ivana wrote he was not a fan of the dog. >> sweating like a dog. >> reporter: here's a dog that definitely didn't choke. jeanne moos, cnn dog. >> i call them a dog. >> i call them a dog not like other people, furry lizards. >> reporter: cnn, new york. >> ac 360 begins right now. the tone of this potentially very significant day in this potential impeachment hearing was set for the day. the first witness was on the multiple calls between president trump and ukraine's president zelensky. that witness, lieutenant colonel vinman arrived on capitol hill. his body carrying the shrapnel he received from an i.e.d. he corroborated and expanded upon what we know about military aid for ukraine. we know he did that because we

obtained his opening statement last night. we also know he was prepared to say that he witnessed a pressure campaign, what he called, quote, outside influencers promoting a false narrative of ukraine. here's what his opening statement said about the call between the two presidents. quote, i was concerned by the call. i did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen. i realized that it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play. republicans didn't want to talk about what lieutenant colonel vinman had to say. like literally didn't want to talk about it. listen to mitch mccome and his answer. >> what we heard on the president's call, it was so concerning that he worried it might undermine u.s. national security? does it concern you? are you worried about the president's behavior at all? >> look, i'm not going to question the patriotism of any of the people who are coming

forward. >> he ignored the question if you didn't notice. nevada republican congressman mark amaday did him one better. watch what happens when man manu raju asks him a question about facts uncovered so far. >> the president asked for a public investigation into his rivals and also ukraine aid was being withheld. bill tailor testified -- >> that's your conclusion. >> no, no, that came out. >> sounds like a conclusion to me so we disagree. >> reporter: the president has asked for the ukrainians to investigate the bide dense. >> the president has asked for the whistle-blower complaint to go through the normal processes and we've seen nothing beyond that. beyond that when you say you've made the conclusion, it's like you're a gifted guy. guess what, it isn't over. you know what you think. >> reporter: white house transcript that was released had president trump asking president zelensky to open up an investigation. >> do you know if they've even got plans to call the

whistle-blower? because i heard they didn't. >> reporter: you're not answering my question about the substance of the allegation. >> it's a conclusion and not a question. >> reporter: i'm asking about what's in the transcript. >> you've got a conclusion. if you want to interview yourself, go right ahead. >> reporter: why don't you want to answer the question. is it okay for the president to ask a foreign country to investigate the bide dense? >> why don't you do an interview instead of asking yourself. >> can you answer my question? >> reporter: on the south lawn of the white house the president asked them to investigate the bide dense. >> if you don't want to interview me, then interview yourself. >> reporter: i'm asking you a question. >> i don't understand. >> reporter: you don't understand? >> thanks for doing the best you could. >> why aren't these people comfortable? did you ever wonder that? president trump went after the lieutenant colonel saying over twitter, quote, supposedly according to the corrupt media, they called a never trumper witness. how many more never trumpers will be allowed to testify about a perfectly appropriate phone

call when all anyone has to do is read the transcript. keeping him honest there is no evidence that lieutenant colonel vindman is a never trumper. we do however, know, that he served presidents republican and democrat over his distinguished two decade service career to the country. they said lieutenant colonel vindman has dual loyalties to the ukraine. where he was born. one said vindman had an affinity for ukraine. another said he was sim pympati. liz cheney called questioning his patriotism, quote, shameful. we have a member of the intelligence committee. congressman swallow, how much more were you able to learn from

lieutenant colonel vindman beyond what he said in his opening statement? >> good evening, anderson. the opening statement actually frankly says a lot, but we did, of course, learn more. it was very powerful to see him enter that committee room in full military uniform knowing this is a soviet born immigrant, a wounded warrior, a reluctant witness in the fact that he was not seeking to do this but it was what he thought was the right thing to do. >> lieutenant colonel vindman was the first witness who was on the call. according to cnn's reporting, he testified that the call transcript that we've seen was mostly accurate. can you say what he said was inaccurate about it or did he know -- did he have other details about it? >> we did hear more details about the call record but, anderson, we're going to accept the call record that the white house put out. and that is damaging enough because if all the president did was ask the ukrainian president to investigate his opponent,

that would be a gross abuse of power, but he did more than that. he leveraged $391 million of taxpayer dollars over the ukrainian president as well as a white house meeting. so i don't think the white house call record is really in dispute. we see that as the president's confession. >> in his opening statement vindman didn't specifically say what he heard being talked about on that call or what was going on was a quit pro quo. can you say if he characterized it that way in his actual testimony? >> no, that opening statement describes the scene in the white house war room with the ukrainians present right next to the situation which is also, you know, inappropriate. he heard ambassador sondland tell the ukrainians to get a white house meeting they needed to deliver on investigations into vice president biden. that, anderson, is a this for that, in other words, a quit d o

