. >> garrett, for the most part, the white house has been stonewalling the democrats' request in this on going probe. how are the democrats expected to escalate the impeachment fight in the days ahead? >> reporter: just to build on something hans talked about, confusion here. confusion may be part of the white house strategy to keep everyone guessing about who will show up and quibbling about the definition of words like n notwithstandi notwithstanding. that's what democrats want to continue to focus on, focus on what the president said and did both in the notes from that call with ukraine and, frankly, publicly in the white house driveway talking about china. democrats will probably continue to roll out subpoenas as we have seen over this last week day after day, subpoenas with rolling deadlines into next week. remember, congress has been out for the last two weeks. they come back next week. all the members will be here as these subpoena deadlines hit. if you're looking at that calendar, i think some of these

to watch are some of the outside players. for the two former colleagues of rudy giuliani, if they're still guests of the fire department, i think it's fair to say they won't be showing up to testify. documents could be asked to be turned over. also the document requests that go to outside agencies, the dod, department of energy. it's clear or at least it appears the case as of this morning that the administration has less control of the outside agencies than the folks who work in their building. we're seeing it with the state department. will we see a similar degree of independence from the department of defense, for example, a traditionally more independent agency? we could find out as early as next week. >> all right, our thanks to hans nichols and garrett haake for all of that, as it unfolds on capitol hill and the white house. joining us, abigail tracy, nbc news correspondent carol lee. abigail, let me begin with you. you wrote for a piece about "vanity fair" about marieian know vich, you said a veteran diplomat with decades of

experience is exactly who the state department would traditionally want to interface with a pledging foreign government. what is the backstory as to why she was fired and why would investigators in this impeachment probe want to talk to her? >> absolutely. what you saw was a series of events that really began when the ambassador gave a speech, calling to crack down on corruption in ukraine. she essentially called for the ouster of one of poroshenko's anti corruption, funny enough, officials. calling for him to be fired. that's when the trouble for van know vich really started. what you saw was kind of this smear campaign with the state department in the center of it. saying she was fighting against the trump administration or talking negatively about them. then what you saw is the state

department recalled her two months, threarly from her post. at the time, the word out of foggy bottom is this was as planned. the countries does have a history with corruption and these problems. what you saw is a reaction on capitol hill and among other diplomats, sort of confusion, so to speak over why she would be taken out. >> do you have any sense as to why she was allowed to give her deposition? she is, as you outlined in other reports, central in all of this because she, i guess, begins the entire ukraine story for us, if you want to use that as a central plot point. why was she ultimately allowed to appear today in congress? why did we not get a sense that the white house or state department wanted to block her testimony? >> it is a little bit of an open question right now. when you look at somebody -- she was at the center of all of this. she was at the center of rudy

giuliani's efforts and conversations with ukraine officials. i think it will be, as people said, kind of with a confusion right now, the big piece of the story as to what she will or will not say behind closed doors. i will say congressional investigators have been seeking to speak with her and get information an documents since she was recalled way back in may. they saw it as the first sign that something was amiss in terms of the trump administration and rudy giuliani's efforts. >> carol, let me ask you about house democrats. they've issued nine subpoenas since the impeachment inquiry began. are the consequences greater for these diplomats if they ignore the trump administration or if they ignore the subpoenas coming from congress or the requests at least to testify in front of congress? help us put all this in perspecti perspective? >> i think it depends on the individual. that's something that obviously they're going to have to weigh. a congressional subpoena is

nothing to take lightly for sure. i think what you're starting to see, there's probably multiple things going on, one is the congressional subpoena is a very serious thing. two is there are people who perhaps want to testify and talk for different reasons because maybe they want to clear their name, because maybe they want to defend the president, maybe they saw things that they thought were inappropriate. so you're seeing, for instance, our new reporting on fionna hill who was the national security council's director for russia and european policy and whose portfolio included ukraine, a person familiar with her testimony next week, if it goes forward, said she plans to say that rudy giuliani and gordon sondland were running a shadow organization that circumvented the national security council, including the national security adviser and reported directly to the president.

