gordon sondland is a hotel magnet. he is a large trump donor. he was appointed by the president to be ambassador to the eu. he was deeply involved in these text exchanges setting up this meeting or trying to set up this meeting between the leader of the ukraine and the president of the united states. one of the things that last stood out from the beginning is that ukraine is not part of the eu, so it didn't make sense why he would be involved in these text exchanges. people were excited specifically democrats about sonde laugh speaking to investigators behind closed doors and this morning it was canceled. >> so let's clarify the players. gordon sondland ambassador to the european union ukraine is not in the european union. and then ambassador to -- the actual u.s. ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor. and then there is kurt volker who was the special envoy to ukraine. you say why is there a special envoy and an ambassador? they have different roles. the special envoy is not an official state department position. it is not a paid position. it is so

>> william taylor and gordon sunday mand a sondland are in a credibility clash.aying gordon sondland repeatedly laid out the very explicit exchange that donald trump had in mind that an investigation of the bidens was what was necessary to get the aid delivered to ukraine and/or to get a meeting with donald trump. gordon sondland said, absolutely, and said that under oath that no such understanding existed, there's no quid pro quo. what can we bring to our understanding of these two people as we evaluate their credibility? >> well, i have known ambassador william taylor, i calculated it, 27 years, from the fall of the soviet union, a system of governance completely antithetical to our own, all the way up to the present day when he came out of retirement to serve our country in an embattled country called ukraine where, which really is the scrimmage line for liberty on the vast european continent. the largest landmass nation in all of europe and the doorstep to liberty in russia someday, i hope. and i have watched him work as an ambassador but also as a military g

we just showed pictures of gordon sondland arriving. he is now there on the hill to begin his testimony. quickly, before we go, as you know, yes, these witnesses are testifying but many of the documents, communications, text messages, emails you've demanded have been blocked. can you build a case, credibly, if the white house continues to stonewall on those materials? >> well, at this point, all of the evidence points towards the culpability of the president. so it is true that they are blocking -- they are trying to block the witnesses unsuccessfully. they are trying to block our -- the release of the documents to the committees. but ask yourself this. and this is what america is asking. what are they hiding? why would they be trying to stop us from getting all this information if it was a perfect phone call and a perfect operation and they had nothing to hide? it doesn't make any sense. so congress is on the side of getting the truth. the whole truth. nothing but the truth. whatever evidence they've got, they should bring forward to u

ambassador gordon sondland.the president urging them, in some ways begging them not to cooperate. democratic congressman peter welch is on the intelligence and oversight committees. he's been in the room for much of sondland's testimony today. and just from the letter, from the opening statement that the -- that was made public, congressman welch, i want to put up what he said about his -- about the phone conversation with the president. and start our questioning from there. i called president trump directly. i asked the president what do you want from ukraine? the president responded nothing. there is no quid pro quo. the president repeated no quid pro quo multiple times. this was a very short call and i recall that the president was in a bad mood. congressman welch, gordon sondland today, did he paint a picture of the president calling the shots here on ukraine? or of rudy giuliani calling the shots here on ukraine? >> well, as you know, his testimony is continuing but his opening statement which is public mad

people hadn't heard of gordon sondland.t appears everything trump wanted from ukraine went through him. >> there's almost no one who was more involved in pushing the president's priorities in ukraine than gordon sondland. >> even before president trump spoke to the president of ukraine, gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador to the e.u., had been pushing the ukrainians to commit to investigations mr. trump wanted. >> the ambassador to the e.u., gordon sondland, worked behind the scenes to help carry out trump's wishes in ukraine, a country that isn't even in the e.u. >> trevor: another that's your first red flag right there: trump's ambassador to the e.u. was getting involved with a country that wasn't in the e.u. that's not his jurisdiction. that would be like santa doing the tooth fairy's job. that's not cool. because then it's just a creepy old man standing over your kid's bed. "what are you doing?" "nothing weird. i'm just buying your kid's teeth. now that i am saying it out loud, that sounds weird." and the reason congre

