this comes so soon after the attacks on the saudi oil facilities, the saudis were blaming essentially on ien ran, tensions rising and with it again today the price of oil. >> thank you so much. i really appreciate it. thank you all so much for joining me. inside politics with ryan nobles starts right now. and welcome to "inside politics" i'm ryan nobles, john king is off. a key player in the house democrats impeachment inquiry is talking to members of congress right now after the trump white house lets her show up to testify. plus, investigators now looking into rudy giuliani's business ties to two ukrainians indicted by the feds. and the president goes on a campaign rally spree in the face of the impeachment inquiry. >> we just got rid of the russia hoax, and then a week later, the ukraine hoax starts, the democrats brazen attempt to

overthrow our government will produce a backlash at the ballot box, the likes of which they have never ever seen before in the history of this country. >> we begin the hour, though, on capitol hill with a big moment and a big victory for the democratic impeachment inquiry. right now marie marie is testif behind closed doors, facing questions from three committees. lawmakers hope yovonavitch can hold back the curtain and talk about who made them. that yovonavitch is on capitol hill today is a victory for democrats against the white house stone wall strategy. until this morning, the administration has repeatedly and successfully denied democrats the chance to interview the people around the president. saying no to subpoena after subpoena. another crack in the wall,

lawyers for the u.s. ambassador to the eu, who the administration blocked from testifying earlier in the week now say he will comply with a congressional subpoena. the new democratic victories also come with a key loss in court for the president. the d.c. circuit court of appeals ruling against president trump and upholding a lower court decision that requires the president's accounting firm to turn over eight years of his tax returns to house democratic investigators. today's ruling perhaps a signal that the white house's letter to congress refuse to go cooperate with the impeachment probe won't hold up in court. cnn's manu raju joins me live from capitol hill to set the scene. yovonavitch a key witness in this impeachment inquiry, what exactly are democrats hoping to learn from her today. >> reporter: well, they want to know about the circumstances around her dismissal earlier this spring. the president himself had targeted her, criticized her in that phone call with president of ukraine zelensky, the

transcript showed the president of the united states criticizinger. rudy giuliani had targeted her as part of an effort to push for her ouster, as well as the rudy giuliani associates who arrested yesterday. they were all part of this effort and scheme of sorts that were alleged by prosecutors yesterday in part to push her out. these are all the questions that will undoubtedly be asked behind closed doors, exactly what happened there, and we got a read about some of the things that are happening behind closed doors. eleanor holmes norton, a congresswoman sitting on three committees interviewing the witness emerged from the closed door facility and she said that nobody, that yovonavitch has not indicated whether or not anybody has prevented her from testifying. now, that is a key question because we had wondered whether or not the state, she was di -- defying the state department,

but she has not indicated that yet at this moment. at the same time, she says that yovonavitch has been trying to clear up false statements about her. this could be in relation to what the republicans were saying, she was disloyal to the president, criticized the president, and she deserved her ouster, perhaps she's trying to clear that up and, also norton said they're getting into the topics about rudy giuliani right now, and according to norton, this is getting quote very very deep, so we'll learn details as the day emerges but already some interesting answers. >> another busy day of you waiting behind closed doors on capitol hill. get back to us if you learn more. thank you. here to share reporting and insights, julie pace with the associated press, jackie with the daily beast, elisa lair with the "new york times." obviously there's a lot happening we're not going to hear about, julie, because it's all happening behind closed doors. this is a significant victory for democrats that she is here today. what's at stake for the white house. >> the mere fact that she showed up was in question.