her testimony -- she wants to testify for her own reasons. then you see others like the turn-around of sondland where he's now going to apparently testify for whatever reasons he has. i think the bottom line is you're seeing congress get much more aggressive in terms of issuing subpoenas and the number of people that this is fanning out to include, it just continues with each day to increase. >> we're learning to that point, information on the arrest of the two rudy giuliani associates on campaign finance violation charges, we know they donated to a super pac. now we know they may have helped in gaining dirt on president trump's opposition. how does this play into the larger impeachment investigation? the timing of this really is just raising eyebrows. >> it's very interesting. i guess what we know now that

these two associates of rudy giuliani are under subpoena for documents regarding ukraine. they have until october 16th. congress has given them until october 16th to comply with that subpoena. we don't know if they'll be some sort of testimony from them because given their current situation, it's unclear exactly how something like that might play out. that's just another example of how this investigation is continuing with each day. we learned of new players, new dimensions, and it seems to be fanning out. at the same time, ayman, moving really quickly. >> abby, where would you see this story going forward? what would you probe next in terms of the questions of the people arrested and now indicted and rudy giuliani's connection in all this? >> i really do think you're seeing sort of this web forming with every -- as carol said, every new bit of information, and really at the center of it, it appears to be rudy giuliani

and also the president because this is a broader effort. this is a broader effort to get political dirt on the president's political rivals. i think we'll continue to see this. to carol's point about the individuals being called before congress, i do think we're hitting a point where there are individuals who concerned about the things they saw and we're going to learn a bit more as these continue. >> abigail and tracy, thank you very much. carol, thank you as well. president trump gets personal attacking joe biden and his son. what's the game plan for biden and other democratic opponents to counter these attacks? why another prominent republican, this time the governor of maryland says he backs the impeachment inquiry into president trump. performance comes in lots of flavors.

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tonight president trump is hopping from the midwest to the south for another rally, this time in lake charles, louisiana. last night in his first rally since the impeachment inquiry began, the president lashed out at his current favorite, as you can imagine, the biden family. >> joe's son hunter got thrown out of the navy and became a genius on wall street, about two days. by the way, whatever happened to hunter? where the hell is he? let's do another t-shirt? where's hunter? your father was never considered

smart. he was never considered a good senator. he was only a good vice president because he understood how to kiss barack obama's ass. >> joining me now is ashley parker, white house reporter for "the washington post," also an msnbc political analyst. and joel payne, a democratic strategist and former director of paid media for hillary for america. joel, let me begin with you. the president took aim at joe biden in a nasty way, going after him as we heard in that sound bite, also going after hunter biden with a little bit of mockery saying where is hunter, trying to put it on a t-shirt and sell it. i want to get your thoughts on this. you work with hillary clinton also subject of nasty attacks by president trump. is there a clear way, a clear narrative for somebody like joe biden, even hunter biden or the democrats to defend themselves from these types of attacks from the president when he's at a

rally in front of thousands using that kind of language? >> no. i think unfortunately you're going to be in second place when you go up against the bully pulpit of the white house. the president has been clear he's going to use this tactic again like he used four years ago. i think what's also particularly disgusting werks know what joe biden and his family have sacrificed for his public service, he traveled back and forth to delaware to be his children that were injured. he lost a child, he lost a spouse early in his career. so to hear the president speak about his family in such cold, callous terms is particularly difficult. one other thing i'd bring up, let's not lose sight of the fact he went after somali immigrants at that rally which is about as dumb as you can get when it comes to political strategy. it's like going after african-americans in mish khan or cuban-americans in south florida. it makes no sense. the president was out of control. i think that was about his most unhinged performance we've seen

so far. >> let me show you guys the joe biden reaction to all of this. actually -- actually a statement. he says, as close to soulless as you can get, this guy has done nothing but promote hate, and now he's a totally incompetent president and that is not an exaggeration. that is the reaction from joe biden. ashley, let me get your thoughts on all of this. how do you think the president has positioned this conversation around joe biden and what does joe biden from a political sense do? does he take a page out of michelle obama, when they go low, we go high or does he defend his family and get in there with the president? >> well, what the president is doing is a classic tactic of his, where he takes something he is accused of and turns it back on his political foe far more forcefully. if you put this in the current political moment, the president is facing an impeachment inquiry for house democrats because he

