now i want to hand it over to chris for primetime. >> i am chris cuomo for "prime time." >> let's test the players and hear from the best minds about where this process goes from here and what will history say about what happened today. what do you say, let's get after it. we have some new facts. top of the list, something bill taylors a taylor, the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine said he didn't even know about when he testified behind closed doors last month. one of his aides came forward to tell him about a call the aide overheard between president trump and ambassador gordon sondland. that's important for one reason because it shows a connection between the two men that the president kind of disavowed. the timing matters more. it came the day after the

infamous july 25th call with ukraine's president zelensky. >> in the presence of my staff at a restaurant, ambassador sondland called president trump and told him of his meetings in kiev. the member of my staff could hear president trump on the phone asking ambassador sondland about the investigations ambassador sondland told president trump the ukrainians were reaady to move forward. the ambassador sondland responded that president trump cares more about the investigation of biden, which giuliani was pressing for. >> to be clear, as you heard at the end, the investigation is being discussed of interest to the president were being pushed by rudy giuliani, okay?

taylor said today that giuliani's work created an irregular policy channel. who was in it, sondland, rick marry, volker and mick mulvaney. the aide who heard that call with sondland is going to testify behind closed doors on friday. it's another new fact. the republicans' defense of the president went from the obvious, that there was no real harm done here, we'll get into more of that later, to the arguably oblivious, that ukraine may have attacked our 2016 election, not russia. but they also made the point that neither taylor nor george kent who testified alongside taylor saw or heard anything firsthand. and they again demanded to hear directly from the anonymous whistle-blower and yet ignored the absence of key players who were ducking all the hearings at the request of the president. now let's get a take on what today meant.

we have democratic congressman jim himes. he sits on the house intel panel. always good to have you on "prime time." what moved the needle most for the case against the president today in. >> i think the big thing today was two spectacular witnesses, people who have devoted their entire career to serving the country under republican and democratic presidents, both of whom repeatedly said that even if you just take the transcript, which the president is encouraging us all to read, that that was not right. that that was illegal. that that was an abuse of power. i know the republicans is mounted two defenses but you heard that from the people, you actually didn't talk to the president. they're also not saying that the facts are could be tested here. nobody is saying the president didn't do this stuff, they're just saying, well, you weren't in the room. the other more interesting

argument that had people squa scratching their head was, well, eventually the aid was restored but the president has the absolute power to dismiss an ambassador. when you pull those arguments apart, it takes you about ten seconds to explain that is just a really shabby defense. >> let's talk about the defense. one step back to the witnesses. are you curious at all how ambassador taylor didn't know about this didn't know about his phone call with his staffer when he was originally deposed? >> as he told us today, i only learned about it i guess last week. when he came and was deposed by the committee, he apparently didn't know about it. >> that's what he said, but i don't know how his staff could have been caught that asleep. you hide this, neglect to tell him? >> there's no evidence he was hiding anything. >> no, no, i don't mean to suggest that. i'm saying his staff needed to

step up because it needed to be out there sooner. it's hard for the president to say he doesn't know sondland when he was on the phone with him about something as intimate as these investigations now to the defense. i think you're going to here more and more that nothing happened, they got the aid, they didn't give us the dirt, we're okay. when you attempt a crime but you fail, you don't get to walk away but you don't get the death penalty either. does it give you concern about a case for removal if it winds up that what here was done that was so bad? what do you argue with that? >> let's take both the abuse of power with the respect to ukraine and the ambassador. again, this isn't hard. and i don't think of it as you were committing a crime but you didn't follow through, you didn't complete the crime. chris, as you know, the withholding of aid when it is congressionally mandated -- remember that aid was withheld from probably early july until

september 11th, several days after the white house learned that dock was going congress wa into this. if somebody is abusing their spouse for months and when they hear the police cars coming they stop and they say but i've stopped, i've stopped. this crime is without question in an undisputed way ongoing. with respect to the ambassador, the republicans are saying he has the absolute power to dismiss an ambassador. we look atat each other and say the president has the power to dismiss an ambassador. power is power and then there is abuse of power. a silly example. the one little piece of power i have is i get to nominate people to the military academies. if i do that because some parent pays me a quarter of a million to nominate their child to the military academy, that is a