getting more complicated fall i think kerry and i'm the chief executive to get out of the crisis gordon chang in so he wrote in a recent article that china's communist party has little to celebrate and chinese leader is no longer in control of their destiny the same way why well what you've seen is in hong kong we certainly don't control the streets anymore because we have what looks like open warfare including what may be a fatal shooting of an 18 year old and that will trigger a new round of violence you know we have seen in prior history going back to millennia chinese regimes have on travel often from the outside in including the last regime dynasty so you know right now i think that siege and things got to be a little bit worried you know people in china are not sympathetic with the hong kong protesters but they certainly could be inspired by because people on kong have gotten something they've got the permanent withdrawal of the extradition belt and people on the mainland may say well i've got groups as well so i think it's going to be a very difficult time who are out of siege an

gordon sondland is not.e a lot of big campaign contributors gets a plum assignment as an ambassador. but they don't have diplomatic experience. so he's very much in the president's political fold here. and you see him over text message engaging the skepticism by these more seasoned diplomats who say, well, what we are doing here? what is this arrangement where he's got -- by the way, his language in that -- in sondland's text, which it begs some cross-examination, is to say, well, we just want to make sure he believes in transparency and is going to investigate corruption. let's understand what that means. they want the new leader of ukraine to do the president's bidding which is, when i say corruption, that means investigate my political opponent and investigate my theory that's been debunked that somehow ukraine was behind interfering with our election in the united states and it wasn't really russia. that's what i want you to do. or else you don't get aid or we don't get a meeting, and i don't prop you up

ambassador to ther, european union gordon sondland . secretary of energy rick perry. and as ier subsequently learned mr. giuliani. taylor then. describes meeting month later when a staffer from the office of management and budget made him realize that this irregular channel of u.s. policyel making, as he put it, s up to no good. this is a staffer. she was from the omb and her boss h instructed her not to approve any additional spend for ukraine until further notice. all the omb zaf person said was the directive had come from the president to the chief of staff to omb. in an instant, i realized that one of the key pillars for our strong su for the for ukraine wasu threatened. the irregular policy channel was running contrary to the goals of long-standing u.s. policy. again, the threat to u.s. support forto ukraine was comin from a shadow foreign policy that was being directed personally by the president of the united states and implemented by hisit acting chi ofin staff who also happens to the head of omb. >>> now, it is worth stopping to remember that we first learned

four plus hours later, gordon replies, bill, i believe you're incorrect, the president has been crystallear, no quid pro quos of any kind, the president is trying to evaluate whether have transparency, i suggest we stop back and forth by text, if you still have concerns i recommend you give call to discuss them directly thanks, a lot of speculation reported, 4-hour time period, that's when he had the phone call with the president and the president told him, there was no quid pro quo. but the democrats are going to hammer on this, you can't prove it, he's saying according to the washington post that that's what the president told him, that's the true but he does not know if that's the true if there was or was not a quid pro quo. >> of course, we don't have the details what the president may have said. it was a phone call that lasted 5 minutes, it was rather brief. confidently tell fellow diplomats that the president is not pursuing any quid pro quo arrangement. expect democrats to want to have answers of the context of that phone call, they haven't requested or a transcript but they will

in beijing let's talk about taiwan briefly i know you want to respond to what you just heard from gordon and i'll let you do that but on taiwan the goal of china has been to eventually reach unify the 2 taiwan straits how achievable is that today in the current context. well it's not political but it's not very viable because you have people manufacturing these kinds of issues which really have less we've beijing and more to do with the economy and what i mean by that is in. taiwan they have a stagnant economy also in hong kong which you in essence have it's the top 100 families have been using that position to enrich themselves while their fellow men and women get very little the average person at the average wage in hong kong would have to work 28 years and not eat or sleep anywhere except their parents house or for one house and a very modest one at that so they've been able to restrict land values i mean your strict building and in essence drive the prices up and this is this is what is is really driving this so all of these ideas about giving concessions and doing like this you don'

