the national security council in charge russia, tim more o -- tim morrison. this comes on the eve of his scheduled testimony before the house committee. for the latest we turn to john roberts. reporter: a new development in the impeachment inquiry. tim morrison who is the top russia expert at the national security council will be leaving his position. sources tell fox news it's been expected for some time. but the timing is significant because morrison is scheduled to testify tomorrow. according to the ambassador, morrison believed military aid to ukraine was contingent on ukrainian officials opening an investigation into hunter and joe biden. president trump kept up his

analyst and director of the national security council under president obama, also an msnbc national security contributor, ned price, and "daily beast" columnist and analyst jonathan alter. there have subpoenas that have been issued to the white house. and what will happen next? >> a lot of things could happen. but what the white house has signaled and started signaling in the middle of last week is that they are not going to be turning over any documents and not consider doing so until the house takes a vote to begin an actual impeachment proceeding, to have a vote to start that inquiry. and in a way the white house is on solid ground because you can -- it's easier to make demands when you're in that posture, the congress has that position. but on the other hand, it's one of the -- this white house's anyway constant attempts to stall any efforts to demand records from within. it's sort of -- its sort of secret cache of documents that will show what's going on. >> part some of the evolution and reaction, ned price, the headlines coming out of "bloomberg," a place you know well being a former

what do you make of the national security council official who alerted the national securityncil lawyers about the call who then placed it in that code word protected -- the vault essentially. you know? are those national security council officials implicated in a cover-up, do you think? >> well, it sounds like it, but i don't have enough information to be able to make a judgment on that. >> that's fair. >> i think that the nsc officials alerted the legal counsel, it's a really good sign. a sign of the system working. but the troving of information away -- information that's not classified into a highly classified file in order to prevent it from being revealed and disgracing the president, that's not okay either. so it's not clear to me just how much culpability that nsc staffers have. >> then just before i let you go, i know you co-wrote a book with general james mattis, former secretary of defense and given the news turkey launched this offensive in the wake of trump withdrawing u.s. troops from northern syria, this was reportedly, was the last straw. right? for general ma

more from this new reporting about how early these alarm bells were going off inside the national security council's, really at the top level with john bolton, the former national security adviser being briefed by fiona hill, after meeting with zelenski and his advisers as they were preparing to take office. this is the period in between when zelensky was elected and he was inaugurated. and he was already feeling the pressure from giuliani, to change up the board of nafta gas. fiona hill was told about the involvement of fruman and parnas, those two florida businessmen who were also trying to dig up dirt on the vice president's son and have also now been indicted for alleged campaign finance violations. and fiona hill at the white house was also told in may about gordon sondland making unsolicited overchurs to president zelenski about who he should put into key influential positions in his new administration with the ukrainians feeling before he'd even been sworn in that that was inappropriate and making sure that gets to the white house. >> evelyn farkas, one thing that happens, we've discovered, i

he says, on july 10th, 2019, the secretary of the national security and defense council for ukraine visitedshington, d.c. for a meeting with national security adviser bolton. ambassadors volker and sondland also attended along with energy secretary rick perry. the meeting proceeded well until the ukrainians broached the subject of a meeting between the two presidents. the ukrainians saw this meeting as critically important in order to solidify the support of their most important international partner. ambassador sondland started to speak about ukraine delivering specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with the president, at which time ambassador bolton cut the meeting short. following this meeting, there was a scheduled debriefing during which ambassador sondland emphasized the importance that ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the bidens, and burisma. i stated to ambassador sondland that his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate biden and his son had nothing to do with national security and that such investigations were not so

i've heard in the obama administration that there was bloat among the national security council. >> yeah and probably been too large in recent years past but clearly the most concerning piece here is the switching and political appointees for people who have served both parties. to me it is the clear reaction to the fact that the whistle-blower was somebody who was rotated in or i would guess and that is the assumption from another agency that was there who wasn't a loyalist to donald trump and was a loyalist to the institutions and wants to crack down. and that becomes a group of people who want to deliver on solely the president's agenda and what we've seen from the past few months is that agenda is pushing getting political dirt on his opponents, letting his personal lawyer out there to represent the united states. that is not traditional national security interest. that is not what the nsc does. i think the comment that was shared at the end about how somebody said trump will be frustrated, to me that is quite generous to his level of interest and level of curiosity in national secur