had potentially an improper conversation with the president of ukraine where he asked the president for a, quote, unquote, favor to dig up dirt on joe biden and his son. while he's on the defensive on that, instead of trying to dpend himself, he turns it back on the bidens. what he's basically saying is you think i'm corrupt? look at these people. they're corrupt. with the same country, with ukraine doing something far worse than i did. there's absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the bidens in ukraine. that's something that all of the media mentions. something the president last night mentioned. he expressed frustration that every time he says this, all the stories say the bidens, there's no evidence they've done anything wrong. for the president, he likes a foe. he likes to be a counterpuncher and he thinks this is a winning strategy, although that's debatable. >> let me get your thoughts about the president hitting the

bidens. he's been trying to keep the gop in line. dealing with the democrats, but also wants to make sure his so-called red wall of republican support doesn't begin to crack. we saw a little bit of that yesterday with maryland governor larry hogan joining other republican governors backing the inquiry. watch. >> i think we do need an inquiry because we've got to get to the bottom of it. i'm not willing to say i support impeachment and the removal of the president, but i do think we have to have an impeachment inquiry. but i'm very concerned about can we have a fair and objective one. i'm not sure we can in this democratic congress. >> you just said you do think we need to have an inquiry. >> i don't see any other way to get to the facts. >> he's one of the more problem meant republicans to call for the inquiry. as the president focuses on joe biden, should he also be worried about how to field criticism coming from his own flank?

>> yeah. this has put republicans in an incredibly difficult position. you're seeing them, very far so far, coming out in favor of even an impeachment inquiry. a lot of them are having a tough time answering questions about what the president said and did on that phone call with the ukrainian president, if they think it's ap yot, if they would have done the same. he put his own party in an incredibly difficult position. happening simultaneously he made a policy decision to withdraw u.s. forces from syria that he's getting a lot of criticism in. he's the most vulnerable he's ever been in his presidency. it's also one of these rare times where there's cracks within his republican coalition. at a moment where he really wants that strong republican wall, that's not what he's seeing. there might be a world in which he thinks deflecting the attention on to joe biden helps

him with that. i also think he just likes to attack people. he doesn't like the obama administration. joe biden was obama's vice president. it's also a very natural, comfortable line of attack for the president. i don't necessarily know there's that much more strategy to it than that. >> joel, the interesting thing is on one side you have the president in a strong position, gets to lash out at whoever he wants. the reality is joe biden still has to clench a nomination, got to convince voters he's the right man to take on trump. but he also has to be clear and address some of the key issues that democrats in this country care about. let me play you a sound bite of him talking about lgbtq issues. watch. >> for example, when i came out -- when i publicly stated. >> well, that would be news. >> i've got something to tell you. >> i kind of figured it out a while ago. >> anderson, 15, 20 years ago we

talked about this in san francisco. it was all about gay bath houses. it's all about round-the-clock sex. come on, man. gay couples are more likely to stay together longer than heterosexual couples. >> so people have mixed reaction, getting a lot of buzz online in terms of the response. was that the appropriate tone to strike. there are some saying that what the vice president was trying to say as you can see from the applause it generated. how does a statement like that go down? how does that kind of tone and rhetoric play with democratic voters? >> joe biden's greatest strength is his greatest weakness. it's his jovial spirit, his back-slapping type of spirit which in that type of atmosphere probably did not play quite as well. i think what the former vice president has to do is understand how to kind of adjust the speed settings in certain environments. we've seen him do this in other places, talking to voters who were african-americans about certain issues, talking to

voters from lower income communities about certain issues and talking about them in a way that plays into old troeps. i think the vormer vice president and his team have to be careful with that. one former point. on him clinching the nomination, i think what biden las to do is talk values. i don't think he can get into an air war with the president. he'll never win that. he has to talk about his values, what he believes in and why his version of a government will be different than a donald trump version. if he can do that and sell that, he'll be fine. if not, donald trump will be able to wave him in with every other d.c. swamp monster. >> he has to fight on two fronts, one against the president and against the other nominees going up against him. up next, growing concerns about the conflict in syria including the question of what will happen to thousands of islamic state fighters held in kurdish-run prisons. a big wildfire burning through southern california. this is a live picture happening