we have seen from the white house basically this refusal to have anybody in the administration cooperate, and she is still a foreign service officer and so there was a question of whether she was going to show up on her own. i think what we need to sort through right now is the fact that she's there, a sign that despite this tough public line that the white house is taking, they are going to essentially let some people go forward and meet with lawmakers or is she defying the order. is she saying i am going to go forward with this, despite what the white house has said. i think that's significant in terms of what happens going forward because we know democrats want to talk to probably dozens of other people who are in the administration. >> and we know that the eu ambassador, sondland is going to show up after he was pulled back an hour and a half after the committee was supposed to interview him. he is scheduled to come forward. maybe she started something and we're going to see more officials walk by us behind closed doors. >> there is this history throughout the trump administration where we have

seen this kind of mini, quiet, i hesitate to call it an uprising, but the civil service kind of biting back a little bit. i remember in the very beginning when he was first put in office, there would be rogue tweets from the national park service, and you know, national park saying, correctly things he said or whatever, so there is this history of these people who have been in government for decades like these two foreign service officials who are going to testify who, you know, have these private qualms with how business is being done in this administration coming forward and sort of small ways. maybe that's part of what's happening. i don't know. >> to that, let's look at who's scheduled to be on capitol hill this week, and it's a mix of people, loyal to president trump and some that are career officials, we know, yovonavitch on the hill today, dr. fiona hill, an adviser to president trump in russia. george kent is supposed to be there. sondland, of course, a trump

guy, donated a million dollars to his inaugural, and a couple of other people that could testify later this week. what should we take from this. this is going to be a long list of people that are going to appear in front of these committees. >> there are lots of tentacles to this. i think one person democrats have their eye on closely is bill taylor, the official who raised questions about a quid pro quo. >> they don't have an official date for him yet. >> he used those exact words and seemed to sniff out there was something going on behind the scenes. i think that's particular interest to democrats. big picture, i think they are trying to gather the evidence they can. they are ending up with a full body, story they can tell or end up if the administration stone walls with articles of obstruction of justice, obstruction of justice, obstruction of congress. most democrats in the house think what the president said in public and on camera, on the white house lawn is enough of an impeachable offense. this is just about, you know, what the articles end up looking like. >> they need to make their own choices, though, democrats about not only do they go with obstruction or broader

impeachment, do they expand the inquiry, there's some energy on capitol hill for people who want to expand beyond just ukraine, maybe look at what was going on in china and other, you know, this new revelation about this turkish, iranian gold trader, and rudy giuliani, and complications there. and there's, you know, political arguments to be made on either side for keeping it more discreet or broadening it out. >> use the words complications, it gets complicated and they want the message to voters to be simple, like a to b. quid pro quo, something you hear them talking about a lot. and they want to be able to message this effectively, and i think on the other side of that, what you're hearing is we need to keep this just in the ukraine situation. when they're out in the world and talking to people, it's a very simple explanation, rather than rudy giuliani and gold traders and whatnot. >> obstruction itself is not enough. that's a tough political argument to make, if it's extremely important, it's a tough argument to make to voters, we tried to investigate,

they stopped us, and we're impeaching for that reason. >> it was one of the reasons they held off in taking the mueller report, and move forward on impeachment. where trump was tied into it was on obstruction. >> i think this is a key point, and could be a strategy from the white house, right, the more we confuse the public, the better that works to our, and i wonder if that has to do with sondland testifying, and we want to read the statement, notwithstanding the state department's current direction not to testify, ambassador sondland will honor the committee subpoena and he looks forward to testifying on thursday. the ambassador does not control the disposition of his documents by federal law and regulation. the state department has the sole authority to produce such documents and ambassador sondland hopes the materials will be shared with the committee in advance of his thursday testimony. we want to point the distinction between the folks that are career state department officials and folks that were put in place by the trump administration. could there be a strategy here that sondland goes in to this

hearing with the goal of milwaukeei making trump look better. >> absolutely. perhaps that's why he changed his mind because he thinks he can help. that said, they have a lot of documented, you have career foreign service people appearing before him. they will have a body of work to be working with. they have those text messages where we see already sondland having communications with other foreign service officers and that big gap between when they were text messaging about what was going on in ukraine, and he disappeared overnight, and changed his tune and said we shouldn't talk about this anymore, the president was very clear, and there's reporting that he called president trump during that period. >> what we're told, and i think this lends to the idea that sondland is going to go before lawmakers and present a positive picture ifof trump. in that roughly five-hour period he had a phone conversation with trump, was this a quid pro quo,

