>> no. >> how often do you think about jessica? >> every day. >> every day. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. >> thank you for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it's 6:00 in the east, 3:00 out west. here's what's happening. reversing course. president trump reverses course about holding the summit at the his resort. what caused him to back down. a wild week on the hill. the spotlight testimony that could finally give us answers about the infamous text messages at the center of the impeachment inquiry. meanwhile, a $30,000 sound system and furniture from italy to keep -- in the impeachment probe under fire for renovating

his house. police launch tear goes at demonstrators marching in the streets. breaking news after intense criticism president trump has reversed his g7 decision announcing last night he would no longer host the summit at his doral resort. the ept making the announcement on twitter again vowing to search for another site including possibly camp david. that's where former president barack obama hosted the g7 in 2012. but the acting white house chief of staff just on thursday trashed camp david as a g7 site. >> camp david, was that the perfect place? i understand the folks hated it and thought it was a miserable place to have it, it was way too small and remote. >> they went there and it backfired. house democrats introduced the thug act. it would have blocked the use of federal funds if it was held at

doral. the constitution. although the president insisted he was willing to do it for no profit, the massive amount of free publicity may have benefited the resort with a net operating income fell 69% in two years. here's the acting chief of staff in a rare briefing announcing and defending the initial decision to host the g7 at doral. >> around one night in the dining room and going over it with a couple of the advance team. we had the list, what about doral. that's not the craziest idea. we believe this is the best place to have it. we're going to have it there and there will be folks that will never get over the fact that it's a trump property. but we're still going to go there. >> one house republican questioned why not host the summit anywhere else less controversial? >> i'm not happy about it. i red the emoluments clause again and i don't know if it's a direct violation, but i don't understand why at this moment

they had to do that. i mean, do it in d.c., do it in miami at a different resort. >> and this week seven scheduled depositions could bring more evidence in an effort to use american's foreign policy to dig up dirt to benefit him politically. on tuesday, bill taylor. investigators want to know whether and why he believed there was a quid pro quo when he tested a top diplomat quotas i said on the phone it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. the white house now and kelly o'donnell. kelly, good morning to you. first, on the president reversing course, since when does trump giver way to criticism from the press or democrats or is there more to this decision? >> it certainly is highly unusual. it comes at a time when the president under intense criticism from everything, including the impeachment inquiry to his decision about syria and turkey and now this, what it really striking is that

the time span was only a couple of days. the formal announcement that doral would be hosting the g7, the group of seven nations next june happened on thursday and late saturday night the president decided he would take a pass. part of what is involved here is republican criticism. you heard a little bit of that in your intro. also the potential that congress could funding used to pay the american side of the cost for hosting the international event. this is a rotating chairmanship or presidency of the group of seven nations. so earlier this year we were in france when emmanuel macron was the host of the group. that's the first time we heard the president talk about doral because in 2020 it moves to the united states. he talked about his property in great length and there was a little i can owe of that on twitter last night as well. the president tweeted in a series of tweets making the announcement where he talked about the fact that he thought

he was doing something good for our country and he talked about the fact that the property in miami is suited because of its size, its proximity to miami international airport where he felt world leaders coming in and he went into his discussion of his specific conference abilities and the president always being the sort of salesman for his own properties. then he said, because of both media and democrat crazed in irrational hostility we will no longer consider the property and they will begin another site search including camp david. as you played mick mulvaney poured water on that idea in the same briefing that announced this. soy the event is supposed to take place in june. there is still some time to in between announcing this decision and canceling it was really nothing changing in between, you heard mick mulvaney say they understood the criticism, but the weight of the criticism apparently forced the president's hand not wanting to draw what could be another

potentially impeachable offense if lawmakers believe this was a violation of the constitution's emolument's clause. what that is about foreign country's enriching a president prnly while in office. coming personally with delegations to paying for the facilities and all of the costs associated with it. even if the president did it at no profit or no cost as he claimed he could do, that that could be viewed as enriching the president and his family. so it's off for now. the big question, where will the g7 be held? dara. >> kelly o'donnell breaking it down for us. thank you. let's discuss with our guests and listen to acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. >> he knows exactly that's going to get these questions and get