and gordon sondland apparently says that none of that happened.ir here's what we have from gordon sondland in his opening statement. under oath he said we have regular communications with the nsc about ukraine both before and after the july meeting and neither ambassador bolton, dr. hill nor anyone else on the nsc staff ever expressed any concerns to me about our efforts our most importantly any concerns that we were acting improperly. congressman welch, someone's not telling the truth there. >> well, that's right, and i think sondland has a lot of explaining today. but, you know, what's worth really pointing out is there's two categories of witnesses here. there's the political class and i put sondland in that category and it's pretty sordid. it's about being self-serving, it's about doing whatever the president's bidding is, it's about making it up as you go along and about concealing what you're doing. and then there are the civil servant witnesses like the people today, like ambassador taylor. and it's about duty. those folks are inspiring. th

but here's the other thing about gordon sondland, gordon sondland buzz planning to cooperate. gordon sondland flew in from brussels. he turned over text messages from his personal device which i should note included texts using the crypted messages from whatapp. he turned those over. they're holding them in defiance of a subpoena. they're willing to risk looking like they're engaged in an active cover up just to not let this guy tell what he knows under oath. and based on that, you our viewer, can draw your conclusions about what it is he does know. it's worth noting there are already several smoking guns. the whistleblower complaint. the notes from trump's call with the president of ukraine, the call where trump responded by saying, quote, i would like you to do us a favor, though, and that was after trump had just complained about the relationship between the countries saying, quote, the united states has been very, very good to ukraine. i would not say that it's reciprocal necessarily. every day brings us new reporting about the scope and also crucially about how freaked ou

gordon corera, bbc news.ada: prince harry has begun legal action against two newspapers, "the sun" and "the "daily mirror," over allegations the move follows the announ sussex and his wife are taking separate legal action against "the mail on sunday." our royal correspondent reports. reporter: all smiles at the end of a high-profile tour, but in the work a legal bombshell. harry is suing two of the biggest newspaper groups in britain. mirror group newspapers, publishers of "thersaily mirror," and news group newspapers, which publishes "the sun" and the now-closed "news of the wod," are the defendants. the cath, allegations of harry's calls being hacked in the early 2000's. doews of the world" close wn as a result of phone hacking revelations. its owner paid out huge sums tot its owner paid out huge sums to celebrities, as has mirror group newspapers. >> i think it is bisause prince harry has declared a one-man war against the tabloid press. an ill-advised one.t i'm fending phone hacking,he butiming is so sign

i stated to ambassador gordon sondland that his statements were inappropriate. that the requests to investigate biden and his son had nothing to do with national security and that such investigations were not something the nsc was going to get involved in or push. dr. fiona hill, i believe to whom colonel vin lan actually reported on the security council, dr. fiona hill then entered the room and she too asserted to ambassador gordon sondland that his statements were inappropriate. following the debriefing meeting, i reported my concerns to the nsc's lead counsel. we assume that league counsel would be john eisenberg, the top lawyer at the national security counsel. but again, this is from the opening statement due to be delivered tomorrow morning by lieutenant colonel zander vinman from the national security counsel, the first u.s. official to be testifying. he will be doing so in defiance of a white house that is telling him not to show up. it's going to be a big day tomorrow. we'll see you again tomorrow night. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'

>> you mean with respect to gordon sondland? >> is this the biggest contradiction of testimony you've heard from gordon sondland compared to others? i'm sure you've got different versions of events, but is this the most stark? >> i would say it's the one that stands out, yes. you're right, there are some variances here and there, but not on fundamental narrative. almost everything we've heard corroborates the underlying narrative in almost all respects. >> there was a story over the weekend in the "washington post," and it's filled with a lot of anonymous sources, unfortunately, because it's about the questioning that has taken place behind closed doors. but the report indicates -- the "washington post" seems to indicate, and let me read you a portion of it. republican members and staffers have repeatedly raised the name of a person suspected of filing the whistleblower complaint that exposed trump's effort to pressure ukraine to conduct investigations into his political adversaries, officials said. republicans appear to be seek

the ambassador, gordon sondland, then sent back to him, call me. now, we know that during that time, gordon sondland made a phone call to president trump. but what we don't know is what he told ambassador taylor in that phone conversation. it will be a key element. the details of that in terms of what we learn out of today. then there's another text that came just a week later from ambassador taylor saying, as i said on the phone, i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. and then we had ambassador sondland at the time replying, bill, i believe you're incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been crystal clear no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency in reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. but clearly there is a reason, brianna, that ambassador taylor thought there was reason for concern about a potential quid pro quo, and that will be what lawmakers try to get to the bottom o

gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador to the eu, he might be facing perjury charges.here was a democrat on one of the committees who said they may recommend that because he misled the committee to the extent of which he knew what was going on behiepds t behind the scenes. >> quickly, matt. bill barr again implicated and mentioned here. it's crazy he hasn't recused himself in any fashion. >> there's something going on at the justice department. they put out another statement today. this was the fourth time they've tried to distance themselves with the president's actions with respect to ukraine or to rudy giuliani's behavior. i suspect we don't know the full story why they washed the criminal investigation and that explains their nervousness and jumpiness the past few weeks. >> republicans are quick to say the president is tearing the country apart, so why aren't any of them saying he should resign? y of them saying he should resign? . just toss it in the dryer to bounce out wrinkles. we dried these shorts with bounce wrinkle guard, and a pair without. the bounce wrink

that's apparently why gordon sondland, ambassador to the eu, was in ukraine. ukraine is not part of the eu. that's apparently what volker was doing that as envoy to ukraine. that's apparently what rick perry, secretary of energy, was doing inserted into this process. that's what rudy giuliani was there for, of course. it's also apparently why they got rid of the previous ukrainian ambassador, marie yovanovitch. but they did have find a real person to hold down the ambassador after they fired her. unfortunately, for them, they picked a nonpartisan 50-year veteran diplomat who not only knows how things are supposed to run in u.s. policy, he knows something about the country in which he's operating, and he could see not only what a disaster this was in terms of president trump directly soliciting something from a foreign country that he wanted to use in his re-election campaign, which is a crime, he could see what he was doing to that country for this craven and illegal u.s. policy action to put that country in this position. and so today, with this remarkable te

gordon sondland is involved, apparently is texting with the u.s.mbassador to ukraine, the actual u.s. ambassador, puts him on hold several hours, says call me, talks to the president, goes back with official sounding line about why aid is withheld from ukraine, congressional approved aid. meanwhile, rudy giuliani carrying on about conspiracy theories, going on tv, showing his phone, pointing to texts, now claiming attorney/client privilege between him and the president. weird, he is going on there, showing you what he wants to show you. you want to ask a question about something important, he says no. >> right. and at the same time, you have the president standing in his driveway, admitting to what he's done. there's evidence for the prosecution sitting in your b roll vault now. you could put it on tv anytime you want. >> this is the point. what's the president's strategy here, he goes out, says it, says i'm going to even ask china to investigate the bidens. china has apparently said we're not going to do that, but the point is he asks everybody to

that's when gordon sondland says call me.nvestigators, what did you say in that phone call? what happened then next in that phone call? what did you know about those informations? >> i think call me and the other text was an indication that there might be a problem and they needed to have a conversation over the phone instead of via text. something that could be kept in records for, you know, later days to come. the other thing that gordon sondland is going to be asked about is fiona hill's testimony. she gave some ten hours of explosive testimony earlier this week. and some of that involved ambassador sondland. at one point she talked about how john bolton described rudy giuliani as a hand grenade that's going to blow everybody up. but she also testified that bolton described this arrangement, what was going on between gordon sondland and mick mulvaney as being a, quote, drug deal. so obviously these are requests that are going to be asked of the ambassador. how much did he know at the time and whether or not there was this

do you share that sense that gordon sondland could be in legal jeopardy? >> i wouldn't say it that way. what i would say is that at least my impression of his testimony was that he wasn't able to recall a whole heck of a lot with regard to a lot of his encounters and conversations. and so that kind of lack of memory, selective amnesia and perhaps evasiveness are issues. but that being said, there are a lot of other data points now that we have with regard to conversations, meetings and so forth that help to fill in the picture. >> thank you all for starting us off tonight. and when we come back, donald trump faces impeachment but who else is in legal trouble in the impeachment inquiry? will trump contributor turned ambassador gordon sondland face perjury charges? i will ask a house intelligence member who first suggested that possibility to us on this program last week. that's next. to us on this program last week. that's next. thritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosi

that was a recurring response from gordon sondland.in these texts that whenever bill taylor goes into the essence of what the trump administration is up to linking aid to a criminal investigation of joe biden, gordon sondland always wants to take that off of a written record and move it onto a verbal phone call. we are joined now by phone by congressman eric swalwell who was in some of that or most of that or even all of that deposition today who knew about this information, has been unable to comment on it in his previous comments until it's been released by the committee chairs. congressman swalwell, what else can you tell us about this information that's now being released? >> good evening, lawrence. i was present for the whole interview with the ambassador. and first he corroborated entirely what the whistle-blower complaint stated, that there was a shakedown, a shadow shakedown going on by rudy giuliani. it looks like ordered by president trump and the whistle-blower said he said there was an effort to have the ukrainians,,quote/u

talk about taiwan briefly i know you want to respond to what you just heard from gordon and i'll let you do that but on taiwan the goal of china has been to eventually unify the taiwan straits how achievable is that today in the current context. well it's not political but it's not very viable because you have people manufacturing these kinds of issues which really have less we beijing and more to do with the economy and what i mean by that is in. taiwan they have a stagnant economy also in hong kong which you in essence have it's the top 100 families have been using that position to enrich themselves while their fellow men and women get very little the average person at the average wage in hong kong would have to work 28 years and not eat or sleep anywhere except their parents house or for one house and a very modest one at that so they've been able to restrict land values i mean sure strict building and in essence drive the prices up and this is this is what is is really driving this so all of these ideas of not giving concessions and doing like this you don't do that with them up

did gordon sondland lawyer up in those hours. he could have taken the fifth amendment if he showed up today. his lawyer is probably giving the fifth amendment some very serious consideration tonight after receiving a notice of subpoena today after his client failed to show up today. the house of representatives sent a subpoena directly to his criminal lawyer as is customary. ordering him to appear one week from now they are now at the center of what some in the white house reportedly thought could be criminal conduct by the president and possibly others. that was the reaction that was captured in another document that we now know in the evidence file. of the impeachment investigation. before the whistle-blower wrote his official report a two-page memo of notes of a conversation that the whistle-blower had about the president's phone call to the president of ukraine with someone who listened to that conversation. the conversation was with someone that listened to the entire phone call. that donald trump had with the president of u

amy: gordon sosondland. he is, this oregon hotel magnate and retail developer -- real estate developer who becomes the european u.s. ambassador to the european union. tatalked about his role in all f this and his testimony. >> gordon sondland plays an important role because -- and this is something that william taylor also said on tuesday. there became two tracts of foreign policy concerning ukraine within t the administstration. one, the offfficial whehen it wt through the state department that went through people like william taylor and other diplomats. anotherr one that was spearheadd by rudy giuliani and also gordon sondland. gordon sondland was the e one wo started coming in and pushing the conditions in o order to hae a meetingng -- a publicic meetig between donald trump and ukrainian president zelensky that that would be condition on these two investigations. not just the investigations occurring, but they wanted zelensky publicly to say there would be an investigation both into the bidens as well as

gordon sunland has said that he communicated, and we've been told by sources. he talked to the president after this text message and tried to figure out what was going on, and then the president said to him, according to "the washington post," and according to our reporting, is that there is no quid pro quo and gordon sunland relayed this to this career diplomat. >> it looks like, if you read between the lines and you were skeptical. you could think that there might be some emotion of that relationship between the president and gordon sunland who was a jeb bush supporter during the campaign and then criticized then president trump after he went after the gold khan family and then he gave $is million to the inaugural committee. he's choosing to testify after the white house told him not to, so do you think that they should be reading into that? >> i think that you can -- look, i think you can certainly read into it that he's -- at least the optics of it, that he wants it to be doing it because he has to do it. he's under subpoena and he has to appear. this is th