and he was told no. he felt comfortable texting back saying the president has been clear. if he's going in there without any documents, and is only going to be able to give his own per speck -- perspective. >> if it's he said, she said, he can stick by his version, in contrast to what bill taylor said. >> speak of all the president's men, there is a particular former official who we had not heard from in totality and we may, that is john bolton. within minutes, senior officials including john bolton were being pinged by subordinates about problems about what the president said to his ukrainian counter part. a prrough transcript was being locked down on a highly secure computer network. we don't know what john bolton thinks about everything that has happened over the past few months. should the white house be worried that when john bolton

breaks his silence, that could be trouble for them. >> i think there's a lot the white house should be worried about right now. sure. they should be worried about that. it's funny because at the beginning of the inquiry, the white house was trying to discredit the whistleblower and that seemed like the strategy and that seemed impossible to do because story after story and person after person is coming out is sort of verifying that account in a lot of ways, so yeah, i think anyone who comes out carries a certain measure of risk and i would suspect that if it's clear that the white house wants as few people to talk as possible. >> think how he left. bolten did not leave on good terms with the white house, and there were a lot of hard feelings, and he has shown a willingness to, like, put everything out there, in other instances. >> how ironic if john bolton ends up becoming the resistance here. >> we just have something new, guys, we have the official opening statement of yovonavitch, "the new york

times" initially obtaining this, and i want to read a section of it. she testifies to the committee quote although i understand that i served at the pleasure of the president, i was nevertheless incredulous that the u.s. government chose to remove an ambassador based on as best as i can tell unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives. to make matters worse, all of this occurred during an especially challenging time in bilateral relations with a newly elected ukrainian president. this was precisely the time when continuity in the embassy in ukraine was most needed. all right. we just got is this in. let's go back to capitol hill now, and manu raju is standing by. this is obviously only a slice of what her testimony is going to be, manu. but it appears that she's not going to hold back, at least from her perspective as to how the trump administration called for her being called back from her post in ukraine. >> reporter: she makes it very

clear, she was very frustrated about his dismissal, dismayed, she believed she was the target of an unfair, unfounded, inaccurate smear campaign. she had no reason, understanding why this occurred, but she was told, interestingly about that the president wanted her gone, in her words, since the summer of 2018. she said that she had been told from department officials when she was dismissed, the department had been under pressure from the president to remove me since the summer of 2018, and that he had lost confidence in her in the position. she was abruptly told to return back to washington earlier in spring, and was told exactly that, and she goes into a litany of things that she says are simply not true. she says she never met hunter biden, for one, who has been one of the questions that had been raised about her. she says she was never disloyal to the president, which had been

a main allegation about her, which is one reason she had been pushed out of the post, and she makes it very clear that she didn't do anything. she said the obama administration did not ask me to help the dlclinton campaign or harm the trump campaign. she's trying to make very clear that she was unfairly targeted. she does not believe the reason why. now there's still questions about what she knew about the circumstances around that july phone call with president zel l -- zelensky. she makes it clear that was after she left. she should not have been dismissed from the post, the president wanted her gone for about a year, and eventually got her out of the position. expect that to be a dominant line of questioning as members continue to press her behind the scenes here scenes here. >> and manu, i know you have been talking to members of congress with what their expectations were.