prosecutable abuse of power. so he has the power to fire ambassador yovanovitch but he did it for corrupt purposes, which means it's an abuse of pow power. >> if nothing else, it's a window in the animus, into what he wanted and what he would do keep people out of his way so that he could get it. so it certainly helps inform the picture. now going forward, i do wonder, if we can put up the list of all the things that mr. nunez brought up in his opening statement today where they were really throwing a lot of things out there, a lot of spaghetti against the wall so to speak and that's part of this process, but it became pretty aware today, i don't know how they sustain a meaningful defense of this president without the people who are being kept from the committee. they need mulvaney, they need to have pompeo and they need to have bolton for people to be able to sit down and say they're wrong about what this president

wanted and what he was willing to do. don't you think at some point they'll have to rely on the people that they're holding back? >> i don't think there's a lot of doubt that the president gave the order to suspend military aid. the alternative, of course, is that mick mulvaney over a slice of pizza and a root beer decided i'm going to stop aid to ukraine. there's all kind of circumstantial evidence that the president ordered this. john bolton would be an interesting witness. it's unclear to me exactly what he's doing. i'll tell you the person i would like to hear from and the whole half of this story that has not been told to the american people what the heck rudy giuliani was doing in ukraine. i can only imagine the conversations he had. the firing of ambassador yovanovitch had as much to do with rudy giuliani. >> he was the elephant in the room today because he kept coming up and very interestingly the gop kept staying away from

him. there had been this anticipation that rudy giuliani may be made a scapegoat, which is very dangerous for republicans to do to rudy giuliani with everything he knows but he was the elephant in the room. congressman jim himes, well identified and thank you for your take on the first day of an historic process. >> thank you, chris. >> be well. the case against the president is going to come down to the evidence but also the credibility of the witnesses. even though this is a political process, we need our investigative big brains to tell us what they see, what the vulnerabilities are, what the strengths are to let us see where this goes. andrew mccabe, preet bharara, next. did have

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pundits on tv, i still think it's going to be largely based on what you say you believe and whom you say you believe. that's why the democrats started with the two people they did today, bill taylor and george kent. taylor, look at the pedigree. he's got a career of service. remember, this guy was done, retired. secretary of state pompeo recruited him, asked him to come. he's no creation of some deep state machine. they asked him to do this. he did that even knowing ryan lochte -- rudy giuliani and company had run out the last ambassador to ukraine. they you've got kent, an expert on corruption in ukraine, a guy who raised concern about hunter biden when it was happening. let's talk about what this means, the credibility of these two people, how that stands up in the case, what that tells us about the strength of it going forward. i couldn't ask for two better people to do it, investigative genius minds, andrew mccabe and

preet bharara. when you look at who was up there today, that's my suggestion. you don't start -- you guys never did an investigation or case where you put out your two biggest people right off the bat when you're billing a case. in terms about credibility, what did you see with these two? >> about as credible as you get in terms of demeanor, being calm and measured when you're being attacked in various ways by members of the republican side. i can't recall -- i worked in congress for four and a half years and helped to oversee hearings there and i was u.s. attorney for seven and a half years. they're about as good as you get in terms of being measured, credible. they didn't overstate -- at multiple junctures, both of these men were asked do you see something impeachable here? most thought it's a point in the president's favor that they didn't answer. bill taylor said over and over

and over again i'm simply here to tell you what i saw, what i heard and what i knew. these judgments are for you folks to make. i thought that made for very credible testimony. >> and neither one fueled speculation of either side. both sides tried to say wouldn't you say, wouldn't you have thought? they backed off both times. i thought it was cheap when jordan said i can't believe you two are are the best they have out of the box. he did make the point of saying neither of you spoke to the president, know anything firsthand. >> that's a valid point. they have very little ground to stand on to attack these gentlemen. al also, particularly in the case of taylor, he's backed up by a contemporaneous record, his handwritten notes and his texts at the time. at the time he sent a contemporaneous text. >> and a staff that forgot to