i can't tell you how gordon described it.ut there was something in the works, trying to do something you know. president zelensky to do something in order to free up the support. anyway. i put in a request to talk with the president. he called me back on the august 31, the following day. i was trying to convince the president in that phone call to give me the authority a new days later to say support is on its way. tto the president into it. once again the president said, ron, we have -- you know how corrupt the place, this is, he made that point, then really hammered on lack of european support. talking about angela merkel, he said, ron, i asked her, why don't you fund these things, and she said because you guys will, he said, ron we're schmucks. is there something in the works, i said does ukraine have to show you something for the support to be released. that is where he made ad adamant angry devil denial. he said no way, i would do that, who told you that. i felt a little guilty, it was gordon, i went to record last frida

a person familiar says she will tell lawmakers that rudy giuliani and eu ambassador gordon sonland worked together to sidestep the national security council and pursue their own shadow agenda in ukraine. >>> on thursday sonland who got the job after giving 1 million to donald trump's inaugural committee is expected to call into question that no quid pro quo text he sent another diplomat. he'll tell lawmakers that the president dictated that text to him. according to "the washington post," sonland will say of that text, it's only true if the president said it, not that it was the truth. >>> and this could be just the beginning. vice president mike pence, rudy giuliani, the pentagon, and omb all have until tuesday to hand over ukraine documents under congressional subpoena. >>> step back and take this together. here at home the president's own people are tearing down his defenses. his closest advisers are facing subpoenas. support for impeachment is ticking upward. over seas he's abandoned a long-time ally and his near total withdrawal from northern syria would potentially allow isis to rec

is gordon sondland in more trouble tonight as a result of colonel vindman's testimony? >> i'm going to reserve judgment on that. i'm going to wait until i hear from all the witnesses. but i will say, ambassador taylor, whose testimony was in sharp conflict, at least the opening statement that was released with ambassador sondland, he had a deep recall that was backed up by meticulous notes that he took. and that is in sharp conflict with ambassador sondland. now, ambassador sondland was at the committee today, reviewing his testimony with his lawyer, and of course, has an opportunity, you know, to review that testimony. i'll wait to see what he does with it. but people like fiona hill, also as you saw in her testimony, have corroborated what ambassador taylor and others have said. and it seems to be that the arrows continue to point toward a shakedown ordered by this president, two sharp lines to rudy giuliani and ambassador sondland, to have the ukrainians at the president's direction investigate his political opponents in exchange for a white house meeting and securit

gordon sondland, his sunday is just "call me."appened when bill taylor called him? do we know what was said then? >> no, we don't. that's why we have a new witness, a potential witness in mr. taylor. but, again, when so much of this is taking place on whatsapp, that's the form they're talking and then it's moved off of that, again, you can conclude i believe that it's become that ambassador sondland does not want to discuss what the president's true intentions are. and you do see that, as you pointed out, a number of times. mr. taylor consistently, from the time he is placed in charge or is the second in command and then there is no ambassador, and he is essentially the de facto ambassador, he has concerns about rudy giuliani's role. and then you see ambassador volker who i would describe as a serious ambassador who is running a parallel diplomacy effort as rudy giuliani is truly the one who has the president's intentions. ambassador volker, i believe was carrying out the intentions of the united states to deliver security assista

ambassador to the eu gordon sondland. despite having absolutely no experience there, and despite the fact that his official position did not involve ukraine because it is not part of the eu. i want to dig into all of this, ashley parker is here, michael fukes. and as a senior fellow at the center for american progress, chris lu, white house cabinet secretary in the obama administration and deputy chief council of the oversight committee, and eddie glaud. eddie, to you, fist, we were just speaking about elijah cummings as a member of congress, and his role in the oversight committee, but what will the history books say about him? >> it is a genuine loss for the country. i think history will write about him as someone that deeply cared about his subsequents. as someone who was committed to democracy and all of it's flaws. we'll have to look through his papers to get the details as it were, but what i would say is this, we are running deficits in decen decency. and to lose elijah cummings today triples that deficit. and so i

gordon chang says the same thing is happening there. gordon, it's interesting for the chinese to say and admit that their numbers are going down for it we can argue as to whether they are growing at a 6% clip. the data as it may, they are admitting it. does it drive them to the table? >> that's one factor that makes them more amenable to a deal. it's not 6.0% which they claim for the third quarter. i heard someone talk about negative 2 and that's a person with a security clearance last week. i don't think it's actually that low but i think when you have an economy that big which has flowed from double-digit growth to probably under 2% growth in a very short. meh, it creates a lot of incentives. i do think that that's a factor that's pushing beijing to the table. >> neil: they are not so much a socialist state or was venezuela did with cradle to grave comforts they could ill afford. they have poured a lot into their economy, backing their banks and businesses. forcing them to lend. consumers forcibly to borrow. to little avail. where is

