srobert:impeachment heari begin but will the public be swayed? dueling political arguments. impeachable conduct, what is? the main performance, the russia hoax, has ended, you've been cast in the low-rentan ukrai sequel. robert: as career diplomats testify. a member of my staff could hear president trump on the phone asking ambassador sonand about the investigations. >> shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes ton removeerican ambassador who does not give them what they want. robert: week one of public impeachment hearings comes to a close with many lingering questions, next. announcer: this is "washington week."

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robert:goodvening. public impeachment hearings began this week with opening statements by adam schif democratic chairman of the house intelligence committee, and republican devin nunes, the they revealed the fault lines in congress and the nation. >> if find that the president of the united states abused his power andnvited foreign interference in our elections, or if heought to condition, coerce, extort or bribe an ally into conducting investigations to aid his re-election campaign and did so by withholding officialct a white house meeting or hundreds of millions of dollars of needed military id, must we simply get over >> ambassador taylor and mr. kent, i'd like to welcome you here. i'd like to congratulate you for passing the democrats' "star chamber" auditns held for the last week in the basement of the capitol. robert: those remarks set the stage for the ongoing battle over president trump's conduct,

his allies pressure campaign of ukraine andhether it merits impeachment. reporters fresh and maybe a bit tired after long days inde the capitol and at the white house. yamich alcindor, white house correspondent for the "pbs nehour," dan balz of "the washington post," heather caygle with "politico" andicel crowley, white house correspondent for "the new york times". the focal point of this house inquiry remains the seasonedvo witness, civil servants who o spokf rattled diplomatic ranks and alliances andrida former ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, and president trump tweeted as she spoke. >> as we sit here testifying, the presi ynt is attacking on twitter and i'd like to give you a chance to respond. i'll read part of one o his tweets.

"everywhere marie yovanovitch she started off in somalia, how did thato? would you like to respond to tht president'sk that everywhere you went turned bad? >> wl, i mean -- i don't think i have such powers, not in mogadishu, somalia, and not in other places. i actually think that where i've served over the years, i and others, have demonstrably made things better. >> what effect do you think that has onther witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? >> well, it'sery intimidating. robert: as michael recently wrote with his colleagues in bhe times," "rarely has the state departmenn the center of a revolt against a president and his top appointees." michael, we saw the president of

the united states respond in realtime to impeachment testimony. what kind of clash do you see between the executive branch and e non-partisan civil servants who form the diplomatic corps? michael: it's a clash that has been ongoing for years now and is reaching a crescendo. ntcareer civil ser and foreign service officers at the state deparent feel that under president trump they have beensr pected, their profession has been degraded, foreign policy has been wander -- warped in ways they have never seen before. their morale is terrible. there have been huge attempted dget cuts at the state department. terrible for morale and so there's a deep frustration a a sense for morale just being at rockatottom. as happened in the last few weeks with the impeachment inquiry is a kind of swelling of pride that, in a way now the

civil service, foreign service officers, are standin u they're fighting back, they're showing america and the world the best they have to offer.le pe like marie yovanovitch and bill taylor are exemplary diplomats who have enormous respect from their colleagues and peers and so there's pride but there's still a sense of, i think deep foreboding that they may be a little better now, there may be a moment where these civil servants are showing what they can do and standing up for their core principles but the long-term picture for them is not good. robert: yamiche, you justam over to the studio from the white house, there all did with pbs' coverage. what t was white house's strategy? or was it just the president lashg out? yamiche: the white house strategy was to have rapid response team that w supposed to be part of the white house counsel staff, directors, legislative affairs and assistants. we she president become the number one person talking for the white house and the

president responding in realtime to a public hearing in a way have not seen in other public hearings. think of robert mueller and special counsel, personal attorney, michael cohen, they came bore congress and had high-profile public hearingsut theresident really went after ambassador yovanovitch and said this is a bad ambassador and really made it personal and defended his tweets even as saying what the president did was not really right. liz cheney, the third ranking republican in the house. she said the president shouldn't have tweeted that. jim jordan, who was put on the house intelo defend the president, later said, hey, you know what, ambassador yovanovitch is someone who is a tough woman, i praise her service so the white house is on an island by itself with president trump attacking marie yovanovitch. robert: dan, you came to washington in 1972 to report on this town and politics. you've seen an impeachment