does this fall in line with what they thought, did they expect her to be as forthcoming, based on this initial statement that we're reading? >> it was unclear. i can tell you, heading into today's testimony, there were a lot of questions about what she would answer, whether she would appear, particularly in light that she's still a nebrasmember state department employee, she has not indicated whether or not she has been prevented in any way. she has not indicated at the moment, whether she's defying orders from the state department. we'll see if anything has come up since then. members do not know. they were preparing for the possibility that she would reveal a lot of the information. it's still unclear, too, what documentation she may have to further corroborate her claims, but nevertheless, she makes it clear, laying out a clear time line of events that led to her dismissal, and saying that it was something that was totally

unfounded, totally baseless in her view for the reason she was abruptly dismissed from her post, which leads to loa lot of questions about why the president took that step, and she makes clear in her statement that she never asked for any effort like that, any investigation into the bidens. she makes clear she did not try to pressure the ukrainian government to launch any investigation in any way. this is one area she's tryingtoo clear up, amid questions. >> already a very significant development from this testimony from the former ambassador to the ukraine. we're going to give our panel an opportunity to read through this opening statement and digest this news. we'll take a short break and discuss. stay with us.

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the medicare coverage that helps support your evolving lifestyle. get the humana medicare advantage plan that's right for you. pick up the phone and call a licensed humana sales agent today. or, visit our website to see if you may be able to save. politics and we do have some developments on capitol hill. that's where marie yovonavitch, the former ambassador to ukraine is testifying behind closed doors. we have for the first time her opening statement. and it is a pretty scathing indictment of the trump administration and how they handled her removal from that post. joining my panel, michael zeldon, legal analyst, former associate in the fbi, and i want to read a couple of different moments in the opening statement. it's lengthy. she gets into a lot of different

aspects of the controversy. let me read you this first bit, and she's talking here about john sullivan, who is a deputy, one of the top deputies to the secretary of state, michael pompeo and is rumored to become the next ambassador to russia. he being sullivan said that the president had lost confidence in me and no longer wished me to serve as his ambassador. he added there had been a concerted campaign against me and that the department had been under pressure from the president to remove me since the summer of 2018. so julie, i think we knew this. this was an accusation against the trump white house, but to see it actually spelled out here in such specificity is startling. >> and this is why her testimony was so important for democrats. there have been a lot, there's been a lot of speculation about what happened here. it was known publicly that there was this effort by rudy giuliani, backed up by other trump allies to try to remove her, and the question was

basically what did that look like from the inside. what did it look like from her perspective. what were people who were not on the outside, people le rudy giuliani, people in an official capacity, what were they seeing, what were they saying, and how close did this get to president trump. ultimately, that's what we have to remember in this whole circus. you have a lot of names flying at you right now, a lot of new characters but ultimately the question is what was the president's role in trying to maneuver ukrainian officials and other people to try to clear the way for his desire to have joe biden investigated. >> at least if you go by her perspective of it, the president and people close to him were very involved in it. >> the summer of 2018 is an interesting time line, if that's when theoretically some of this stuff began, and that's when they were laying the ground work to do this, a big part of her opening statement was dispelling a lot of things said about her. she never asked ukraine to stop investigating corruption.

she was not disloyal to the president. she never met hunter biden, minimal contact with rudy giuliani, and none about the issues at hand. what we are seeing from her is what we have seen from a number of trump administration officials when they feel conflicted between loyalty to the president and loyalty to their oath, their job, the country itself. some of them go one way, some go the other way. jeff sessions had that problem. >> right. and i guess, jackie, the question now is if she finds herself in the middle of all of this, will she now become a target by president trump and his supporters? and try and discredit her. >> she's already become a target. you saw her mentioned in the ukrainian, the call with the ukrainian president as someone who had issues or something like that. so that is the play book. that is what they do. so there is no reason to think that that won't happen now. she's, you know, someone who's been a career diplomat for 33 years, i don't know in that capacity, but she's a long time civil servant, so it is not beyond the realm of possibility