tell him probably the most important thing that he supplied today, which was, oh, i heard the president on a phone call with sondland, right after the phone call saying what's going on with the investigation. >> i don't know how they missed telling him that the last round. >> it's strange but i don't know that any of us has ever not been surprised by something we learned from our staff after the fact. i'll give the staffer a pass on that one. >> but they didn't fight with the questioners they didn't embellish. they didn't give their opinions on things. they just talked about what happened. and that in the long run creates credibility. >> we learned some things about the arguments that are going to be made in defense today. we don't know where they're going to go with the democrats. we know they have a big sheet next week in terms of who they're bringing on, but the defense was -- was -- this is all about one phone call. i don't think they can make that argument very well anymore. there's too much that happened before and after. so the new defense is nothing happened, preet. sure, sure there was a confusion over intent. what you saw was corruption was

his really just a desire to direct foreign policy against corruption. let's leave that to side. they got the aid. they didn't give us any dirt. no harm, no foul. >> you know, in criminal cases that doesn't work. >> but we're not there. >> by the way, it's worse for them because you are don't have to prove every element of any crime beyond a reasonable doubt. if you think there's an abuse of power, that's kind of all that matters here. so in the ordinary case, it still doesn't matter that the crime wasn't completed. there's a crime of attempt, a crime of conspiracy, which is essentially, if we sat here right now and agreed to rob a bank and took a step or two in connection with the robbing of the bank, even if at the end of the day the bank wasn't robbed because for various reasons the plot was foiled, which law enforcement loves to dot, the greatest thing you could

accomplish was to make sure the crime the office in completed. that's a wonderful thing to accomplish. but they still went to prison. >> but they don't get the death penalty. i think that's the argument -- >> i don't believe anyone's planning to hangs president of the united states. >> premoving him from office is the -- i think today was announced you're going to hear this, andy. >> sure, you're going to hear that. the core message that the democrats have to convince the public and of course the senate is that this president abused his foreign policy power for his own political benefit. the way they're going to do that on the republican side is to throw out anything they possibly can to distract from that message. that's why you heard about this is all secondhand. >> ukraine interfered -- >> that's why you heard about crowdstrike and the mueller report and somebody looking for nude pictures of the president. it's all nonsense but that's their job right now, to muddy the waters and distract people

away from that core message, which is this president abused his authority. >> friday you've got yovanovitch and the staffer who told stuff to taylor later in the game. you think sondland is going to be potentially the most important early witness? >> you're actually presenting the best defense of the president that i've heard so far, which is a concession, it seems, the president did something bad, maybe he abused his power, but really are you going to kick him out of office? >> yes. >> i don't think it wins the day at the end of the testimony but it's a reasonable argument. >> it's better than what they're doing now. >> it has a concession. you play upon people's reasonableness. and that's not an argument are making in part because the president won't allow them to make it. the president is saying don't talk about process, don't talk about the nature of the punishment. it was a perfect and beautiful call. with respect to sondland, it

depends whether he revises his testimony again. he's done it once beforet. the president has relied on a number of things that common sense tell you shouldn't be relied on as much as they are. for example, the president keeps relying on the fact that president zelensky said, hey, there's no pressure. meanwhile we know in the real world that victims of extortion in the presence of the extortionist on whom they still rely in front of the cameras deny being extorted. the same might be true of sondland. sondland gets asked the question i don't think -- i think it's crazy and there's a text exchange with bill taylor, i think it's crazy conditioning this on that. five hours go by and sondland writes back, i think you've completely mischaracterized the position of the president's efforts. >> you know what would make my argument more salable for the republicans is if the president said look, what i did was wrong,

i'll never do it again. without that, any defense is pretty weak. >> you hear what the concerns are for today. why are they not concerning to republicans? why do they dismiss the arguments i just put out that even preet says is reasonable? i'm going to put it to a congressman who is so interested in what the witnesses had to say before now that he stormed the scif to find out early next. hy l chose verizon. because they need the massive capacity of 5g with ultra wideband, so more screaming, streaming, posting fans... can experience 5g all at once. this is happening in 13 stadiums all across the country. now if verizon 5g can do this for the nfl... imagine what it can do for you.