that reaction from a lot of people. he simply is saying, okay, that's fine, i'm willing to take that. the same way he takes it when he goes tomar-a-lago. the president did cave in to this criticism. what does that tell you? >> for one, that the criticism, depends where it's coming from. while the president has stated that it's democrats and the media that pushed this decision to about-face a few days after announcing the decision to host the g7 summit at his resort, you really have to consider republicans and where they stand in responding to this sort of decision that puts him at a risk already as he's going through an impeachment inquiry. it kind of seems like an unnecessary risk on his part to really put himself out there considering that there are already lawsuits against him that are leading up to the emoluments clause. seems like republicans would have been the one toss push back against this, making sure he was

a bit more careful considering the impeachment inquiry and with syria. >> mulvaney also insisted the president was not going to profit from hosting the g7 at his resort. but the president has widely promoted his doral resort, including at this year's g7, what kelly was talking about. let's take a listen. >> if you think it's going to help his brand, that's great. i would suggest he probably doesn't need much help promoting his brand. >> we have incredible conference rooms and incredible restaurants. it's like a natural. each country can have their own villa or their own bungalow. >> just last night in making this announcement, the president again promoted his resort. what's your reaction here? >> let's think about what's happened in the last four days here. what have we all been talking about? the president's resort at doral, florida. so the president is getting some free publicity by floating doral

several months ago back in august and having that whole news cycle blow up and then making the formal announcement, sending his chief of staff, mick mulvaney out to the white house podium and talking about the president's resort. even though the president has pulled back on this idea and reversed course, he is getting quite a bit of free publicity. i will also point out in terms of republican criticism, mick mulvaney was at camp david yesterday meeting with a number of republicans, including some leaders and perhaps had heard some pushback there at camp david and maybe that is why we've seen the timing work out the way it has with the president changing course on his doral decision. >> to your point, scott, it is getting increasingly difficult for republicans to defend the president not only on doral but also on ukraine and syria. yesterday it was announced he would not -- here's congressman

frank disrooney from florida. >> come to find out there was a clear quid pro quo admitted to by his -- rick perry creating nonprofessional diplomatic channel. i don't believe in that kind of stuff. when i hear the dedicated public servants like dr. hill and george, the other guy and now we're going to hear bill taylor next week, i think those people should be doing their jobs. it's like we raise our kids and tell our employees, you have to do the right thing at all times. >> katia, what does he symbolize about the republican party and this moment in u.s. politics. >> rooney is one of many retirements coming in the last several weeks. it's showing that there's a hard position in 2020. they have two options here it seems. either to back the president, embrace him and defend him at

all stances and without reservation or challenge him and criticize him and follow a primary -- right now we're looking at republicans who are able to defend the president against the impeachment inquiry but at the same time challenge him on the decisions he made in syria. they're towing a fine line and rooney shows it's a tough position for all of them now. >> house republicans are retiring, 15. three in the senate. scott, how is this impeachment inquiry -- facing the republicans in congress? >> it's putting them in an incredibly difficult position, i think. in a very difficult position to defend the president on a number of fronts. not only impeachment but also syria and things like doral that come up from time to time. i think you're seeing a president that is increasingly

isolated. democrats are impeaching him. he has alienated foreign leaders and allies around the world. his generals are openly mocking him at public events. fox news is not -- personalities on fox news are not standing by the president as they once did. you are seeing a president under fire from all different directions. that is giving republicans like francis rooney and adam kinzinger of illinois an opening to speak out against the president where they see wrong. i think we're going to see quite a bit more of that in the coming weeks. i think we'll see more of that as well. cad i can't tubman, scott wong, thank you so much for your input this morning. breaking news from hong kong where anti-government protests turned violent. police again firing tear gas as protesters lit fires. nbc's janis mackey frayer is in hong kong.

