and creating new institutions and much of what we've been discussing today which involved in a regular channel was a request that one against us policy that would have undermined the rule of law and our long standing policy goals and ukraine as in other countries in the post soviet space those policies which were indeed championed by ambassador you vonnegut you also testified on october 15th in the position about fundamental reforms necessary for ukraine to fight corruption and to transform the calm of the country and you cited the importance of reforming certain institutions notably the security service in the prosecutor general's office. was investigating president trumps political opponents a part of those necessary reforms was it on that list of your serves indeed was that on any list you know they weren't in fact historically is it not true that a major problem in the ukraine has been its misuse of prosecutors precisely to

conduct investigation of political opponents that's a legacy i dare suggest from the soviet era when as you stated in your testimony prosecutors like the k.g.b. were and i quote you now instruments of oppression as i said that and i believe it's true so finally mr kent for as long as i can remember u.s. foreign policy has been predicated on advancing principled entrance and democratic values notably freedom of speech press assembly religion free fair and open elections and the rule of law. mr can't win american leaders ask foreign governments to investigate their potential rivals. doesn't that make it harder for us to advocate on behalf of

those democratic values i believe it makes it more difficult for our diplomatic representatives of overseas to carry out those policy goals yes how is steps or well there's an issue of credibility they hear diplomats on the ground saying one thing and they hear other u.s. leaders saying something else ambassador taylor would you agree with that sir i would certainly think you'd like to add about how it might make it more difficult for you to do your job search or credibility is based on a respect for the united states and if we damage that respect then it hurts our credibility and makes it more difficult for us to do our job anyone looking at the facts can see what happened was an abuse of power anyone looking at the facts can see that what happened was unethical anyone looking at the facts can see anyone looking at the facts can see

that what went on was just plain wrong or you'll back mr chairman mr jordan thank you mr chairman 55 days 55 days between july 18th and september 11th that there was a delay on sending hard earned tax dollars of the american people to ukraine not talking any country we're talking ukraine ernst and young said one of the 3 most corrupt countries on the planet our witness on friday she testified in her deposition corruption is not just prevalent in ukraine it's the system so our president said time out i'm out let's check out this new guy let's see if selenski is the real deal this new guy who got elected in april whose party took power in july. let's see if he's legitimate keep in mind this is already been discussed and 28 team president trump and already done more for ukraine that obama

did that's right president trump who doesn't like foreign aid he wanted european countries to do more who knew how corrupt ukraine was did more than obama because he gave them javelins tank busting javelins to fight the russians our witnesses have said this others have said this obama gave them blankets trump gave them missiles but when it came time to check out this new guy president trump said let's just see let's just see if he's legit so for 55 days we checked him out presents lensky had 5 interactions with senior u.s. officials in that time frame one was of course the phone call the july 25th phone call between president trump and presence alinsky and there were 4 other face to face meetings with other senior u.s. officials and guess what not one of those interactions not one were security assistance dollars linked to investigating barisan or biden but guess what did happen in those $55.00 days u.s.

senators baster bolton vice president pence all became convinced that zelinsky was in fact worth the risk he was in fact legit and the real deal in a real change and guess what they told the president he's a reformer release the money and that's exactly what president trump did and over the next few weeks we're going to have more witnesses like we've had today that the democrats will parade in here and they're all going to say this and so said such and such to so and so and therefore we got impeached the president. actually we get more specific we cover this little bit ago they'll say something like a better song and said in his deposition where he said ambassador taylor recalls that mr morrison told investor taylor that i told mr morrison that i conveyed this message to mr yarmuk on september 1st 21000 it connects with vice president pence's visit to warsaw and a meeting with presidents lenski and if you can follow that that's the democrats' plan and why they want to impeach the president that's what we're going to hear

over the next couple weeks that's what we're going to hear but no matter what they do no matter how many witnesses they bring in here for facts will not change have not change will never change the call shows no linkage between dollars in the investigation into as more the bidens president trump and president let's give both said on the call there was no linkage there was no pressure there was no pushing ukrainians didn't even know the aid was withheld at the time of the phone call and most importantly as has been pointed out ukrainians didn't take any specific action relative to investigations to get the money released now there is $1.00 witness one witness that they won't bring in front of us it won't bring in from the american people that's the guy who started it all the whistleblower you know 435 members of congress only one gets to know who that person is only one member of congress has a staff to get to talk to that person the rest of us don't only chairmanships knows who the whistleblower is we don't we will never get the chance we will never get