there are going to be people looking through her background trying to find some connection to democrats no matter how ten use. >> and speaking of that -- tenuous. >> and speaking of that, the idea to commitment to civil service, she talked about that extensively. quote today we see the state department attacked and hollowed out from within. state department leadership with congress needs to take action now to defend this great institution and its thousands of loyal and effective employees. we need to rebuild diplomacy as the first resort to advance america's interests and the front line of america's defense. i fear that not doing so will harm our nation's interests, perhaps irreparably. that harm will come not just from the inevitable and continuing resignation and loss of many of this nation's most loyal and talented public servants. michael you worked with a lot of civil servants over the course of your career. >> i was one. >> you were one. that's right. can you see her frustration as someone who didn't get into this for politics but got into it to serve her country, and feeling that she wasn't able to do that.

>> absolutely. what it says to everybody who reads this is my days in government are done. i tried my best over 30 years to represent the interests of the united states in this period of 2018. i was essentially denied the ability to do my job. that's a mistake. and it's rampant within the department. >> and ewe're seeing this not just from her but other state department officials have slowly moved themselves away from the trump administration because they felt they couldn't do their jobs. >> this is a department with low moral, so i think you have to put this fully in context of that, this is a department where people have felt like the work that they were doing wasn't respected, like the work they were doing wasn't understood by the white house, there was hope that mike pompeo when he came in would try to sort of give them a boost, would try to reestablish some normal order and some normal processes. and what you're seeing here, i

think, is just the reality that even if that happened, maybe at some lower levels, trump has sort of operated differently, and he has seen avenues to have, i mean, what we're talking about is a foreign policy outside of the normal channels of the state department. for people who have spent their entire career working through those regular channels, this has to be incredibly disspiriting. >> there's something so interesting about this, of course, we have seen with the indictment of the two individuals for campaign finance, there was a concerted effort to remove this ambassador from ukraine, and it's not clear why. i mean, her statement says i have done none of the things that are in the public domain about me, but nonetheless, there was a concerted effort by giuliani and associates and then the president, to remove her because she was in the way of something. what that something is has not been well articulated and that's something we have to keep our eye on. >> we'll get into the rudy

giuliani aspect of all of this because he's mentioned in this particular opening statement. there's a lot of news about him today as well. so when we come back, our panel will dissect rudy giuliani's role in all of this when we come back on "inside politics."

a big accusation this hour from a u.s. diplomat and a key witness in the democratic

impeachment case against president trump. marie yovonavitch says in her opening statement to congressional investigators there was a concerted effort to fire her based on false claims peddled by what she calls quote people with questionable motives. the ambassador statement mentions the president's personal attorney rudy giuliani. yovonavitch says she's had minimal contact with rudy giuliani and she can't explain why she is the focus of his attacks but she does say this about the people around the former new york city mayor. quote, individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of mr. giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in ukraine. remember, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment yesterday alleging that giuliani's pals, igor fruman and lev parnas hid the source of hundreds of thousands of foreign dollars donated to super packs in u.s. political campaigns.

par nas and fruman are the key links in ukraine and a source of unproven accusations against the b biden family. did you get all that. now it's time for our panel to explain it. from the legal perspective, how much legal jeopardy is rudy giuliani in based on what you have seen in the past 24 hours. >> it depends on what these two guys have to say about him. on the indictment itself, giuliani is not mentioned and there's no even implication of his criminal liability in it. if, however, hypothetically, giuliani was part of a conspiracy to defraud the federal election commission, these guys acts were countenanced by giuliani, this was all part of a financial scheme that would bring money to a congressman to remove this ambassador, to clear the way for them to do business, and for yovonavitch to do the biden dirt in exchange for it, then there is a possibility of criminal