janis what can you tell us. >> reporter: good morning, dara. this is the 20th consecu hong kong. it appears to be heading in the same direction that it has so many weeks before. the protest that was organized was not authorized by police. they have warned that they would break it up. they used tear gas and water cannons to do so. it actually started down there and police in moving in were trying to push the protester line forward. they were using tear gas, water cannons, spraying that blue dye to try to disperse people and they actually did. this road was clear about 20, 30 minutes ago. but protesters have come back and they appear to be getting ready for confrontation. they've been setting barricades, making barricades. we've seen a number of fires. the crowd gets whipped up with the sense that the police are coming. we know that they have news terse on at least two sides from

here and they will be moving in to try to break up protesters. they aren't even letting cars through because they say you never know if there are going to be police officers in the cars. there is a sense of suspicion, of paranoia and of anxiety. as it appears both sides are girding for confrontation. >> how does this compare to the past weekend? >> reporter: in the past week, the protest that was organized today was done so by a group that back in june had brought one and two million people to the streets. those protests back then were authorized by police. the one today was not authorized. there was still the expectation that thousands of people would show up and they did. what it does it allows the police to lower their tolerance for what they see as an unauthorized assembly. that's why it was very swift, the way that they had warned people they were going to break up the protests. then they used the tear gas and

water cannons to start to push people back and we're likely to see this pattern repeated over the course of the evening until police feel that it has been dispersed. >> janis, we're seeing from the pictures behind you that some people are still wearing face masks, although some have make en them off. what is the ruling on that now? >> reporter: it was two weeks ago that the city's chief executive imposed this emergency law banning face masks at gatherings. they say that it will help people -- or help the police identify people who are turning up. what it's done among protesters is actually had them dig in a bit further. the concern, of course, among protesters is that the police are using surveillance technology, facial recognition technology to identify proteste protesters, not just at the time of the protests but going and seeing them, days, weeks afterwards and the police

reserving that right with the emergency law to do so. there are still people wearing the masks, denying that ban. others are taking it off, still wanting to prove that they are not going to be deterred from their right to show up in the streets. >> janis, we know it is evening there. it's been a long day. please stay safe in hong kong. thank you so much. now to breaking news on the u.s. brokered cease-fire between turkey and kurdish fighters. a change of plan for u.s. troops in syria. here's what president trump said three days ago and what defense secretary mark he is per said last night. >> the plan is to get out of endless wars, to bring our soldiers back home, to not be policing agents all over the world. >> the current game plan is for those forces to reposition into western iraq the ones coming out. that original 1,000. and then to, two missions. one is to help defend iraq and two is to perform a counter eye

tis mission as we sort through the next steps. >> turkey's president calling on the syrian government to pull back troops from turkish territory where turkey invaded last week. they plan to settle refugees there displacing the kurds. powerful new images show civilians caught in the crossfire lining up for food and aid as fighting came to a pause in one kurdish town. it's a sign of what's been created. erin mclaughlin joins us from turkey near the syrian border. what is the latest on the cease-fire? >> reporter: dara, today will be a key test for the fragile cease-fire, which the u.s. defense secretary says is generally holding. all eyes will be on the city just a mile behind me. a key flash point in this entire

conflict. kurdish forces say they have plans in place to withdraw their forces from the city today and the turkish defense ministry says it's going to let that happen. going so far as to provide a list to the united states of safe roads too allow the kurds to accomplish that. a possible complicating factor is the turkish backed militias that are currently surrounding the city. u.s. officials say there are elements in the militias of isis and al qaeda. it's unclear at this point just how much control the turkish military has over those elements. will they allow kurdish force toss withdraw today? that is the open question. we're also expecting the arrival to the city a humanitarian convoy. just yesterday i was speaking to a medical worker inside the hospital. she was painting a desperate picture for me. we'll be watching that medical convoy to see if it can get

inside the city as well. if today goes as planned, kurdish forces say they will withdraw entirely from a 75-mile-long strip along the turkish border. pull it back around 20 miles. but that's if today goes as planned. meanwhile, turkish president erdogan says that at the end of the cease-fire period, if kurdish forces are not withdrawn, he's planning on crushing the heads, his words, of the remaining fighters. dara. erin mclaughlin live from turkey. thank you. what an impeachment inquiry trial would look like in the senate. when the timeline of when it could wrap up. hen it could wrap up. tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management.