proceeding with president nixon, anxtmarital affair lead to trial in 1999 and impeachment in the house forsi pnt clinton. what do you make of today and what it tells us about this moment and the instituons in this country? dan: we've used the word "extraordinary" around thisr table he past three years it's a justifiable word again this week. y to s -- t what the president did in the middle of this hearing i think caught everybod by surprisend after he did that, republicans weren many ways set back. one after another ended up praising the former ambassador in wayshat were a little bit surprising given that they are trying to dve a wedge into this proceeding. so i think that we are at a stage in this where the lines lyare cle drawn and yet the capability to kind of up-end the table. and it puts republicans in a

very diffilt spot and given testimony that we've heard, testimony that is coming and some things that broke late in hee day, he's got a number of bad days of him. now, where this all ends, we'll wait and see. but today was an example of the kind of problem he's got. robert: let's hear a little bit more of that testimony. the hearing started wednesday with testimony from bill taylor, acting u.s. ambassador to ukraine and he offered newou information a presidential call. >> the member of my staff could hear president trump on the phone asking ambassador sondland about the invtigations. ambassador sondland told president trump the ukrainians were ready tooveorrd. following the call with president trump, the member of my staffsa asked ambr sondland what president trump thought about ukraine. ambassador sondland responded that president trump cares more about the investigations of biden,hichas giuliani pressing for. robert: heather, we h tse two ambassadors testify this

week and breaking news friday night. david holmes, the state department aide who overheard president trump's call with u.s. ambadlador sd, said the ukrainian president would,o quote, anything you asked him to do and the ukrainians were willing to do the investigation. you cover speakerse pelosi, h democrats. when they go home this week and huddle on the phone and step back and look at this testimony and breaking news, what do theye feel theccomplished in this inquiry?he her: democrats, they think that they have been able to make this case to the publicy with these hearings this week. for them going intohese arings, they looked back on how they handled the mueller in the judiciary committee were a disaster so for the most part this week was about letting these career diplomats tel their story and tell what they've heard and get out of the way. and now thell turno, we have eight more folks who will

testify next week, very high-profile people. and democrats are trying to figure out how best to sell this to the public and that's we've seen them use more this week rather tid proibery quo because polling shows that erid pro quo doesn't break through to v but bribery does. robert: we learned more about is call ambassador sondland had with president trump back in the summer. does this bring -- all this testimony bring it closer to the president, michael? this case you i ve a phone call to ambassador sondland who i think is in a restaurant in kyiv and the presiden speaks so loudly through the phone that two embassy officials who are with sondland in the restaurant can hear the president's voice and according to the accouhe given to t house today, sondlanden evidy held the phone away from his ear because the president was blasting so loudly in his ear. let's set aside for a minute who

might be intercepting a call it's a citthat the russians heavily surveillet' so not secure and two people who heard the president's voice and also heard sondland essentially recount what the embsy staffers heard the president say which is basically iant the investigations, all he really cares about when it comes to p ukrainicy is investigating joe biden and this, frankly, totally debunked theory that ukraine hacked the democratic servers in the 2016 election. his is aboutuch of the culture around president trump in his administration, his inner circle. we saw friy roger stone, his long-time confidante, convicted of lying to congress. when you think about the presre campaign by rudy giuliani who you've covered extensively and we've all gotn e calls from mayor julianney. giuliani. what culture emerged from this testimony and does the whiteve

house a response for how they conducted foreign policy? culture is presidrump and the president trump is looking at the u.s. government and i think we can objectively say he's saying how canhe all agencies make sure i continue to be re-elected and hav political success and how can i use these people to go to foreign a countrie make sure i get information that will help me personally. that's something president trump is saying he has a right to do as president. mick mulvaneysaid this foreign policy, this is how elections work. >> get over it, he said. yamiche: yeah, so there's this idea that president trump is saying my personal attorney, ruth bader rudy giuani, you need to work with these people, go out and find what i need you to find when it comes to these bind -- den investigations. robert: the president believes he has a right to do this. speech and has a right to fire