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. i know there were a lot of speeches today about how the process is no good. i'm not really covering it because there's no more stopping the process. we are on the road to impeachment or not. but we're not going to get off

the road. for all the talk today about witnesses and the rights, finding today's lackluster, there was a big question that came up and i think it the key to what happens going forward. let's bring in republican from oklahoma congressman mark wayne mullen. good to see you, sir. >> good to be back on with you. >> i was listening very closely to mr. jordan today. i miss him being on the show. when you talk to him, please ask him to come back. come home, come home, brother jordan. he was saying these guys don't have direct knowledge, taylor doesn't have direct knowledge, you're good guys but you don't have direct knowledge. you know what we need, congressman, you've got to get mulvaney, pompeo and bolton, the guys who dealt with the president directly, who know the whole situation, who are at the top of the food chain. have them come in, tell the democrats what happened and how they have it wrong. let america hear it. isn't that your best bet? >> when they allow the president to have counsel, when they allow us to actually call witnesses,

that would be great, when they actually open this up. >> schiff gave you some witnesses. under clinton, they only got one under clinton, ken starr. >> the whistle-blower is what started this, chris, and the whistle-blower still hasn't came in and testify. the only person that knows who the whistle-blower is out of 435 members of congress is adam schiff. >> that's right. >> they say adam schiff gave us people to come in and testify. they really didn't. these individuals already came in in the scif and testified. these aren't new witnesses. >> you got to pick your poison, though. >> if you're going to have a fire inquiry into this and you want mulvaney and you want pompeo and you want giuliani, you want other people to come in, then allow the president to have counsel just like nixon was allowed counsel and like clinton

was allowed counsel. >> not at this stage. they got ken starr, the clinton people. you say they won't let us have our witnesses. >> you made a point. let me make a point. you got volker, morrison and fiona hill. and hale. there are three. >> that was witnesses that the democrats had previously -- had previously brought in. what we said is that we wanted their testimony released. what was on our list was the whistle-blower. >> but the whistle-blower -- the whistle-blower has legal protection. you have what they have said -- >> the whistle-blower didn't have legal protection. the whistle-blower only has whistle protection if they were to handle it in the proper channels. >> it was handled the right way. >> no, the proper channels was not going to meet with the intel community first -- >> nowhere was it written that the whistle-blower did that. when you guys say they chamber of commerced -- changed the

rules, that's not true. here's my point to you. you guys complain -- >> firing him? >> that's one of the reports, that he was thinking of getting rit kid of atkinson. >> and that was a report by -- >> the reporting has turned out to be pretty damn good. >> there's still no quid pro quo. no crime committed what so and they're still trying to impeach the president of the united states because of why. >> you can't say either of those things because you don't know either of it. the democrats are wrong to use the word extortion. i don't is he a threat of force. this was an attempted bribe db. >> how? >> i'll tell you how. the president says to ukraine, i know what you want, you want me. you want access to the presidency. >> he did not say that. you cannot make the assumption -- >> so you can assume there was no quid pro quo and there's no

crime -- >> there was the president of ukraine and president trump. >> and dozens of conversations before and after. dozens of calls before and after. >> you cannot make assumptions. >> i don't have to. >> that's what you're doing. >> i've read the transcripts. >> i haven't read the transcripts. did the president ever say that to the president of ukraine? no. >> gordon sondland because he tried to help the president -- >> you're making an assumption. >> it's what he said already. if he says what ehe said alread, and now you coordinate it with what taylor's staffer said, the president wanted the bidens and didn't want them to get the aid in ukraine -- hold on a second. that's what he wanted. he thinks biden is dirty. he believes it deep in his heart. i'm not saying it's a corrupt belief. he believes that.