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as the house ramps up the impeachment inquiry, president trump, republicans and even democrats are hoping it will all wrap up before the new year. snat majority leader mitch mcconnell briefed republicans this week on how the potential impeachment trial would -- nancy pelosi however is pushing back saying there is no timeline. joining me now, rebecca roissy professor of law at the new york law school and former district attorney, glenn kirschner and former federal prosecutor. good to have you both here. glenn, i want to start with you. mitch mcconnell gave a tutorial of sorts of what to expect in an impeachment trial.

can you let us know what it would typically look like. >> i wish i could walk you through, but it's going to be up to the senate as headed up by mitch mcconnell to set the rules for a removal trial. so i am a little bit concerned because we do know that mitch mcconnell has been working overtime to thwart the will of the american people by not letting bills, for example, go to the floor. let's hope he puts in place a fair process so the american people get to actually see and hear the witnesses and the testimony that will bring to light what's been going on inside the administration. but we really have to wait and see what kind of rules mitch mcconnell and the senate adopt to run this trial, assuming the president is impeached in the house. >> rebecca, last week, there were three or four depositions. this week coming up there are seven. how long is this process likely

to play out? >> i agree with glenn that it's really hard to predict how long it's going to play out. the problem is, impeachment is a political process and a constitutional process. nancy pelosi is very interested and invested in making this look like a legal procedure, not a political procedure. she's saying we need to follow the evidence, find the facts and the truth. the fact is, there's no taking politics out of it. it's meant to be a political process. that's going to dictate all of these aspects of how it plays out. >> rebecca, here's a look at how long they've been in the past. from the time the inquiry began until the end of the trial which is in nixon's case and his resignation. andrew johnson's in a couple of months. nix nixon's, almost a near. from what we've seen so far, when it's said and done, do you think it could be by christmas? >> it could be. i think the senate, they want to move things along as quickly as

possible. there's also an interest, especially pushed by nancy pelosi in the house. you get this information out and to get it out as clearly and as intelljibly as possible. >> there's been a lot of -- could the amount of people who refuse to comply with subpoenas draw this process out. >> it could. both rebecca and i have more questions than answers this morning, dara. pull back the 30,000 feet and do a quick overview. i think there are reasons to be heartened by what's going on. we see all of these behind closed doors depositions of witnesses who are actually willing to testify and are apparently being forthcoming. for example, the fiona hills. i think it's important to note and it got little fanfare last week. but when the white house counsel's office tried to send fiona hill's lawyers a letter saying, hey, executive privilege, you better be careful, it seems like

figuratively fiona hill said, what, you know what you can do with your executive privilege and she walked in and testified for ten hours. ten hours, to me, doesn't sound like she spent a lot of time invoking executive privilege. so all of these behind doors depositions, there's sort of the equivalent of a grand jury appearance for these witnesses. we don't know what they're saying but what the congressmen and congresswomen are doing is getting a complete picture, they're going to be able to fine tune the questions that they're then going to want to ask the same witnesses in the senate trial. that's going to make for, i think, a very compelling presentation because the american people have not yet seen what the ambassador and the fiona hill and -- anyone has said. they're going to get up and i predict it's going to be powerful. >> the seven depositions this week could certainly be enlightening. >> thank you both for joining us

this morning. >> thank you. with seven more depositions scheduled on capitol hill this week, the origins of the impeachment inquiry might be getting a bit lost. nbc's dash a burns gives us a look now at how it aulie vofld. >> it all starts with a phone call between president trump and ukrainian president zelensky in july where he seems to press zelensky to investigate his potential rival joe biden and his son hunter. turns out, it went beyond the phone call and the guy spearheading it was trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani who says he won't cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. giuliani was meeting with ukrainians behind the scenes and getting help from two soviet born businessmen. they were recently arrested for trying to influence u.s. politics with illegal campaign contributions. the indictment also said they promised campaign funds to an unnamed congressman.