q quo. there's other evidence that it wasn't only a white house meeting as ambassador sondland told ambassador taylor, everything is on the table. >> i also want to ask you that democrats accuse republicans of trying to out the whistle-blower during vindman's deposition which led to you and your republican colleague, mark meadows, getting into a heated exchange. can you say what happened? >> yeah, out of respect for my republican colleague i'm not going to say which colleague that was i will say i got pretty fired up when i saw republicans attempting to get the identity of the whistle-blower after repeatedly being told that was not appropriate and hearing that the witness did not want to do that as he identified in his opening statement. we're going to protect the whistle-blower outside the hearing and inside the hearing. as far as i'm concerned and many are concerned, the whistle-blower pulled the fire alarm. once the first responders showed up and saw the smoke and flames

and the president holding the can of gasoline and matches in his hands, you don't really need to hear from the person who pulled the fire alarm unless they have anything new to offer. much of what the whistle-blower alleged has been corroborated. >> am i reading his opening statement, vindman said not only was he not the whistle-blower, that he didn't know who the whistle-blower was. is that correct? >> yeah, anderson, he did not want to speculate as to who that person is, and that's because of the great security risk to the whistle-blower and whistle-blower's family. that's why it's so irresponsible to seek to get the whistle-blower's identity for no other reason to be putative when the president has himself admitted to the call record. we don't have a reason to hear from the whistle-blower who has a right to remain anonymous. >> we should point out that we just heard vindman's testimony has just ended for the day. the wall street journal tonight

is reporting that the legal team representing the whistle-blower has received multiple death threats that have led to at least one laemt investigation. did that come up in today's hearing at all? >> i'm not going to go into the specifics of the hearing, app be der son, but we on the committee are aware of the threats that this whistle-blower faces comes from the top. >> congressman swallow, i'm sorry, i've got to jump in. adam schiff is making a statement. i want be to play that live. >> service that continues and today took the form of coming before our committees to bravely answer these questions. we hope that his example of patriotism will be emulated by others. i want to say also how deeply appalled i was at the pernicious attacks on him last night on fox. the suggestion that because he's of ukrainian origin that he has some duel loyalty. this purple heart recipient

deserved better than that scandalous attack. i also want to say this because i've been asked questions about this all day as i go to vote and come back. the president would love to punish the whistle-blower. the president's comments and actions have jeopardized the whistle-blower's safety. the president's allies would like nothing better than to help the president out this whistle-blower. our committee will not be a part of that. we will not stand for that and i would hope that more of my gop colleagues throughout the congress on both sides of the capitol would express their support for whistle blowers who have the courage to come forward and expose wrongdoing. they have the right to remain anonymous. they certainly should not be subject to these kind of vicious attacks and other words and actions that threaten their safety for doing their patriotic

duty. and so we will make every effort to make sure that notwithstanding the president or his allies desire to out and exact political revenge on this whistle-blower, that our committee is never used for that purpose, thank you. >> mr. schift, is he worried about white house retaliation. >> that's adam shift. i want to go to copying man swallow who is still with us. sorry to interrupt you like that, congressman. let me wrap up with you. last weaning you side there was very direct evidence about their testimony. you didn't want these witnesses to manufacture alibis. this is the lieutenant colonel now leaving. that's a live picture right now on capitol hill. is there any rule, congressman swallow, that says witnesses

can't talk to. i would like to keep that as a close hold. you don't want them to cook up agoly buys. we do have direct evidence that two relevant witnesses talked to each other. we'llen allowing them to become public and it will be seen by the public? >> are there any witnesses how believe are not forthcoming how want to call back? >> we have a number of witnesses who have told one version of events about this, quote, irregular channel as ambassador taylor described, president trump, rudy giuliani and ambassador sundland. that's in contrast to what ambassador sund land said. i will do that until we get to the end of the investigation. >> appreciate your time. thank you very much. next, more to talk about including some highly