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we are back with breaking

news right now. former ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch is taking questions from congress as part of the ongoing impeachment probe to president trump and ukraine. i want to bring in former ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. great to have you with us as always. let's talk a little bit about your expectations for how far yovanovitch goes in this testimony and how she handles this situation overall. what is your expectation as somebody who knows her very well? >> well, my hope, because i don't know what her marching orders are, is that he'll just tell the truth. she was in a very precarious, awkward situation when there was the privatization of american foreign policy, when mr. giuliani started showing up during her tenure as ambassador, working with then prosecutor general yuri lieu sen co-to try

to dig up dirt on joe biden and his son. she was against the privatization of american security policy. just so everyone understands, she clashed with mr. lutsenko because it was the policy of the u. government -- by the way, the rest of the european allies and imf as well to put more pressure on lutsenko to do more to fight corruption, very well known in ukraine at the time that our ambassador and the prosecutor general back then, mr. lutsenko did not have a good working relationship and lutsenko is the guy that was working closely with rudy giuliani. >> to that point, because you know a lot of those involved on the u.s. side of it as well, it now appears likely ambassador sondland will testify next week in defines of the state department gag order, if you will, on him. as someone who has worked in the state department, lau big of a deal is it that you're going to see someone at the level of

sondland appear in front of investigators? what can he offer to their inquiry? >> well, first of all, remember two things. most people who are ambassadors like masha yovanovitch, most people that work at the state department are career people. there's another group that are political appointees. i was a political appointee up der president obama. efs a specialist, worked at the white house with national security before him. there's another category of people that become ambassadors simply because they give money to presidential candidates. both democrats and republicans do that. that's the kind of person that ambassador sondland is. that's really important to keep reminding yourself. he literally bought that position by giving money to the inauguration. he is not an expert on ukraine. i have no idea why he was involved in this. he is the ambassador to the european union which, by the way, ukraine is not a member of

and neither is the united states. it appears to me that he was the kind of political person spying on the career diplomats to make sure they did this quid pro quo deal that the president wanted. again, i'm speculating there. he's a very different person than either am bass der volker who testified last week or ambassador yovanovitch who is testifying now. >> very interesting as well, fiona hill who knows and is familiar with the national security reporting process internally at the white house. right. and remember fiona is a political appointee, but a professional. again, somebody i've known for 30 years. he is not one of these people that simply purchased her position to work at the national security council, a much more credible witness in my view. >> important to note that as well. ambassador mcfall, i know there's a new report out in "the washington post" that claims at least four national security officials raised alarms about ukraine policy before or after that july phone call between

president trump and president zelensky. as a former ambassador, sir, as president trump's ukraine policies been concerning to you since day one of his presidency? did you ever find his policy or approach towards ukraine was consistent with or in line with other american administration policies on ukraine? >> the trump administration i think has had a pretty sound policy towards ukraine. i think it was very -- there were a lot of continuities with the obama administration. i was in the administration for five years with president obama. in some instances i would say it was better than our policy. for instance, they made the decision to provide lethal assistance to the ukrainian military. there was one problem with that policy. the president himself never seemed to sign up for it. he didn't like this military assistance, if you remember from the republican national convention. he wanted to befriend mr. putin. he didn't really like sanctions.

so for years you have had this tension between the administration as a whole and president trump vis-a-vis this policy towards ukraine. now, come to find out, the president went a step further and just decided to usurp the entire policy, the policy that was advancing american national interests and just use it for his personal re-election efforts. i think the evidence for that is just clear as day. >> we'll see if they can get to the bottom of it all. ambassador mcfaul, thanks for joining us. >> sure. turkey began its third day of assault with new air and artillery strikes on kurdish forces. officials say 277, quote, terrorists, as they refer to them, have been killed since the operation began. the united nations high commissioner for human rights reports seven civilians killed during the first two days. nbc news has not independently confirmed either of those numbers.

nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely joining us from neighboring iraq. as the strikes continue, what i of this offensive, but not the front and what is happening on end of the fighting. the heavy fighting reported all day, especially around two times just across the border, across the turkish/syrian border. they've updated casualty figures. it now says 342, what it calls militants, kurdish fighters being killed. the kurdss saying a couple dozen killed. about a dozen civilian casualties, one turkish soldier. the u.n. says several thousand people are fleeing. that number will be updated in the next few hours. clearly a humanitarian crisis. the first few days are critical, ayman, as you know from covering wars yourself. the turks are hoping to push forward before the krurds can