we since learned it's former texas representative pete sessions. they wanted his help and the ambassador to ukraine, marie i can't van vich. she recently testified on the hill. a career diplomat, she said president trump personally pressured the state department for her ouster. despite a department official saying she had done nothing wrong. she was vouched for by another witness, former russia and europe analyst fiona hill. she reportedly told congress her boss at the time, former national security adviser, john bolton was so disturbed by efforts to get the ukrainians to investigate that he called the whole thing a drug deal. kurt volker has since resigned and supported the idea that trump and giuliani were pressuring ukraine. exchanging texts with eu

ambassador gordon sondland. it's struck as odd because he's not in the eu. he spoke to congress in a closed door session. he alleged that trump directed him and other diplomats to work with giuliani on ukraine policies. >> breaking it all down. that was dasha burns reporting for us. one other person we should mention in all of this. acting u.s. ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor. the investigation also shows he was involved in messages on that matter. he's expected to testify this week. next, bernie and aoc. how much will the upstart congresswoman affect his standing among voters in? what do we want for dinner?

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now to the morning headlines. breaking right now, tens of thousands of anti-communist protesters defy a ban to march to the high-speed rail station. these are live pictures where protesters are clashing in the 20th straight week of demonstrations that have increasingly turned violent. the marches began in opposition to a bill allowing extraditions to mainland china but expanded

to include calls to greater democracy. also breaking, will the remnants of tropical storm nestor making its way up the east coast this morning. not before leaving a path of destruction in florida. the quick moving storm bringing damaging winds and heavy rain damaged dozens of homes peeling off roofs and knocking down power lines. >> sounded like a freight train. i had no idea that the damage that was going on around us was this extensive until we opened up the door. >> along the coast, storm surge. the storm path stretched for hundreds of miles. there are no reports of serious injuries. just got the -- to the world series. >> what a game. the houston astros are going to the world series. jose altuve's two-run walk off home run won the game 6 against the yankees after the bronx bombers tied the game in the ninth inning. the astros face the washington

nationals in the first game of the world series on tuesday. now back to the breaking news on the u.s. brokered cease-fire between turkey and kurdish fighters. defense secretary mark esper saying u.s. troops leaving syria are not coming home. instead, he says they'll be deployed to iraq where they'll defend iraq and join the fight against isis. joining me now bobby ghosh, member of the editorial board in bloomberg. was the explanation for leaving syria, abandoning allies and sparking conflict bringing the troops home? >> that was president trump's original stated intention. but the realities on the ground may have forced his hand. isis, he's been claiming for a while now that eye auisis is de. that is patently not true. we're seeing, in fact, a revival of isis across some of the areas that they previously held and in fact what's going on in syria now may be giving more oxygen,

more energy to the terrorist group. so keeping american troops there is a practical reality and that is what we're seeing now. it looks like the troops that are being withdrawn from syria will wind up in iraq where they will try to hold the line against an isis revival. >> here's how speaker pelosi said the conversation went when she confronted the president on bringing troops home. let's take a listen. >> the president said the reason i'm taking the troons out of syria is because i promised in the campaign to bring the troops home. my question to him was, is saudi arabia home? is saudi arabia home? why are our troops going to saudi arabia if you promised to bring them home. he said well the saudi arabiaians are paying for it. >> bobby, is there a danger to introducing cash into the u.s. military equation? >> well, yes. it sends a signal to the rest of the world that the american army are hired guns. if you pony up enough cash, the united states will send its

military to come and protect your regime. that's not the signal that united states wants to send. yes, if american troops are involved in protecting oil installations, these are oil installations, not just saudi arabia but the global economy, so if you could, make the argument that protecting these oil installations is not just in the saudi interest but also in the american interest and the world interest, but you don't do that in exchange for cash, certainly not in this crass and sort of overt way that the president of the united states seems to want to do. >> you wrote about the cease-fire deal and turkey seems to be getting everything it wanted. why do you think this may not be the case? >> well, for the moment it looks like turkey is on the cat bird seat, right? it gets to push out its kurdish enemies from its borders, the american troops have left and the turkish army can go in and make mayhem if it wants to.