the chance to see the whistleblower raise his right hand swear to tell the truth and nothing but that he will never get that chance more importantly the american people won't get that chance this anonymous so-called whistle blower with no firsthand knowledge is biased against the president who worked with joe biden who is the reason we're all sitting here today will never get a chance to question that individual democrats are trying to preach the president based on all that all of that 11 and a half months before an election. will not get to check out his credibility his motivations his bias said this last week with this is this is a sad day this is a sad day for this country you think about what the democrats have put our nation through for the last 3 years started to live 2016 when they spied on 2 american citizens associated with the presidential campaign and all that unfolded with the mall investigation after that and when that didn't work here we are based on this

based on this is a the american people see through all this they understand the facts support the president they understand this process is unfair and they see through the whole darn sham with that i yield back mr welch. thank you i say to my colleague i'd be glad to have the the person who started it all come in and testify present trump is welcome to take a seat right there but. you know the question here is not a dispute about the enormous power that a president has the question is whether in this case there was an abuse of that power the president can fire an ambassador for any reason whatsoever the president can change his policy as he did when he opened the door for turkey to go

in and invade kurdistan despite opposition from many of his senior advisers the president could change his position and our position in ukraine but is there a limit there is because our constitution says no one is above the law and that limit is that one cannot even as president use the public trust of high office for personal gain if the law prohibits any one of us here on the dyess from seeking foreign assistance in our campaigns the question for us. is whether the use of power by the president was for the benefit of it dancing his political interest in the 2020 campaign and by the way my colleagues

if the president wants to attack joe biden in his son he's free to do it all fair and square in campaigns it's just not free to change our foreign policy unless he gets his way to a system in that campaign that's aligned can't cross now you all of been very clear about what our continuous foreign policy was and embassador taylor just very quickly describe why us withholding aid interfere with the achieving our national security goals. mr one of our national security goals is to. resolve conflicts in europe. there is one major conflict in europe it's a fighting war our national security goals in support of ukraine in support of a broader strategic approach to europe is to facilitate that

negotiation is to try to support ukraine when it negotiates with the russians and i want to go back because in the historical context mr kant did you in ambassador taylor. provided we had 70 years of peace. after the war in which we've lost over $400000.00 american lives and that took care and that was in jeopardy as you described it in bashur taylor and that's right and each and every one of us appear in the constituents we represent is that a fair statement it's a 1st date but. i want to do 3 dates to i only have a little time but july 24th july 25 in july 26th in forwarding this hearing in that last summary which we just heard from the chairman of the house intelligence committee adam schiff really sums up what democrats hope that the american public take away from these testimonies and that is that democrats chose 2 of their

strongest witnesses a bill taylor who is the acting u.s. ambassador to ukraine and george can who is a high level state department foreign officer also an expert on ukraine who haven't had a political reputation there by their non partisan they've served their country for many years and they both had a very consistent story that once they win that when ambassador taylor arrived in ukraine he found some mysterious weird circumstances in his words which included. the regular channel for u.s. foreign policy he said this channel was directed by trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani and involved some hand-picked aides of president trump and he discovered that the purpose of this channel was to compel the brain to open investigations into trump's political rivals here in the u.s.

that testimony has been corroborated not only by and who was on the witness stand today as well but by other witnesses who have come behind closed doors previously and taylor said that he was very concerned my bet is that it endangered the u.s. foreign policy objectives in ukraine that. played right into russia's hand because at the time as they were trying to get ukraine to dig up the sturt joe biden trump was with anything close to $400000000.00 in security aid to ukraine and ambassador taylor said that you conversations he had with aides closer to trump and learned that there was an explicit quote a quid pro quo meaning that trump was not going to release this in a money to ukraine unless he got a public statement that ukraine was going to investigate joe biden so he has

established with the help of kids that there may have been the split pro quo according to democrats and that it was a great concern in fact ambassador taylor's words was that it was wrong but then you come to the most difficult parts for the democrats case to each president trump which is not tailored for any other witness in this far as directly implicated trump in this they haven't been in the room where trump said something like you know i'm not giving this aid unless they give us the investigation statement quite the contrary trump has adamantly said that there was never such a deal under consideration and republicans really zoned in on that or you probably saw how they grilled embassador taylor saying well how many times have you met with trump 0 how many times have you met with giuliani and during this time period 0 because all of his information came from other sources and so that is still the