dig in and stop their momentum. the turks want to make as much ground as possible before there's an international backlash. we've seen the first signs of that. trsly in istanbul today, general stoltenberg made the foreign minister. turkey, the member of nato. the foreign minister said we expect you to sew solidarity with your allies. i'm afraid nato did not. mr. stoltenberg saying we have serious concerns about this offensive. remember president erdogan threatened europe, if it called this anything other than an operation, than he might open the gates and let 3.5 million refugees pour into europe. the european council president donald tusk said today, basically, how dare you blackmail us, how dare you weaponize refugees like that, that's not what we will accept. so the war of words is certainly

heating up. president trump suggesting there might be some kind of mediation by the u.s. at the minute the war of words heating up and on the ground very hot indeed. >> bill neely, thanks. i want to bring in mike gig lee i don't who has written extensively about isis in syria and the refugee crisis. good to have you with us. let's talk about the emotional plea in "the washington post" written by parents of two american journalists, james foley and stephen sought lot who were taken and killed. they say the syrian democratic forces have been guarding the 10,000 isis fighters and 70,000 family members in nearby camps, they have been awaiting ext extradition and trial. among them are two suspected members of the beetles, the british isis fighters responsible for the killing of those hostages. while we're grateful to hear

these two particular isis fighters are now in custody, what of the other eye isis fighters and their families? what of the local population and vulnerable kurds as turkey assaulting this syrian border territory? what happens if these prisoners go free? >> just to go back in time a bit. when isis surged into iraq in 2014, a big part of that was jailbreaks. they've done this before. they are certainly planning again to see if they can get their prisoners out. if they do, they will join the existing isis cells in syria that are still a problem and that until three days ago kurdish forces were continuing to fight. they will also try to get to europe. there's still a refugee crisis. the mike grant flows from turkey to syria is still a route they can take. >> in your new book you write shadow the nations and isis the

war for the caliphate. you quite about the refugee crisis in syria. what is your assessment of the current situation in terms of what has to happen for isis to become a floebl threat again? we think of those attacks that took place in paris, the theater and elsewhere. a lot of that linked back directly to the war in syria. are we likely to see a remerge ens of those kind of attacks? >> i think what we can see right now is we are seeing the chaos isis grew out of in the first place. in 2014, 2013, there was an entire upheaval of the security apparatus in iraq and syria. that's been stabilized a bit. trump and erdogan are casting it back into chaos again. isis back in 2015 took advantage of the refugee crisis. they could do that again. i don't think we can say exactly what that would look like or what will happen tomorrow. i think we can say these are the exact same conditions that were so problematic for the world and for turkey and iraq and syria

back in 2014 and 2015. >> let's talk about neighboring iraq in all this. obviously the northwestern part of iraq remains fertile for isis sympathy. could what we've seen happen in syria destabilize that part of iraq as it continues to try to secure and solidify the government's control of that territo territory? >> absolutely. isis is an insurgency, first and foremost. that's what its roots in the iraq war when it was al qaeda. it very quickly, once it lost its territory in both iraq and syria returned to that. you've seen isis insert attacks across iraq already before this. they've been assassinating local soldiers and leaders, anyone that might resist them. if you have a new refugee crisis, not just talking about refugees going to europe, but people displaced from northern syria moving into kurdish regions of iraq bs it's going to make everything a lot easier for

isis in terms of survival and sustained attacks. >> mike giglio, appreciate it. thanks. we're following breaking news at home. new wildfires spreading through parts of southern california right now. mandatory evacuations have been ordered in the san fernando valley. at least ten schools have been closed today. nbc's gadi schwartz is in porter ranch, california with the latest. what are you seeing there on the ground as it plays out? >> reporter: ayman, it's incredible. this whole area, porter ranch as well as other communities are under mandatory evacuations. this is affecting over 100,000 people in the southern california area. last night was such a valiant night by the firefighters out here protecting so many structures. unfortunately this was one that they could not save. they were out here for hours on this particular house trying to save it. but as you can see over here,

it's a total loss now including the car in front. it really speaks to the power of the wind. this fire was coming from the hills over there and it was pushing its way into these communities and all it took was a small little 'emmer to hit one of these houses, find itself underneath a shingle and then you have devastation like this. firefighters worked all night long without stopping to try to stop this from happening, and they were able to save hundreds of homes. so for every image of a home that you see burned on the news, just remember there are hundreds that were saved because of their efforts. unfortunately in this community, we've seen about four or five homes that were totally lost. we were down a little bit further south, and there was another community down there that lost about 70 homes in a mobile home park that also saw a raging fire yesterday. this area still under evacuation. it's an area that did see power