but in the long-term, as we've seen, there's a tendency in that part of the world forearm is to get bogged down. you have kurdish separatists, you have kurdish fighters who will fight back. it's not yet clear that the russians are on board with the turkish plan and russia has a major say in how things work out. you know what i said in my article. you never know with president trump. he has already done two big u turns on his turkey policy. first saying sanctioning turkey for invading and then pulling american troops out. who is to say that the president won't wake up tomorrow morning and change his mind again. nothing is certain while the president of the united states has not got it clear in his mind what he wants to do. >> bobby ghosh, thank you for staying on top of this ever changing policy here. great to have you. >> thanks. we'll talk about this headline about a trump envoy and the criticism over a one million dollar taxpayer home renovation. 300 miles an hour,

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now to 2020. senator bernie sanders making waves with a massive rally after returning to the campaign trail. sanders drawing an estimated 26,000 to his event in queens, new york. the biggest turnout yet for a 2020 democrat. the senator thanking everyone for their support while he recovered from his heart attack and saying this. >> i am more than ready. to assume the office of

president of the united states. to put it bluntly, i am back. >> joining me now is progressive commentator and radio talk show host rashad richie. good to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> a big day for bernie sanders. what stood out about that rally to you? >> well, the fact that the crowd was huge. so the estimate is that 26,000 people were there, that does trump, no pun intended, the largest crowd of senator elizabeth warren. however, there's context here that i think people are probably missing. that crowd was huge because bernie just had a heart attack. and people want to come and check on the guy. they want to see him and make sure he's okay and they want to be there in his presence. it doesn't necessarily translate into votes. when you look at the aggregate total of national polling, bernie sanders has pretty much remained steady between 13% to 16% while warren is continuing

to pick up actual votes. maybe not crowd. but she's picking up actual votes or sentiment in polling data. that's a big thing. joe biden, as you know, he's been slipping in some of the polling data recently. but polls are not predictions. they are snapshots of sentiment at the time. these things will change like the wind. >> sanders was joined by congresswoman cortez at that rally who is endorsing him in the race and will be campaigning with him throughout the country. let's listen to some of what she had to say. >> we right now have one of the best democratic presidential primary fields in a generation. and much of that is thanks to the work that bernie sanders has done in his entire life. >> politico reports that there are questions about how this endorsement will play with voters. the campaign thinking it could boost him with the young voters. quote, political insiders and even some of sanders' allies are

skeptical that this will help him pull in new voters. what's your take? >> yeah. i think those political insiders are wrong. i believe this is a shot in the arm for the sanders campaign. it will translate into a broad coalition. we do know that senator elizabeth warren and her camp, they were courting the endorsement of representative omar and representative ocasio-cortez. they wanted this. here's what it does. it stops the narrative that somehow bernie sanders is unable to appeal to a coalition of voters. remember when he ran for president the first time, his biggest challenge was the fact that he could not appeal to people of color in a way that other democrats or hillary clinton in that case could. so this shows that he's going to run a coalition-based campaign and it will not be the bernie sanders centric campaign that we've seen before. i think this marks an actual turning of his campaign

strategy. >> rashad, i want to take a look at the money fueling the democratic campaigns. yesterday we looked at the cash on hand for six of the to 2020 candidates. at the close of the third quarters. let's look at the entire field. the first ten are here. bernie sanders is leading. joe biden is there in fifth place with roughly $9 million. here's where the rest of the field stands. so what stands out to you about these numbers? >> cash is no longer king in presidential electoral politics. in a technical sense, tom steyer actually has the most money, but he gave himself all of that money. he's spending a lot of it. but it's not translating into votes. you have biden who is not raising a lot of money compared to the others in the field but he's still leading by at least 5.8% based on the aggregate total of polls. while it is great that sanders has a war chest of money, he has to still do things to earn his media chops while campaigning.