liability for giuliani, and further evidence of an abuse of power by the president. two threads, they run parallel at the moment. we'll have to see what these guys say. without them it's a harder case to make. >> giuliani has told cnn he's not aware he's under investigation. he hasn't talked to fbi investigators about this. is there any chance, michael, that the department of justice is hoping that these two individuals may flip on rudy giuliani or bring him into this? >> let's not call it flip on giuliani so much as i think that the southern district of new york and the new york fbi indicated yesterday in the way they treated these guys with the way they were released on probation to go home in ankle bracelets so they can still talk to one another. they are trying to treat these guys nicely so they will cooperate them. against whom and with respect to what, we don't know. i wouldn't want to say flip on giuliani, we don't know if

giuliani has done anything wrong at all. >> they want to find out more. >> they want to find out what's going on here, what's at the heart of this ukraine mess that we're looking at. >> interestingly, rudy giuliani seems to be acting very nice to them right now. i'm not going to disavow them. he doesn't think they have committed a crime. that's not who they are in his view. >> a about michael cohen at the outset, a good lawyer, ethical guy. >> all fun and games until. >> he's a skrocoundrel. >> would it be to potentially threaten them with jail time if we're looking at criminal charges and use that as a way to get them to talk about the extent to which rudy giuliani was or was not involved. >> respect to if the government has an interest in giuliani, something we don't know, then these guys who have worked with him on this matter, that they're under indictment for, and with the ukraine policy more broadly

would be their primary source of information. >> let's talk about how this all gets back to president trump, right, because it's always like two or three degrees of separation with president trump, and i like to think that president trump prizes loyalty, specifically when you're loyal to him, but not necessarily the other way around. this is what the president said yesterday on the south lawn about the situation with rudy giuliani. take a very close listen to how he frames this. >> i don't know those gentlemen. now, it's possible i have a picture with them because i have a picture with everybody. i don't know them. i don't know about them. i don't know what they do. but i don't know, maybe they were clients of rudy. you would have to ask rudy. >> maybe they were clients of rudy, you'll have to ask rudy. there was a way for him to support rudy giuliani in answer to that question, and he certainly did not do that. >> he did not do that. you can start to see the possible beginnings of a strategy here to not just distance himself from the men who were arrested yesterday, but also giuliani.

the problem in doing so is one, giuliani is still his lawyer, so he would have to take a step to sever that relationship, and two, he actually more than anybody around trump right now has really embraced rudy, has seen him as a fighter for him, someone who is willing to go out and defend him. there's a long record of standing with rudy on this exact issue, not just on other issues. he has embraced what giuliani was doing in ukraine. it would be quite the turn if he were to separate himself from him. >> we have seen him do this with other ally, and it's how that ally reacts under pressure if they are in trouble, which dictates how the president treats them. look no further than michael cohen, and paul manafort, although they have tried to distance himself, he was only with the campaign for a minute, versus michael cohen, who took the direction, i mean, the president has nice things to say about paul manafort. i'm not saying giuliani is going

to get to that point. we don't know anything about whether or not he is in trouble with the law, but should he, we have two very good examples to see how the president treats his former allies. >> a list of people with legal problems around the president continues to grow. it doesn't seem to have an impact on supporters and how they feel about him, perhaps this is a turning point. i guess we're going to have to wait and see, but we do know it will probably play heavily in the 2020 election. and speaking of the 2020 election, that's what the president was focussing on last night. he goes off script in last night's campaign rally. >> maybe a little different up here, i don't know, but i enjoy it. to me, i'm energized. isn't it much better when i go off script, isn't that better? s. alexa: it's a masterstroke of heartache, brutality and redemption. the mist crept into the pivot hole beside her... you're late. david! what did you think of the book?