-- gordon chang.com.ant to make one quick announcement. thank you so much. it was an outstanding presentation. i wanted to mention there is quite a few people here that are members of the north korean freedom coalition. probably the most important things the defense forum foundation does is we have the honor of cheering the freedom coalition. if you want to join us on tuesday, tuesday is september september 24. september 24 is the anniversary of when china became a signatory at the refugee convention which obligates its not too foreseeable against their will back to the country where they will be persecuted. i'll let people know about this about the situation but china has been repatriating forcefully sending north koreans men women and children back to north korea knowing they will certainly 100%. >> tortured, 100% the detained and in some cases executed. so on september 24 where organizing worldwide demonstration to show up the chinese embassy to stop this illegal inhumane and brutal activity. if you wa

gordon sondland u.s. ambassador to the european union texted that i thinks potus wants the delivery. the statement was never issued. volker testified he wasn't aware of efforts to push ukraine to investigate joe biden. and he differentiated investigation news biden with a probe into burisma, the ukrainian company biden's son served on the board of. he said as unfounded accusations against the bidens came out publicly, he urged ukraines not to interfere in the u.s. politics and kurt volker didn't see a link to investigate 2016 and the freeze in military aid to ukraine. but other diplomats were suspicious. bill taylor, a senior u.s. diplomat in ukraine, repeatedly raised concerns about with holding aid. as i said on the phone, i think it is crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. he told sondland in september. bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind he replied. still the revelat

we should have showed a picture of today's dude, gordon sondland. >> and it's time now for lawrence o'do

that's from gordon sondland's opening statement. we don't know what happened in his deposition today after he made those opening remarks, but in his printed opening statement, he says the president did it. this scheme that the president and rudy giuliani were enacting using the three amigos, gordon sondland, rick perry, and volker, who has already resigned, the scheme was to hold up a white house meeting for this foreign leader unless he coughed up stuff that trump could use for his re-election effort against joe biden. and in addition to that, interestingly, he needed help unblaming russia for the 2016 election attack. why would they want to unblame russia for the 2016 election attack? i mean, russia's having kind of an amazing run of it right now when it comes to stuff they're getting from the trump administration. i mean, this weird plot that's emerging over the impeachment proceedings, we've got trump and rudy giuliani with an amazing cast of supporting characters. they're pressuring ukraine to, yes, help president trump against

we are talking about gordon sondland because he was in direct contact with the president. he was able to recount some of that to congress. and that's the point about the other folks that the house would like to talk to and that they are closing in on. it would be harder for the house to get to them. but it is that testimony that really moves the ball forward, that really sort of allows the democrats to make a larger argument that would put pressure on the senate republicans. and, look, it's going to be very, very difficult for them, and all they really have right now in terms of stuff directly to the president is stuff from volker and sondland and a little bit from others. but a lot of the other stuff is sort of second-hand stuff, sort of atmospherics about what was going on inside the nsc or the state department. >> and i know that donald trump doesn't really care what happens inside the nsc, but he does care about the pr war, betsy. there is a lot of reporting that he's increasing the frustration. "the washington post" reports this. adding trump dictated much of a defian