the ambassador. he may have the right to, dan, legally speaking, but what about the norms in this country when foreign policy branch of the government, different people who work on diplomacy. how does thatt aff the presidency when they interact with diplomats in this way? dan: he'sct literally cor that diplomats serve at the pleasure of the president as do all selsor level officn the government. and presidents haveig the to designate an emissar to carry out asp of foreign policy main line of the staten the department on special assignment or things like tha but traditionally, people who are in those positions, or asked to do those kinds of things, are doing it to carry out the policy of the united states governmant. what we've learned so far is that what rudy giuliani was doing was caring out a policy specifically to help president

trump on political missi as opposed to carryingut policy with respect to ukraine that has been long-standing policy. so he's warped the process through doing this even though certainly, and a right to decide who should or shouldn't be an ambassador. robert: for house democrats, is it all about ambassadorondland now? bolton is held up in federal court -- what are they looking to build un this week? heather: i think holmes, the fellow who testified behind closed doors, they may be asking whether he should come forward publicly. we're seeing eight witnesses over three days, enormous aunt of testimony. robert: why are they doing it with that time ne? heather: thanksgiving is the next week and they know people will turn away from this and focus on family and when they come back they want to pivot to the house judiciary committee in the first week of dr and move to mark up articles of

impeachment if that's what they choose to do which many privately the will and that will, in theory, allow them to vote on the articleshe third week of december and congress leaves for christmas. robert: do we know exactly what the articles would be based on your conversation with house democrats? heather: there's a lot of speculation. they say they have enough to dot obstn of congress given all of the stonewalling and things like that theyeay they h enough to do obstruction of justice, given things like what president trump did today, attacking yovanovitch, they call witness intimidation. and tn abuse of power, the case they're trying to make here. they've toldy me tn't want to do more than a handful of articles because they don't wan to lose the public's attention and overwhelm folks who may be undecided about this and have a middle-of-the-road opinion going into the election next year. robert: let's stick with the arguments they're makiny. to the coun here's ohio congressman jim

jordan. >> four facts will never change. the transcript speaks. for itse there was no conditionality, no quid pro quo in t transcript, no pressure, no pushing, no linkage to investigations. and, of coue, president zelensky did pledge to do anyns investigatrior to the aid being released and the ukrainians didn't know the aid was on hold at the time of t call. robert: speaker pelosi discussed possible bribe charges. >> quid pro quo, bribery, and that is in the constitution, attached to the impeachment proceedings. >> what the bribe here? >> the bribe is withhol military assistance in return for a public statement of a fake investigation into the elections. that's bribery. robert: as heather wrote for "politico," the speaker's remark is one of herentrongest stat yet.

yamiche, heather also broughtp away from quid pro quo. what is the white house moving toward, an argument about, quot second-hand information? what's the counter argument at the west wing? yamiche: there are by my count at leastfe 15 dnt responses from the white house. everything from this is hearsay to this is an unfair process and the democrats are mad about the 2016 election and they want to undo it and are trying to find any way to get president trump we don't see, i think, a central message from the white house and today we saw the president has met with 1 house republicans. he's also met with 42 republican senato who, aft all those meetings, he then started tweeting about ambassador yovanovitch and upended all of the republican messaging so there, i don't see, central messaging strategy from the white house as it goes forward.o rt: where is the country on this, dan? you've studied polling.

dan: when the ukraine story firs broke, we saw a spike in support for i and remove from office, in some wayssu risingly given where public opinion had been through the mueller report. since then i think we've seen an hag of the lines. the support for impeachment in a number of the recent polls has not gone up much, if at aom, here it was in the early stage of the ukraine story, ereas the opposition has ticked up a little bit and i certainly in the way the republicans have approached this, in the degree tohich there are no real cracks publicly yet in most of the republican conference in either the house or the senate. reere a few people but for the most part everybody is standing firm. so i think it is aehallenge for emocrats. the politics of this are obviously fraught it seemed as though the speaker was drawn into moving in this

direction as opposed to wanting to do so, that she felt a constitutional obligaten given whatave learned over the last month or plus but the polics of it are difficult and i think that's what the democrats are going to be wrestling with as they push robert: there could be a curveball, michael. we have an i.g. report possible tcoming out in next couple of weeks from the department of justice loong at the russia probe into president trump's campaign. attorney general bill warr at the white house this week. we're not entirely sure about the subject of that meeting but that i.g. report looms on the horizon. we began tonight talking about clashing of institutions. what could that i.g. report mean tohe partly impeachment inquiry? michael: one of the arguments we're hearing fm the president d his defenders is, in effect, this is the deep state. they've been trying to stageup a against him since the day he was inaug inauguratednd the