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call, click, or visit a store today. aaddiction. how juuline hooked kids and ignited an public health crisis." other news outlets report- juul took $12.8 billion from big tobacco. markets e-cigarettes with kid friendly flavors and uses nicotine to addict them. 5 million kids use e-cigarettes. juul is "following big tobacco's playbook." and now, juul is pushing prop c to overturn e-cigarette protections. vote no on juul. no on big tobacco. no on prop c. before we get to president trump and his rally last night, we have an update to a story we brought earlier, john sullivan who was involved in the opening statement from the former ambassador yovonavitch has been named the new ambassador to

russia by president trump. sullivan, a deputy to mike pompeo will now head to moscow, assuming, or he's been nominated to that role assuming he gets confirmed. john sullivan nominated to be the next am ambassador tbassado in a speech last night in minnesota, the president spoke for one hundred minutes. it was his first rally since house speaker nancy pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry, and he brought the red meat to his base. vote to save me from the swamp. >> i can't win the 2020 election, so they're pursuing the insane impeachment witch hunt, the retched washington swamp has been trying to nullify the results of a truly great and democratic election. they smear you. they spy on you. and they target your friends,

your family, your staff, for harassment, for abuse, for destruction. >> so the president with a pretty specific message here to his supporters, i'm under attack, i need you to be behind me, will it work? >> he's getting edgier answerier, and angrier about this, and using the same play book he used on the russia investigation which is to discredit and undermine the investigation and create a counter narrative and rally his supporters around a counter narrative in which he is being treated unfairly and by extension they are being treated unfairly. we have seen the polls move, a majority of americans are in favor of an impeachment inquiry. trump's approval is a flat line, 85 to 90% of his supporters. people who disapprove of him, now disapprove more strongly, have moved maybe he shouldn't be impeached to yes he should. >> you can see the trend line here, and you're right, they're all heading in one direction, fox news poll has 51% of

americans now supporting impeachment. "washington post" at 49%, the npr, pbs at 49%. quinnipiac at 45%, and it's also important to point out in the recent poll, the npr poll showed independent support jumped 19 points since late september, and you know, president trump did have quite a bit of independent support in 2016. he needs it this time around, too, doesn't he? >> yeah, i think there's a sense in the white house that you can win by rallying your base, and i just don't think the math is there for that. so the categories where mr. trump, those independent voters suburban women, where he did, white women where he did, you know, decently, fairly well in the 2016 election, are categories where we see support for impeachment growing, in particularly strong ways. that should be a problematic sign for him as he looks to 2020. we have a long way to go, and things can happen. >> there's two different conversations about these polls,

there's the impact on 2020 but then there's also the conversation about whether or not the democrats will have the will to impeach, and public opinion will play a big role in all of that. >> absolutely. and that's what they're keeping an eye on, not just these national polls but how it's playing in the key districts with the democrats that were elected, majority makers that are in trump districts. that's why you see vice president pence being dispatched to some of these districts to try to rally people against this effort because as sajo pointed out, these people are trying to invalidate your vote, your will from the last election. that's a powerful message, now when you throw in this red meat that's so red it's still mooing, that's when you have women that lisa was talking about, and some of the president's actions kind of taking pause. >> there are arguments the president could make here, he could go with nancy pelosi hasn't held a vote. that's a big point of con ter s contention, the charge that the

impeachment is not proper. the direction they're going is to confuse the facts and muddy the waters and make it difficult for people to understand what exactly is happening, and that's something that has been successful in the past. >> absolutely. it speaks to what his reelection strategy is. his campaign has basically given up on the idea of persuading some of these suburban women. they know these voters are gone, their strategy, it's a narrow one but they believe there are more sort of trump fans out there, people who like him and maybe didn't vote last time, maybe aren't registered to vote, so he needs to energize them, how do you energize them, you throw the red meat at them, you don't make the practical or process argument about this. >> and i want to get now to how this is impacting the republicans that are on capitol hill right now, maybe have a reelection, and i want to play a sound bite from cory gardner, two good friends asking the questions here. listen to how this embattled republican in colorado responding to questions about president trump. >> but the question is is it appropriate for a president --