>> in february 2016 mr. kent, what did he bring up to vice president own office, was he not concerned with the situation with hunter biden going on and the corruption? >> oh, mr. kent. he was. you know why? he thought it had an appearance of a conflict of interest. >> is there not anything wrong with that? >> i think there is something wrong with that. >> that was underneath the obama administration. it was vice president himself who went out and bragged he stopped the investigation. now it's all of a sudden wrong. >> so mark wayne mullen -- >> a country that is riddled with corruption and we know the -- >> a country that is riddled with corruption so you only ask about joe biden. in a country riddled with corruption, you ask about joe biden, a person who under law you're supposed to go to the d.o.j. to investigate as president or anybody else but you go to ukraine and you don't even ask for an investigation. you know what you ask for, an

announcement of an investigation. why would you -- >> was there any quid pro quo anywhere in that conversation? >> yes. >> no, there wasn't. >> the conversation is a window into a world that existed before and after it, okay? >> it's full of assumptions that you and the rest of the democrats are trying to impeach the president. >> mark wayne mullen, you have to listen to what i'm saying to you. there's some wisdom. >> i'm looking for that. >> here it is. this is what i would say if i were you. okay, he shouldn't have done it this way, you're right, rudy shouldn't have been involved, they shouldn't have gone around the process, if he thinks biden's dirty, he should have gone to the d.o.j. but nothing bad happened at the end of it, he did it for good reasons so i don't see how you remove him from office because of this. admit what's obvious. there was an attempted bribe. >> you cannot say that. >> why didn't they get the aid? why didn't they get the aid?

>> if it was attempted bribe, the day when the conversation was asked has the president done anything that's impeachable and taylor and kent both wascricket. >> they're not there to give that opinion. they're had integrity. >> their job -- >> their job is not to decide whether or not to impeach. they're not like you guys who just play to personal advantage. they told you what they knew money. >> what evidence? when you bring somebody in to testify in a criminal case -- >> it not a criminal case. >> we're talking about treason, bribery, high crime or misdemeanor. that's a criminal case. >> it's no the a criminal case. if you read federalist paper 65, which i've asked you to do three times, alexander hamilton put

the word political in all caps. you know why? because it's not a political action. >> i'm paraphrasing this. he said he was afraid one day this would be used for political reasons. >> i'll make your point one more time. i'll do it one better. he didn't say one day, he said every time, that it will be partisan every time. and that it will encourage the worst. >> it wasn't with johnson, it wasn't with clinton and it wasn't with nixon. >> it was so political with johnson they made up a law to catch him doing what he didn't like. it was so political with clinton that you started with a land deal and ended up with a sex act because you had democrats who had the integrity to go against one of own and now we have republicans who sit through what we had today and say nothing happened. >> did you hear anything today, chris, that would cause to you want to overturn the american

people's vote for donald j. trump in 2016? >> me? it's not my job. >> you're making assumptions of everything that president trump did. >> no, no assumptions only based on the record. >> there's nothing in the record you can make the assumption of saying there's quid pro quo committed. >> yes, i can. it was an attempted bribe. you haven't answered why the aid was held up. >> it wasn't held up. >> you haven't answered why they kept telling the ukrainians you won't get the aid until you give them the bidens. >> the ukrainians didn't even know their aid was held up. >> they knew, they just didn't know then. they knew and they were concerned enough about it to reach out to our own representative to ask about it. >> the president of ukraine put out there they didn't even know. >> why did they go to vindman? why did they go to vindman, the liaison and say how do we do this? >> ambassador taylor said they wasn't aware of it and that he didn't even know it was held up

until -- >> taylor was on the outside. once you get closer to the inside, it's all they were talking about. i got to go. >> no one single person ever said anything that you said that the ukraines knew the aid was held up. >> volker's going to say it, sondland, vindman. they've all said it in their transcript. you're betting americans aren't going to do their homework and i know they will. >> there is zero firsthand knowledge. >> there are a lot of good men and women sitting in jail right now. the idea that hearsay means nothing is silly. especially in a political forum. congressman, i got to jump. i ate up time i didn't have but it worth it. be well. >> appreciate it. >> keep your eye on the facts. take a look at those transskrupts. if you can't pay attention to the testimony, i'm telling you, you're going to be told things

of political interest, not the interest of simple true. we're going to go back and take a look at why what happened today mattered and this discussion with mulen processed through their legal and investigative and journalistic eyes next. did have the unbeatable strength of advil. what pain?