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i recently discovered that a good source of protein. that's why they're my go-to snack while i get back in shape. that one's broken. moments ago lieutenant colonel vindland wrapped his day. there he goes. details are coming out. "the wall street journal" is reporting that the whistle-blower's team has been receiving death threats. more testimony is expected this week in the impeachment inquiry. tomorrow a defense department official and two others with the state department are scheduled to testify. thursday is expected to be a big day. another person on that july phone call between the two presidents. national security aide tim morrison is scheduled to testify. friday the senior advisor to acting chief of staff mick mulvaney, robert blaire, is expected to give his deposition. going to talk about all of this

now with cnn's chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin, dana bash and cnn political analyst and "new york times"/white house correspondent maggie haberman. what's your thoughts at the white house after this latest testimony? >> there was a fair amount of calm at the white house earlier today. i think they recognized that vindman was going to be somebody whose credibility they had to attack in a different way. we saw that in ways that were condemned by adam schiff's statement. they're looking at it as there is not a whole lot of new information as best as we can tell because we don't know what was said, but as best as we can tell from going into it, they did not anticipate up a ton new information that house investigators already had, whether that's true remains to be seen when we learn more about the transcript of today's testimony, we can find out but,

look, the white house is looking at this as this is a single event. we know basically the contours of it and they are going to hope that public opinion doesn't zbet swayed based on more details. there is something dramatic about watching somebody come in in full dress uniform that served the country and i think the white house has to be careful that the attacks don't backfire on them. >> jeff, the fact that lieutenant colonel vindman was on that phone call is critical. that's the first time they've heard from somebody listening in on the call. at first he said he was concerned that it undermined national security. it does not say quid pro quo and we don't know if he said that during the testimony. does that matter? >> well, i think what's so interesting about his reaction in the moment was that he thought the president's behavior was outrageous even without

knowing whether there was a quid pro quo. he thought the mere act of the president trying to get this investigation going by the government of ukraine for his, that is president trump's political benefit, that alone was enough for him to go to the lawyers and say, this is wrong. so it just shows how this sort of quid pro quo has become the be all and end all of everything but it seems to have been bid, even without proof of whether there was a response, this person, who is hardly a -- hysteric and hardly a critic of the president since he worked for the president, he was outraged by the offer alone. >> well, and, dahna, not only did the president make that offer or that request on the phone call, he's now done it on

the -- at the white house on camera not only to ukraine but to china as well. >> right. he did that in part to normalize the behavior that he had on the call and to make it seem like it's no big deal. this happens all the time. but this is a very classic, clear-cut example of how when you have a member of the milita military, just as many said, dressed as he is, as a lieutenant colonel, and we know that he walked in with shrapnel still in his body from the attack that he was under while serving america in the iraq war and was hurt by a roadside bomb. the fact that he -- yes, he is a human being and, you know, maybe he has some partisan impulses.

it was defending the company when he heard the call real time because it is just not the right thing to do, and even republicans have said this, for a president to ask another foreign leader for political dirt on his domestic opponent. >> the intelligence committee is going to hold public hearings. that's what today's announcement was about -- will be one of those pictures will be even more vivid because people will be able to hear him speak as well as see him. >> maggie, to your point earlier about the president not neating to be going too far and attacks on him. he referred to him as a never

trumper. there's -- and the military cons city tult the never trumpers are the people that the president and his white house spokesperson say should be referred to as human scum. >> never trumper has gone from being an actual thing, which it was in 2016 in the election to donald trump's version of anyone who criticizes me, doesn't take issue with my policy, they are a never trumper. the president saying that on his twitter feed so far based on what we've seen from the testimony, it was a lot about patriotism and his service. the other one is not changing him. this president has been pretty successful in defining people as

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president of ukraine just ended. when i say witness heard the call. details of his testimony just now coming out. we touched on the background on the attacks against lieutenant colonel alexander vindman at the beginning of the program. here's a lot more to know. he and his twin brother came to the united states when they were 3 years old. he joined the army back in 1999 and has had a distinguished career. he served in iraq. he still carries shrapnel in his body from an i.e.d. attack for which he earned a purple heart. he was stomped on when he said he would testify. laura ingraham and john yu spoke last night. >> here we have a u.s. national security official who is advising ukraine while working inside the white house apparently against the president's interests and

usually they spoke in english. isn't that kind of an interesting angle on this story? >> i find that astounding and some people might call that espionage. >> espionage. on this network earlier today sean duffy claiming vindman was selfishly advocating for the place he was born. >> he's a former ukrainian. he wants to make sure his money goes to -- >> why does it matter where he was born. >> i'm going to explain that to you. >> he's an active duty military member, an american who was awarded the purple heart. >> i'm an irish descendent. he has affinity probably for his homeland. >> he came here when he was three. >> max, you know, the idea that

a decorated veteran who continues to serve his country, maybe as sort of a double agent, is this a fair line of attack? >> the second -- came here with my mother and grandmother just as he came here with his father and grandmother and you know when you're -- america, i think you tend to be even more patriotic -- >> we're having a hard time hearing you. i'm going to go to mike shields. we'll come back to you. thanks. mike, i'm wondering what you make of what some folks on the television at night are saying. >> look, i don't agree with going after someone because of where they were born. he was hired. he speaks ukrainian. he was hired on that desk