money simply doesn't buy a presidential election like it used to. >> what does that gap between where sanders is and where biden is in terms of cash on hand mean in terms of what the campaigns are going to be able to do? >> that means that bernie sanders has an ability to message and repeat that message in a way that joe biden cannot. remember, messaging is free. however, to distribute that message, it costs money. right now, sanders has the money to create an echo chamber for his own narrative and that's what you will see heading into the early caucus and primary states. >> rashad richie. great to have you on this sunday morning. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> once a donor, now ambassador. gordon sondland is spending taxpayer money fixing up his government residence. with my hepatitis c,

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according to post, they include there are 30,000 for a new sound system, $95,000 for an outdoor living pod and $33,000 for handmade italian furniture. who broke this story with the washington post, glad to have you here. this was a regular seven-year cycle of reviewing and freshening furnishsened and decor, is that true or does your reporting indicate otherwise? >> well, thanks for having me. >> that may be true. the state department, of course, owns many properties around the world. they occasionally need to be renovated. they have a cycle for doing this. but all of the reporting that we've done indicates that the u.s. ambassador to the eu, gordon sondland, really has gone above and beyond in terms of his requests and demands for renovating this residence. it's not normal to spend a million dollars on renovations.

you know, we spoke to a couple former officials familiar with the condition of the residence prior to sondland moving in. they said it was in perfect good condition, perfect livable. this is a big place. it has seven or eight bedrooms. it's made for entertaining. i have even been there, myself, a couple times. it had been in good condition. so there is a lot of skepticism here that a million dollars is really necessary in terms of improvements and he's spending $430,000 on two kitchen renovations. so, there is some disbelief in the state department and here in brussels about what's going on. >> as you know, the ambassador sondland, he had no diplomatic experience there, but he donated a million dollars to the trump campaign so what did you learn about how ambassador sondland is regarded by other diplomats and other officials over there? >> well, so, she a wealthy hole

magnet from portland, oregon. and, you know, by all account, he sort of, he came here, he was really interesting, calls himself a interruptive diplomat and he's said that the european union has been taking advantage of the u.s. in trade relations. a lot of diplomats here in europe on the european side really frustrated with him. they feel as though he's not someone who is very easy to do business with, not someone who is very interested in listening to them or their perspectives. in terms of the renovation, there are a lot of you know a number of former diplomats in the embassy here whom we spoke to who said he kind of came here and took a look at the residence, it wasn't up to his standards from oregon, he wanted to give it a whirl, a once over. so, both on the homefront and on the business front, a lot of changes here in brussels over the last couple of years. >> michael, before the president reversed his decision to host

the g7 summit at his doral resort, you would have been asking world lead how they felt about it. how do you think the diplomats will surround the fact where the u.s. will host this g7? >> that's right so eu leaders have been gathered here in brussels thursday and friday to talk about brexit, but they give press conferences at the end and so i popped over. i asked german chancellor angela merkel what she thought about trump's decision and whether she was ready to spend german taxpayer money on trump's business and that was what was being requested of the word leaders until trump zielded to reverse himself yesterday -- decided to reverse himself yesterday. and there was a lot of discomfort merkel told me she kind of smiled. she raised her eyebrows. she wasn't willing to explicitly criticize the decision. she said she looked forward to taking part. i did tuque european counsel

president donald tuck, he's another person that has paine taken part in these g7ps in the past. he said it was not appropriate and in private chatting with diplomats, there was a lot of discomfort about what was going on and i think there's going to be some happiness that they're not being asked to spend their money on a trump resort at this point. >> thanks so much for joining us this morning. the fallout from the impeachment inquiry. will we be seeing more or less of the president's personal lawyer? seeing more or less of the president's personal lawyer ♪

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