>> i think we are going to have an investigation. it's a nonpartisan investigation. >> it's a yes-or-no question. >> it's an answer that you get. >> is it okay for you -- >> you know what i said before. >> we want to hear from you, you're a smart guy. >> this is about the politics of the moment, and that's why they're trying to do this. >> he just will not answer the question, and he's not the only republican who can answer or won't answer that simple question. >> one of the reporters there said he dodged it a total of a dozen times. it's a simple question, about something that the president of the united states has said on the white house lawn. he can try to make it about impeachment but this is a simple question about whether the president's request publicly was appropriate or not and this comes back to the very tricky position that republicans in swing districts and swing states are in. they cannot offer any indication, any hint that the president acted inappropriately or they will hear it. they will face it from the republican opponents in the primary.

they don't want to say it was appropriate either. >> and they're coming back, unfortunately for them, they have to come back to washington. it has been fairly easy to dodge these kinds of questions, out in the districts, in rural districts, places like that. that's going to be a whole lot harder when they arrive back in the capital, and there's nowhere to hide, question a dozen plus times. >> on taco salad thursday. >> especially on taco salad thursday. >> the defense secretary faces questions on whether the u.s. abandoned a key ally in the fight against isis. ? >> vo: my car is more than four wheels. it's my after-work decompression zone. so when my windshield broke... >> woman: what?! >> vo: ...i searched for someone who really knew my car. i found the experts at safelite autoglass. >> woman: hi! >> vo: with their exclusive technology, they fixed my windshield... then recalibrated the camera attached to my glass so my safety systems still work. who knew that was a thing?! >> woman: safelite has service i can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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developing this hour, the pentagon is sending 1,500 more troops to the middle east. but not to syria. the pentagon announcing minutes ago that the troops will be sent to saudi arabia. the assignment, protect against iran. cnn's ryan browne is at the pentagon. ryan, why is the president sending these troops in at this time? >> reporter: well, ryan, the idea behind this deployment is kind of this effort to counter what the administration sees as the threat emanating from iran, particularly following those attacks on those saudi oil facilities that the u.s. and several european countries have put the blame scarily on iran for. this additional deployment is meant to kind of help bolster u.s. deterrents in the region. there are questions as to whether or not this is in part to help replace a departing

aircraft carrier, something the u.s. is losing in the region, so they're attempting to increase its footprint, but really, the real crux of the announcements today were concerned about the situation in syria. the secretary of defense mark esper defending the u.s. position that was withdrawing u.s. troops from the border with turkey, something that many think helped prompt turkey to launch its invasion of northern syria, an invasion that targeted partners that helped fight isis. saying the u.s. has not abandoned its kurdish allies, despite saying the u.s. military will not do anything to protect them. >> to be clear, we are not abandoning our kurdish partner forces and u.s. troops remain with them in other parts of syria. the impulsive action of president erdogan to invade has put the united states in a tough situation given our relationship with the our nato ally turkey

who has fought along pside the united states in the past, and the safety of u.s. military personnel. rather than get pulled into this conflict, we put the welfare of our soldiers first, while urging turkey to forego its operation and working hard to address their concerns through development of a security zone along the border. we remain in close coordination with the syrian democratic forces who helped us destroy the physical caliphate of isis. i will not place american service members in the middle of a long standing conflict between the turks and kurds. this is not why we are in syria. >> despite offering tough criticism of turkey's move, secretary es per making it clear the u.s. military will do nothing to protect kurdish allies, and no other penalties have been proposed. >> ryan browne at the pentagon, thank you for that update. that's going to do it for us on "inside politics", thank you so much for joining us.

boris sanchez in for brianna keilar, and he starts right now. this is cnn breaking news. i'm boris sanchez in for brianna keilar. live from cnn's washington headquarters, underway right now we begin with breaking news this hour. the house moving ahead with their impeachment inquiry with an important witness offering testimony on the trump administration's relationship with ukraine. former u former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, marie yovonavitch. she was ambassador before the u.s. recalled her, two months before the call between president trump and ukrainian president zelensky. she says quote, i met with the deputy secretary of state who informed me of the curtailment of my