because he has some expertise in it. i think the real issue is what his testimony said today. first of all, his testimony showed what the president released and i think there was a really, really deep issue that we should be having as a country right now, which is that there are people -- i respect him for his duty. i'm a military brought. the fact that he served our country makes him a great american, but he's now in a policy making position apparently and he disagrees with the president's policy on something. i believe that is at the heart of what this entire impeachment investigation is about. someone on the national security council didn't like something the president did and now we're going to impeach him over it. i don't think you should question his patriotism. someone who files a complaint and said, you know what, thank

you for your patients. instead it's leaked by someone who does seem to have more of a political motive. if you went straight to adam schiff's staff, they have a lawyer and now we have an impeachment over it. one day we're going to have a democratic president -- >> mike, the whistle-blower was following protocol. >> someone may not like and they're going to -- >> mike, are you okay with a president asking a foreign policy. that's what vindman is saying he heard. nothing about policy. >> here's the thing i find interesting. i heard the president ask about the former vice president of the

united states while carrying out his duties. may have been involved in corruption and we would like to investigate that. if you're not going to help us investigate it, then we need to wonder if you are our friend. elizabeth warren said she would withhold aid. this is something presidents do all the time. >> it's weird because they can come up with again. it's something having to do with his domestic political rival. >> this has nothing to do with the legitimate security interests of the united states. this is all about donald trump helping donald trump for personal political gain. we know there was a quid pro quo. now you're hearing it from lieutenant colonel vindman. the attacks you're hearing on lieutenant colonel vindman is something that is nauseating and somebody who came here as a

small boy in the 1970s just like lieutenant colonel vindman, you tend to be even more intensely pay the otic. you agree with the ideals. he took shrapnel. now you're seeing these right wing trump accolates. they are stooping so low to do that. clearly what he is doing is acting out of the sense of duty and patriotism because he was outraged by what was happening here and he felt no need to blow the whistle. he was saying this was a misuse of public authority. >> i've got to leave it there. mike shields, max booth. thank you. up next, where is john bolton? we would like to hear from the former senator advisor.

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again our breaking news tonight. key testimony just wrapping up from the national security council official who was on the president's july phone call with the president of ukraine and who said he had concerns. meanwhile, a lot of people on capitol hill would like to hear

from john bolton, president trump's national security advisor. last month bolton resigned or was fired. they call him an important witness. his lawyers are in talks about him possibly testifying. the question is will bolton, republican hard liner, can he be or will he be a star witness for impeachment or try to protect the president. how john bolton got the better of president trump was published last month. he joins me now. you spent time with bolton. based ond what you know about him, do you think he will testify willingly? if so, what kind of witness would he be? >> that's the $64,000 question. everyone in washington is wondering about that. i think on one hand he knows everything. he had total visibility and he left on bad terms with trump. trump said i fired him. he said, no, i quit before you could fire me. but on the other hand, he's always been -- you know, he's a

partisan. he's always been a stallward republican, i'm getting it washed. potentially what's so interesting is if he does testify to what other people said he did, then i think it's potentially devastating to the president because of his stature as one of the premiere republicans in the republican establishment. >> what do you think it comes down to? i mean, again, it's impossible to really get inside somebody's head and predict future behavior. you know, does he -- i mean, does he want, you know, a post white house career on fox news and, therefore, does it matter to him the ramifications if he, in fact, did -- was unhappy with

the reporting and referring to it as a drug deal is what the president was trying to do. if that is the case -- you know, is he such a patriot and testifies about it or is there another -- are there other factors in play? >> well, i mean, you just hit -- that's going to be the first question. the drug deal. bolton was quoted as saying, i don't want to be part of the drug deal giuliani is cooking up. >> i made a reference to the president. it was in referece to giuliani. >> yes. yes. i think what's interesting here is that from the very beginning, from day one when he got hired by trump thu never saw eye to eye on anything. they have entirely different world views. they were mismatched from the very beginning. trump wants to kind of pull america back. he's kind of america first. he's an isolationist. cut the presidents.

bolton believes in a forceful american foreign policy. that's what he spend his whole career coming in. >> he's not a trump ally. he's not trump's friend? this is what's so begielg to people in washington right now. nobody can really figure out what he's going to do. he's a smart guy. he's a yale lawyer. he's really smart. he was in the middle of it so he knows everything. >> what stood out to you from your time with him to reporting onward? >> how extremely is he good directions. the other thing was what i just mentioned, which was what's he doing here because this is a guy who wants to -- he wants a

prominent american role all around the world. >> what did he have? the chance to work in the inner sank tump. >> i asked him that question. he said, look, i -- whenever you work for the government you have to realize you're not going to win every battle so i'm going to do what i can basically. the place where he and trump differed i think most sharply was over north korea. i think bolton has advocated attacking multi-made it there. he just thought that was ridiculous. they were just like that from the very beginning. the amazing thing, he was over there to begin with. >> it's a fascinating article. >> thank you. still ahead, what we're learning about president trump's