>> i think we can talk about rudy giuliani and gordon sondland.s a private citizen and shouldn't have any role. gordon is still the ambassador. it's curious he was involved in this in the first place. there's something that is very specific in this case. our state department professional, career professionals have sworn an oath. an oath to protect and defend the constitution and that's what they are there to do day in and day out. they are public servants in every sense of both words. they are serving the public. of course, when rudy giuliani goes out to do his own bidding, he's not doing the bidding of the united states. he is not doing the bidding that is in order to advance our national interests and he said that quite explicitly. he said i'm out there to fulfill only my clients wishes. these are the personal p perogatives. donald trump and those around him to include mr. rudy giuliani prioritized what would help president trump's political ends even if it was to our national detriment. >> the fact that yavanovitch testifying today despite the

at this hour, gordon sondland is in a closed-door deposition with congress. sondland, a wealthy hotelier turned donor turned eu ambassador is a crucial figure in this inquiry. according to nbc reporting, he spoke to the president before donald trump called the president of ukraine and he will tell congress the quid pro quo text was basically dictated by the president. what's more, in his opening statement, sondland told congress that rudy giuliani was doing the president's bidding. quote, my understanding was that the president directed mr. giuliani's participation. that mr. giuliani was expressing the concerns of the president. sondland's testimony follows fiona hill's. "the new york times" reports hill, the president's former top aide on russia, told lawmakers that she thought sondland was a national security risk, because he was so unprepared for his job. and that she feared foreign governments could exploit his inexperience. earlier this week, lawmakers also heard from diplomat george kent. he told them that white house chief of staff mick mulvaney sideli

ambassador to the european union gordon sondland. he'll be asked by congressional investigators what he knows about president trump pressuring ukraine to dig up dirt on his rival, joe biden. you'll remember those text messages released by house democrats last week that show sondland working with another of president trump's envoys to get ukraine to agree to investigate the bide ens in exchange for a washington meeting with president trump and the ukraine president. house democrats are issuing new subpoenas to the pentagon and the white house budget office. all of this is tried to the freezing of that military aid to ukraine. >> joining us now cnn political analyst david gregory and political correspondent abby phillip. these poll numbers are interesting. an impeachment inquiry isn't just a battle about getting the facts, it's also a battle for public opinion. right now this poll seems to indicate the president's losing that battle with support for the inquiry up to 58%. that's a 21% jump since july, and among all adults 49% say now w

gordon sondland is still the u.s. ambassador to the e urgs.course ukraine is not a member of the eu so it's curious he was involved in this in the first place. there's a lot that differentiates our men and women of the state department from the likes of rudy giuliani and his now indicted business partners who were part of this as well. integrity, principle, intelligence to some extent. but there's something very specific in this case. our state department professionals, our career professionals have sworn an oath. an oath to protect and defend the constitution. and that's what they're there to do day in and day out. they are public servants in every sense of both words. they are serving the public. of course when rudy giuliani goes out to do his own bidding, he's not doing the bidding of the united states. he's not doing the bidding that is in order to advance our national interests and said -- and he said this quite explicitly. he said i'm out there to fulfill only my client's wishes. these are the personal prerogatives of donald trump that a

gordon, thank you very much. david: the house of representatives taking its biggest step yet towards impeaching president trump. what does it mean? >> they have another weeks full of hearings behind closed doors and they schedule another week's full of hearings behind closed doors. if this is about transparency, then open it up. ♪ (dramatic orchestra) performance comes in lots of flavors. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ most people think of verizon as a reliable phone company. (woman) but to businesses, we're a reliable partner. we keep companies ready for what's next. (man) we weave security into their business. virtualize their operations. (woman) and build ai customer experiences. we also keep them ready for the next big opportunity. like 5g. almost all the fortune 500 partner with us. (woman) when it comes to digital transformation... verizon keeps business rea

. >> gordon sondland is one of the last people to speak with president trump before that infamous phone call in jill with ukraine. sondland was aware of the request to the ukraines to investigate the bidens, ushering him into the spotlight today. asked about the impeachment inquiry, president trump said he's not concerned about a second whistle-blower. >> it's a scam by the democrats to win an election they're not going to win in 2020. >> today behind closed doors they meet with gordon sondland. >> i spoke with president trump a few minutes before he placed the phone call. >> a summary of the july 25th phone call shows president trump repeatedly pushed ukraine's president zelensky to investigate joe biden and his son hunter. in one text he wrote, the president really wants the deliverable and later insisted there were no quid pro quos of any kind. yesterday democrats subpoenaed documents from the pentagon and office of management and budget in part to learn the reasons for withholding military assistance to ukraine. >> look. i think the whistle-blower should be protected if the whistle-