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. all right, let's bring in

asha rangappa. mark wayne mullen is the hot talk, right? that's the hot talk back and forth about what the state of play is. but in terms of seeing the merits of the case as where the democrats want to get and the resistance from republicans, what do you see so far in today? >> well, i thought that the democrats really did a good job hammering home through these witnesses that one of the main defenses, as it were, doesn't hold water and that's that trump was fighting corruption or somehow defending the national interests because you had these two civil servants saying this was not only in the u.s. national interest but it undermines our ability to fight corruption and establish the rule of law in these other countries and the very fact that these republicans kept emphasizing how corrupt ukraine is only begs the question if ukraine is so corrupt, why would the president of the united states want to hand over the investigation of two u.s. citizens for corruption? it makes no sense. i think that came through and really obliterated that defense.

>> so even if one defense is weak, it doesn't mean you're lined up for impeachment. what do you think the main challenge is, counselor ray, going forward? >> the narrative keeps shifting as far as the legal theory that the democrats are relying on. you apparently dispensed with extortion because there's no pressure. >> force, threat of force. you know how you use extortion. do this or i'll break your lelegs. >> they don't like talking about apparently quid pro quo because the country's had a two-month education about latin but we're going back to what adam schiff apparently said yesterday, which was in the leadup to the beginning of -- >> attempted bribe. >> no, i think what he was saying was the founders intended bribery to be much more expansive than what federal statutory law would suggest it has to be. >> why wouldn't it be an attempted bribe? >> because, first of all, you're now relying on what too many

times an attempt to prove an implicit quid pro quo with regard to an official act that has alternately been is it foreign assistance, is it military aid, is it a meeting with president trump or is it simply just merely the announcement of an investigation. >> aid and meeting versus announcement of investigation. >> three of the four of those don't qualify as an official act under the supreme court's definition of official act. and i suspect that the reason that adam schiff is trying to get away from federal statuary law with regard to extortion and bribery is he knows that's weak. let's try one better suggesting that the founders didn't understand what bribery is, which i think is a ridiculous notion. anyway, you're left with a lot of nebulous stuff in the air there. you're going to impeach a president with a quid pro quo with something as shifting as the theory that asking for an investigation is the equivalent

of a personal benefit that can constitute the quid pro quo necessary to be attempted or actually bribery. >> i think that's a long way aw away. >> if the message comes out that errol louis is under investigation and he's running against me, i'm in trouble. you had people on giving these kind of assessments. but you kept going back to will people understand, will they get this and grab on to this? tell us about that. >> much of the political framing of it, which does still over into some of the journalistic public. and from the impeachment and watergate hearings i am old enough to remember, it kind of played out like a so opera. there were characters brought

in, some were more memorable, others less. it took time. it was dense information. and the impact on the audience, this in this case, the public, the voters, this is their chance. the public is very much part of this. this isn't just about a bunch of bickering politicians, it's not even necessarily about the president exclusively. this is about the public. this is the whole country trying to figure out what happened here. if you're looking for a statuary crime, it is absolutely a crime to elicit something from a foreigntory to help your campaign. there are a number of different problems we're trying to sort through. because it's in this odd space between what's political, what's legal, what's moral, it will be up to the people to decide. >> the justice department has opined through the public

integrity and the criminal division. you can disagree with the the trump justice department led by bill bar that you don't think that's a proper interpretati interpretation -- lest you have the very justice department saying it's not a crime. >> when the constitution was created, there was -- the federal criminal code was pretty much nonexistent. getting into that, which means using the authority of your office and impolice it quid pro quos are things we recognize in the law all the tile. in sexual harassment law, we recognize a power difference, which is what was happening here. one does not immediate to -- >> not in the context of a campaign finance contribution. it's not a crime. it a political argument. they also expected it to be as ug as this is going to get.

thank you very much for helping the audience think about it a little bit better. appreciate it. talking points, we try to break through it on the show but i think you have to look at what moves the needle and doesn't. that's what this process is going to be about. both side are trying to play to advantage. it pol tiks, i'm sorry, but that's what it is. i'll point him out to you next. for her, for you, for the whole family. new vicks vapopatch. breathe easy. tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management. to help you grow and protect your wealth. thenot actors, people, who've got their eczema under control. with less eczema,