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tom freedman from "the new york times" joins us in just a minute. first, let's check in with chris. >> we're going through the vindman testimony. there was a lot in the opening statement to go through. now we have some reporting context for it. we know that the testimony obviously matters to this president and his proxies because they're going after this guy like no one else we've seen testify yet. reveals something about the president and also their inability to deal with the facts. so where are we in the state of play of this process? we'll go through that tonight. >> chris, see you in about ten minutes from now. look forward to that. did president trump know the isis leader al baghdadi was whimpering and crying before his death?

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it's still unclear where president trump might have learned when president trump learned abu bakr al-baghdadi was before he was killed. a white house spokesman said he wasn't going to get into any specifics or if the president might have talked to commandos. the speech didn't resemble and they worked on the language up until the last minute. tom friedman, author and win of the national book award. the fact that no one seems to know about this information about baghdadi whimpering, it

tells you with there president's leadership style and priorities are. >> you would think he would have sat down with intelligence experts and say what kind of message do we want to convey? clearly they wanted to say he was a coward, this is no one that you want to emulate, this is not a heroic movement. that's one argument i could imagine coming out of the nnl intelligence community. the other argument would be very low key, don't be spiking the football on his grave. i hope the approach was on the basis of consideration and not president and steven miller flying by the seat of their

pants. >> the role that the kurds played in all of this, the intelligent they provided which led the u.s. to baghdadi, the fact that it's come on the heels of the u.s. leaving them high and dry in syria, when the president was asked about the contribution they made to the raid, all he said was they gave us some information that turned out to be helpful. certainly it was more than that. >> from "the new york times" and cnn, it was clear the kurds man paj managed to infiltrate and steal some of his underwear and get a blood sample. we've been depending on him sense the very againibeginning s fight. they made an incredible sacrifice, they lost 11,000 people, men and women, fighting isis for us at the behest of the united states and allowing us blessedly so to lose i think

only five or six soldiers. >> the president in the announcement on sunday, he did hale the work of u.s. intelligence agencies but as you point out, these are the same agencies he's been disparaging and undercutting from the beginning. >> the same intelligence agencies who did the remarkable work with the help of others tracking down baghdadi to this little tiny spot in syria are the same who told us that russian agents participated in using cyber weapons to attempt to tip our last election on behalf of president trump and away from hillary clinton. same agencies, same people, same work ethic, same oath to protect and preserve the constitution. and you can't say in oplace they're traitors and in another place they're heros. they're the same people.

>> alexander vindman, who served two decades in the military, has shrapnel in his body while serving in iraq, he's being accused by president trump as being disloyal to america because of his impeachment hearing inquiry. does it go downhill from here? i'm not sure how much loper lo can get. >> i worry about the future of my country today more than any other team that be my life. i'm 68. i lived threw the cold war, through vietnam, and instead of calling out an impeachable offense, they're attacking the process and the very system of our government. this is so dangerous. this is so despicable. these are people who every day run around boasting and bragging

and praising all these american soldiers who make the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom and these people, these people wouldn't make the tinniest sacrifice, not the tinniest sacrifice to just fulfill their constitutional oath to see th impeachment process to its true and honest end. they are disgusting and hurting our country. >> and that's based on political calculation? >> it's all based on political calculation. they are political cowards. they will praise the soldiers when they serve their interests. they'll praise them for making the ultimate sacrifice. these people won't make the smallest sacrifice because donald trump might tweet them or they might not get invited for the next golf round? they are disgusting, shameful and hurting our country. tom friedman, thank you, tom. >> don't miss full circle, our

digital news show. catch it streaming live at 5 p.m. we cover a lot of stories you are wouldn't see on this program on any given night. a lot to cover. that's online. the news continues right now. i want to hand it oaf to chris for "cuomo prime time." >> friedman's fired up and i know why. he's right about the behavior. let's get after it. congress has finally heard from someone who was on that damning phone call between the u.s. president and ukraine's president. we're getting new word on what he disclosed. but is there any real question remaining about what happened here? we're going to ask an impeachment player and our investigators on another big night. what do you say, let's get after it. all right, lieutenant colonel alexander vindman is the man of the moment. who is he? he's national security council's top