bureaucracy is democratic. thesil people wantedry clinton to win and they'll do whatever they have to to gett president trf office and that was the argumen from the russia investigation coming from the president and his allies, it's a deep state coup. we're hearing the se words verbatim today. case that the russiald make the instigation itself was somehow fundamentally unfair, extra-legal and legally motivated and the pnt i'm sure willay, you see, this is just happening to me left and right, that's all they want to do. and i think a lot of his supporters will accept that argument and say it's they' swap and t out to get him. robert: this idea of a deep you see this in the republican argument about the whistleblower saying the democust call forward the whistleblower. how is that dynamic playing into the proceings on capitol hill? heather: they brought the

republicansid.gain today, democrats have a frly coherent argument against it which is republicans keep saying that all theitnesses they've called so far have not heard anythingrs and, this is hearsay. the whistleblower accountry th definition would be hearsay because he was compiling reports from white househo officialsere on the call with the president and the ukrainian president so democrats lookack and say why should we call him or her if this is just hearsay and you're going to dismiss it anyway. shows how republicans defense and strategy is all over the map find anything that sticks. to they said privately today there was a break in betweenhe hearing after the tweet and the rest of the hearing, break for know, they were dumfounded byu trump's tweet because they h spent many hours this week having mock hearings and senior republican leaders cautioned their lawmakers, do not attack yovanovitch, do not attack yovaanvitch.

then president trump did that and they had to defend it or dismiss it in a way. robert: yamiche, you brought up how the president is meetingn with republi senators. there's a trial in the senate on the horizon. i was at the senate this weekg talko different republicans. there's a divide over whether the trial should be five weeks as it w for president clinton in 1999 or six to eight weeks, nator burr was talking about that or whether i should be just a week long, senator paul is talking about a short trial. what does the white house want? yamiche: i think the house in some ways wants in whatever acquitted.esident trump being think that's the most important to them. i think there is some thought starts going into the democratic primaries and people are voting in iowa while this trial is still going on, that could be distracting because you have several senators running for the democratic nomination that would have to be sitting for this trial so that would be elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, others. but i think there's also thisid idea that prt trump wants

this to be over. these tweets todayornd all of comments he's making, this is not the president that we've seen deal withc other pub hearings. so i think the president is, even as he ss he welcomed the impeachment inquiry and wanted to make his case, i think we see a president that's very agitated. robert: some of these republican senators areuiet. they keep saying they're jurors and don't want to comment. michael: i don't see a fissure. i think of it like, will these hearings have a stick of dynamite to blast it open? ll there a moment that really changes the dynamic? i think youa nee big blast to do it. what we've seen so far has been chipping awa bit by bit but i don't think it's going to be enough. we'll see what happens. but the republican senors have hung pretty tight. there were some pretty dark days during the mueller investigation. a lot of reason to think the esident might have been obstructing justice. that didn't do it for them. i think people who are counting

onhat are going to be holding their breaths for a lon time. robert: what explains that, dan, the republican party, despite not loving president trump privately, sometimes publicly, sticking with him? isdan: i think it's the dn in the country and the degree to which those lines have been and continue to be very, very hardened. i would think that the one thing that would affect republican senators is if there were a significant move in public inion away from the president. as we'veval ring, known for three years, has basically traveled in a very narrow range. it doesn't go very high or very low from where it started out. that, i think, is why we see what we see in terms of impeachment. the impeachment pub opinion today is similar to his approval rating. that doesn't move much.av robert: we to leave it there. thanks so much for coming in on a friday night,eally appreciate it. it was busy. join us for the "washington week exa." we'll continue this discussion

online and talk 20/20. i'm robert costa. good night. announcer: corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- additional fding is provided -- koo and patricia yuen throh the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for publicd broadcasting, contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.pe [captioninmed by the national captioning institute, anich is responsible for its caption content d accuracy. visit ncicap.org.] >> you're watching pbs.

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