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i'll get that later. dylan! but the one thing we could both agree on was getting geico to help with homeowners insurance. what? switching and saving was really easy! i love you! what? sweetie! hands off the glass. ugh!! call geico and see how easy saving on homeowners and condo insurance can be. i love her! all right. first battle today was over the worth of these witnesses, taylor and kent. and to be honest, they were credible, consistent, nonpartisan in their appraisal. they were strong enough that this salvo by representative jordan -- >> you didn't listen in on president trump's call and president zelensky's call? >> i did not. >> you never talked with chief of staff mulvaney? and you're their star witness. you're their first witness. >> it was rude and it was echoed by other trump defenders and it was absurd every time. no one puts their most important

witnesses first, and these were men of credibility and jordan knows it. everybody builds from the inside out. you'll see that here. look at the list of witnesses next week. you're going to see they're going to get closer and closer to the inner circle. jordan rightly pointed out these two were long on worries and short of direct knowledge of what was done by whom and why and no conversations with our president. but they were not promised as anything else. they thought conditioning military aid on getting the bidens was dangerous and jeopardized relations with ukraine. they never got tripped in five-plus hours of testimony. and you know who did speak directly with the president. gordon sondland. the big bombshell from today is taylor testifying that one of his staffers overheard a call between the eu ambassador sondland and the president and potus was heard wanting an update on the biden investigation. you better believe that call is going to be a hot topic when sondland testifies in a week. by the way, the staffer for taylor is there friday. the big takeaway. you now know the main defense from trump. nothing happened.

ukraine got the aid. this was all about getting to the bottom of ukraine's role in the 2016 election meddling. that's right. multiple republicans today pretended this was about investigating whether ukraine and not russia was to blame for 2016 interference, meaning they're once again trashing the findings of our intel agencies. here's are the big questions we do need to answer. can democrats get the president saying to someone that he basically wanted to bribe ukraine? today's bombshell from taylor gets them closer. we'll see what sondland says on wednesday. in court, you rarely get the top of the food chain. it's usually those who were directed by them who reveal the top's role. but to remove a president, close shouldn't cut it. two, will we actually hear from any of the people in trump's inner circle who could definitively answer the big questions? you know, republicans say we don't like the witnesses. well, all the best ones are being kept from us. mulvaney, pompeo, right? bolton. are they going to be allowed to speak because the president's the one holding them back. and after all, he and his

defenders keep complaining. they want the truth. they want direct access. those are the guys. schiff isn't your problem. trump is. last thing we need to know is whether the two sides can act like the two witnesses today. taylor and kent handled hard questions thoughtfully, stayed away from rank speculation. they acted without animus and were clearly driven by a sense of duty to the rest of us. taylor and kent should make us proud of the people who serve us in government. let's see if congress can do the same. that's the point for today. what's the bolo? be on the lookout. a big development coming, next. frequent heartburn? not anymore.

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bolo. be on the lookout. something we learned today is going to matter a lot next week. this taylor staffer, right, the ambassador staffer who heard a phone call that ambassador sondland was on with the president, where the president was asking about the investigations -- that came out today in the hearing. that staffer is testifying friday. that makes the testimony of sondland so big next week.

is he going to protect himself or the president because i don't think he can do both. does he say the president told him what to do? bolo. all right. thank you very much for watching us. so much news. let's get to "cnn tonight" with d. lemon. >> david holmes is that staffer's name, the aide's name. >> it will be in private on friday. >> yeah. >> but things will leak out, and sondland will be in the same box he was the first time. deja vu, brother, because he went in there, gave a nice reckoning for the president. then all these other people came in. he had to revise his testimony in a way that was not good for the president. he's in the same situation again. >> it was interesting watching today because, you know, i told the viewer last night about what to look for. look for the substance, not the distractions. but there were so many distractions today just like i pointed out. i'm not a, you know, rocket scientist. everyone knew that they were going to do it. but some of the folks that were questioning, especially on the republican side, i kept s