compelling challenge that democrats have as they continue to move forward this is with this inquiry still having haven't proven to the public that trump ordered this to happen and thus not proving that he is to blame for this so on terms of witnesses some of the as you mentioned the republicans saying this is all his say and when we're going to hear from people who knew but when. who else are we going to hear from what's what's the kind of plan for these public hearings as they go forward. right bill today it would be witness one into d.c. to be the most one specially vasser they were sort of laying out the roadmap for the american public to follow on friday we'll be hearing from his predecessor ambassador maria a lot of that who was recalled from ukraine and of the set up to how all of the shadow policy started she is said to have been very against she was very enticing russian in ukraine and however her enemies there were seen that she was

opposed to trump and these tried to smear her by sharing that information with the president which she has denied so she was recalled from her position in kiev before taylor was put in her place and that seems to have sort of set the scene for doing mani's role in all of this where his travels back and forth between the u.s. and ukraine and him convincing president trump that you claim was somehow mixed up in this conspiracy theory that the president believed in that ukraine and helped that was trying to help hillary clinton in 2016 so all of that might establish on friday that looking into next week we have a full schedule of further witnesses they'll be more minor in nature unfair to what we've heard from so far and compared to that sort of on a bench but they have in the closed door testimony as we've already seen they have corroborated the testimonies of these bigger witnesses which again boils down to

that said shadow foreign policy existed that it existed to benefit the president politically and it fairly at the detriment of u.s. national security i did your question thank you very much. the president has reacted strongly to the proceedings went aust during a meeting with turkey's president to. and at the white house he called it a witch hunt. and i didn't i did not watch and i'm too busy to watch it it's a witch hunt it's a hoax i'm too busy to watch it so i'm sure i'll get a report and there's nothing i have not been briefed no there's nothing there i see they're using lawyers that are television lawyers they pick some guys over television you know i'm not surprised to see it because shifted to his own questions let's get more from our white house correspondent kimberly hellcat so. presumably this is going to continue to be that the white house defense said they were not interested and were not watching it. yeah saying one thing but actually

sort of showing just the opposite will the president says he didn't watch he was responding directly through his own twitter account to his white house press secretary's twitter account directly to many of the points that were raised so it's hard to believe the president was not watching in fact the president was defending himself through out these hearings on social media trying to portray through a series of different tweets that he is the key witness in the democrats' hearings today on capitol hill of basser bill taylor was nothing more than a disgruntled democrat or rather disgruntled diplomat i should say who felt left out when he disagreed with trump's foreign policy with respect to ukraine and was essentially sidelined and there was also an argument made in some of these retreats that this is nothing more than hearsay that this divil that had no sort of knowledge or cotton text in terms of direct conversations and never was present for

that telephone call in july 25th between the ukrainian president and the u.s. president so essentially crafting the case and once again trying to discredit these proceedings but there's another thing that the u.s. president tried to do well he didn't do it directly from his official account his war room did e-mail out to supporters that they are using this is a fundraising tool making the case that this is really an effort by democrats to overturn the 2016 u.s. elections and the results of electing donald trump and as a result as an embattled president he is making the case that look at this is also harming you this is harming the country therefore let's fund raise the goal to try and raise $3000000.00 in fundraising in the next 24 hours and complete i mean aside from the kind of people are fascinated by politics and so on how much older people and in your view actually watching all this because quite granular there's quite a lot of detail and it's quite long when people stick with it even if they are watching. you know i covered the impeachment process of bill clinton

back in 1998 and it's a different mood then it was back then with that was a time when americans were gripped to their television sets that they seemed to be following every single bit of argument it was a much easier argument to follow this is very deep in the weeds in terms of foreign policy this is something that you know ordinary americans are many are going to have trouble relating to they're seeing diplomats and bow ties using lofty language and really this is going to be hard for the ordinary american to grasp and then add to the sort of propensity of the arguments very long very detailed right now the american public seems to be split and they seem to be listening to what they want to hear whether it's fox news on the right. see on the left or other networks that people are sort of looking for validation of what they already believe and i believe that's how they're going to view the lens of these hearing so far having