during that deenergizing of the power grid. one thing that was concerning to the residents around here when it comes to utilities is that hill right there, that is the liso canyon gas facility. up in those hills are storage tanks for natural gas as well as oil. it's a facility that's had problems in the past with leaks. authorities here said there were no concerns about leaks, that all the storage facilities were secure. we saw the fire rip through that area. we didn't see any explosions. that is still an area that's being monitored. we're expecting the winds to die down a little later this afternoon, possibly 3:00, possibly 6:00. we're told by the energy companies all through out california that have deenergized lines, they're hoping to get those lines back into power and get electricity back into people's homes by today, if not tomorrow, if people don't already have their power back. ayman, back to you.

>> thanks for the update, gadi schwartz. polls say a number of americans back the impeachment inquiry. how does that change the pressure on the republicans backing the president. stay with us. e president. stay with us ® was proven superior to humira® in providing significantly clearer skin. don't use if you're allergic to tremfya®. tremfya® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya®. get clearer. janssen can help you explore cost support options. janssen can help you explore their medicare options...ere people go to learn about before they're on medicare. come on in. you're turning 65 soon? yep. and you're retiring at 67? that's the plan! well, you've come to the right place. it's also a great time to learn about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by

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there is mounting pressure on republican lawmakers to pick a side to support the president or the impeachment inquiry. polling shows growing support for impeachment, raising the question how much republicans can bend before they ultimately break with the president. now politico cites concern from tamp al trump allies. one says, if there's one place you can set a trap that nobody expects, it is the u.s. senate republican conference. michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian, great to have you with us this friday morning. the president must lose 20 republican senators to lose office. >> probably the best example, ayman, would be richard nixon in the watergate scandal. the senate hearings began in the spring of 1973, and the vote to impeach or on the verge of a

vote to impeach which was never taken, was not until july of the next year. that was a very long time. but in the case of watergate, there were two things. number one, there was a general feeling that there was concrete evidence that richard nixon had obstructed justice in its pursuit of the watergate burglars. that's something that a lot of republicans weho were on nixon' side, went to the other side and were willing to impeach and convict. the other thing is, in the summer of 1974, a lot of republicans consistent bawent b home districts and states and a lot of people were angry about richard nixon and watergate. it moved them to the tonight that in july, when the so-called smoking gun tape came out in july and early august of 1974, a lot of republicans were prone to impeach. and that's when republican leaders went to the white house and told richard nixon that

there might not even be ten votes to keep him in office in the senate if it came to a senate trial. that's when he resigned. >> i'm interested to get your thoughts, michael, because overall senate republicans have been hesitant to take a stance on whether they think it's appropriate for the president to ask foreign countries for political dirt on his opponent. there is no more video that has gone viral than cory gardner and joni ernst, watch how they responded when they were pressed on it. okay, so unfortunately we don't have that tape, but you may recall cory gardner when asked yesterday completely dodging the question, refusing to even acknowledge the question. draw on your historical experience and tell me how odd it is that a senator won't

answer a question about whether a sitting president can ask for help from a foreign government. >> 1974 tells us a lot, because richard nixon and the republicans were in the minority at the time, that was liberals, conservatives, and moderates, they were not that bound to nixon. he was growingly unpopular and the economy was getting bad. compare that to the senate now, which is so bound to donald trump so that people who are in swing districts, in swing states, since we're talking about senators, you will see scenes like the one we saw that you're referring to. >> i wanted to get your thoughts on one other thing which is that 538 has been tracking impeachment support by party. they are finding that support for impeachment is in fact rising among independents and republicans. what turned the tide in previous xweechlts a impeachments and how steady are

the poll numbers? >> poll numbers begin to generate pressure on a president's party to move in that direction. that sure is proven by 1974 and also in the case of bill clinton. but even the bill clinton impeachment, that was a pretty party line vote. so unless there is overwhelming pressure of the kind that we saw in the summer of 1974 to move a president toward conviction and removal, impeachment, conviction, and removal, i think it's going to be a very slow process. and that's what the founders intended. >> it's incredible how much insight we can glean from history when you present it as you did. michael beschloss, thank you very much. coming up, former cia john brennan joins my colleague andrea mitchell, next. ins my coe andrea mitchell, next. ♪

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