said that this is just the 1st day this is going to continue and so this is the challenge for democrats as they try to move forward to make this compelling case to the american public but we're also going to see someone else trying to make a compelling pick case and that is the u.s. president he set to have a joint press conference with the turkish president in the coming hour there's no question that while he said he didn't watch it probably has something to say about the hearings can be how could thank you much indeed and we'll bring you that news conference with the president. as soon as it happens. what to ruben is a former u.s. deputy assistant secretary of state and is president of the washington strategy group he joins us now from washington thanks for being with us jim what would you say is the strongest point of testimony to come out today. so the strongest point is that the diplomats who are on point for the american relationship with ukraine and laid out exactly what the stakes are with american

policy towards ukraine this isn't good i'll be resolved in a day these hearings are going to continue friday there will be another witness the ambassador who was was fired. she'll be there on friday to testify and then next week there are 8 witnesses as well the whole week so what the committee is trying to do is to lay out a set of shared understanding about the stakes and that today was what these 2 witnesses were all about how damaging potentially is this for trump i mean he appears to be kind of distancing himself from from the whole process and the republican line seems to be very much these people kind of pushing forward what is essentially his say and there's no smoking gun does that is that a strategy that is likely to have some traction you think. well there are 2 approaches right now the. overlapping 1st is right now what we're watching the impeachment inquiry the hearings the upcoming vote in articles of

impeachment that will happen after this process concludes in committee but separately there is the court of public opinion and the question of will americans feel less confident about president trump now and going forward how will that impact 2020 as well because make no mistake about it both sides are very concerned about how this will impact them a year from now and neither is a crystal ball as to how this will turn out so the question is in terms of the democratic perspective what process are they putting forward that will convince independents in people who are uncertain about the president and for the republicans they have a bit more of a narrower focus for the near term which is to keep republicans on board because if they do that they'll keep the senate republicans on board and the president will be removed but the danger for republicans is that by focusing only on republicans they may lose the broader uncertain voters who a year from now may punish them at the ballot box what about the kind of the nature

of the questioning because a lot of the time it seems as though these people just making. points rather than actually asking questions is that likely to put people off from watching it and is it not in the end to mean that you actually don't elicit enough information to make a valuable judgment. so i think the partisan nature came more from the republicans to be honest of a lot of their arguments were about a democratic conspiracy a so-called democratic conspiracy in 2016 the clued with ukraine to throw the election that's an argument that has been debunked even by president trump's recently departed homeland security adviser tom boss or has said that that is is not true the american intelligence community says is not true but you heard it from the republicans here in the committee trying to. gaslight the viewers into thinking that there really is some ukrainian scandal with democrats that the president's

trying to get to the bottom of it so that's the partisan nature i think where democrats are trying to go with this is to explain that the facts are clear and nobody disputes them but the danger for democrats is that the republicans are blocking key information from coming out 1st hand accounts 1st 10 pieces of paper coming from the state department as well as direct witnesses like mick mulvaney the chief of staff and john bolton the departed national security adviser so democrats could be seen as being partisan if they can't get those firsthand accounts to come forward that is a big concern that they have children thank you very much indeed so not just here thank you as we've been reporting that president has praised u.s. relations with turkey had of talks with president hu on that the white house meeting is a bit to overcome mounting differences between the 2 nato allies including techies offensive in syria and their purchase of

a russian missile defense system ankara has also opposed a recent vote by the u.s. house of representatives recognizing a mass killing millions at the end of world war one as genocide that's bringing out a serious senior political analyst joins me here in the studio so how important is this meeting between the 2 on a trunk for each of them. but of the importance of course president trump is now living under the shadows of the impeachment which probably going to go on for months that these 3 months or so so that's difficult to exercise much. foreign policy especially in cases where it's more or less for him settled such as reaching a deal over the question of how to expand turkish influence or forces in north syria and so on so forth but i think for president or the one it is probably more important. first because it is

a smaller less powerful country because it's important for turkey to get america on board or a number of things notably the future of northern syria and what nato or what u.s. in turkey about to do regarding this complex map called the middle east and especially about whatever they agreed on on what to do about the future of syria what about the issue of nature i mean they've the pentagon has been talking about wanting to bring techie back into the fold with it with nato what exactly how exactly would that work is sort of funny because on the one hand you have speculations from washington itself from different media and other circles about turkey wanting to quit nato and you hear the sometimes warning to turkey that unless it does this or that it's going to be taken out of nato including even some under the obama administration like secretary kerry threatening turkey if it does this and that it would be thrown out of nato and so on so forth. despite all the

tensions and the spite all the threats and the warnings of course to continue to be a member of nato in fact turkey is an important perhaps i would say indispensable member of nato is the only non-christian like major league christian country within nato big country probably be the largest forces within it aside from the united states is turkey and it's an important buffer zone between russia and the middle east so all in all there will be tensions on the question of the s.s. for hundreds and probably president or do or will be accused of being a disruptor in terms of the overall european or transatlantic relations what they want to do but i think the president of the one is being quite bold risky and more left more or less his bet has worked well on the match of kind of military hardware and so on is difficult and of a situation where. no one is then obliged by moral u.s.

military kit to go to make up for the s. 130 actually wants to i mean he wants the 30 five's and the whole bit was about how much is america withholding or not withholding in terms of advanced equipment to turkey turkey under air doing since 2002 and increasingly since then has been quite vocal about what it deserves unlike the turkey before 2002 though on foreign policy has been making it clear that this is an important regional indeed continental power and that turkey will not take. from the united states and europe and will not take diktats from the united states and europe and will not accept to be punished whether regarding its domestic policy or whether it's about for example its posse critical policy towards israel so turkey's edwin is one that has been not only a destructor but one is that been vocal against the norm the normative if you will

u.s. trends. planted creations and i think in so many ways they've been making a difference and i think president trump in the end has listened probably more than president obama did in the sense of agreeing with president of the on a piece in terms of his plans in northern syria and the need to push the kurds away from the border and so on in terms of the kind of the relationship between trump and congress and the congress much much more unhappy with the whole situation in syria than than trump was clearly so where does that it is are still going to be a tension between how they see this relationship with with with turkey absolutely no any of that i mean it's funny but it's true but it looks a question say not funny is that both person from the president there or do i have an issue with congress i mean especially today i mean look at it a democrat can control controlled congress has an issue with trump and in fact both republicans and democrats in congress have issue with turkey so turkey has come

under huge pressure in congress and it's a large degree by the american media because of this disruption i was talking about earlier but in fact one could trace and a lot of turks actually claim that and there's a large truth to it that since 2910 years ago when everyone attacked israel in a mistress way and called it killers and so on so forth after the war in gaza and basically punished the israelis and boycotted the israelis that created a huge response especially in the united states against turkey with the beginning of the arab spring the differences of opinion between obama and their due on later on especially in 20132014 about the no fly zone in northern syria further created tensions and then there was the turkey. edouard's response to the quoted turkey was not like it's by many liberals in europe and the united states in fact some questioned whether which would have been better to have a coup d'etat or to have

a populist leaders who are becoming more and more authoritative was going to a very strange and striking dilemma because it shouldn't this shouldn't be a dilemma do i as an elected president he was basically attacked by generals in a could overcome that of course he created some what some would call that a pursuit of measures within turkey but that certainly created the 2nd attacks on him far more than any other leader that the nazis did with thank you very much indeed as ever. and that's it for me the moment i'll be back in a few minutes with more analysis of impeachment and of course the news conference from the white house to join us then minute now.

how the wind has swung around now in some cases that helps with the fires some cases it doesn't queens in the worst affected more recently this should be a general trend to lower the wind speed now but there's nothing in the sky in the case any rain falling for it or a significant wind except down here in victoria so it's probably good days 22 in melbourne is a good thing 38 in perth maybe not it's getting hotter and hotter in western australia near the 40 mark as i may get to friday's a warming trend a little bit in the southeast corner but not in tasmania hobart's held at about 14 degrees and it's through the bus driving across the city you get the frontal systems moving through that's the active one that's just gone through queensland further south it brings rain to the south of them most of the north on new zealand

or clunes more or less in the bright if not sunny weather the sun returns more vigorously come friday but the rain still falling somewhere further south a change of season is being pretty apparent now in the northeast of asia 1st of all we've got winter coming out of the mainland minus one is the maximum but if a storm this massive snow makes its way across during says a nice warm day for tokyo and 11 sapporo come friday it's all change big snows i think for hawk-eye there. there's no one way of telling the story keeping is to the right and to be i suspect there is great he has to get to know the person for me to. this is al-jazeera.

and this is the al-jazeera news hour live from london coming up 2 veteran diplomats testify in the 1st televised hearings as part of the impeachment investigation into president donald trump. our answer to these questions will affect not only the future of this presidency but the future of the presidency itself. us president said he was too busy to watch the impeachment hearings as he met his turkish counterpart.