he was appointed at the national security council because he is one of the best and brightest. idea that someone with his rÉsume would not serve the united states of america is just disgusting. it's outrageous. and i want those people to apologize and to remember what they're doing when they take cheap shots at people like colonel vindman when they don't know his background and they don't know his history. >> michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia. sir, thank you for being here. i really appreciate you taking the time. >> thanks for letting me say all i did, rachel. >> i'm glad you did. and i'm glad you said it exactly the way you did, sir. thank you. much more to get to tonight. stay with us. when you've got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds- things can get a bit cloudy for you. but now, there's the dell technologies cloud, powered by vmware. a single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. that should clear things up. at bayer, we're helping to adto repair heart tissue.es so bill can scream his heart out. without putting

former national security council official who resigned on wednesday just yesterday. that's right just on the eve of his testimony to morrison who is the russian expert on the national security council just last night announced his impending resignation he's still at the moment technically a white house employee but he has defined the white house order by appearing right now behind closed doors to the pietschmann inquiry panel and investigators have been have been looking forward to questioning morrison because he was named by previous witnesses as a primary source of information on the inside thinking of president trump as he was withholding this military aid for ukraine while his surrogates were undergoing this were carrying out this shadow campaign to get ukraine to open investigations on trump's rivals in fact morrison was said to say that he had a sinking feeling when he heard trump deny that there was a probe but at the same time request that the president of ukraine go to a microphone and publicly announced that there were investigations that were about to be la

national security. following the call i, again, reported my concerns to the lead counsel for the national security councilnd it goes on. again, this just obtained this evening. the opening statement from lieutenant colonel alexander vinman, top ukraine official on the national security council who appears to validate the concerns of the whistle-blower that led to these impeachment proceedings against the president. and express his own alarm at what he saw on that call and of the president's behavior. more to come. stay with us. it's been a long time since andrew dusted off his dancing shoes. luckily denture breath will be the least of his worries. because he uses polident 4 in 1 cleaning system to kill 99.99% of odor causing bacteria. polident. clean. fresh. and confident. of odor causing bacteria. oh no,... ...a cougher. welcome to flu season, karen. is a regular flu shot strong enough... ...to help prevent flu in someone your age? there are standard-dose flu shots. and then there's the superior flu protection... ...of fluzone high-dose. it's the only 65 plus flu shot... ...with 4 times the standard dose

national security, congressional investigations. and, you know, white house aides are facing potentially very large bills if they hire a lawyer. we already saw one national security counciltify yesterday. another is scheduled to testify tomorrow on capitol hill. and meanwhile, the democrats are eyeing people like acting chief of staff mick mulvaney and his national security aide robert blair as potential other witnesses. so this is something that, you know, how they're going to pay for the legal bills is a real question of white house aides right now. >> liz, listening to everything here, how does this compare to what happened in watergate? >> well, i said it before and noose is tightening. the procedures are very methodical. we now have -- there's one difference. in watergate, the senate select committee held public hearings. john dean, president's top aides, holderman were there. the public had a chance to see that. we had nothing comparable to senate watergate committee hearing. so that's what these three committees are doing. they're kind of doing the investigation that the house judiciary committee did not do in watergate. the second source of information was the gr

the national security council's top ukraine expert. vindman, who was on that now-famous july 25th phone call between president trump and the ukrainian president directly contradicting trump's public description of the transcript released by the white house. >> i had a transcript done by very, very talented people, word for word, comma for comma, done by people that do it for a living. we had an exact transcript. >> reporter: president trump touting over and over again that it was an exact transcript of the phone call. the white house in september saying the ellipses that showed up did not represent missing words or phrases, but not so said vindman, who told lawmakers what the white house released was not exact and had at least two parts omitted, a reference to a joe biden tape and a specific mention of burisma, the company where biden's son, hunter, was on the board. burisma, according to vindman, appearing in the transcript as just "the company." sources tell cnn that vindman testified that he tried to make changes to the rough transc

national security. following the call i, again, reported my concerns to the lead counsel for the national security council and it goes on. again, this just obtained this evening. the opening statement from lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, top ukraine official on the national security council who appears to validate the concerns of the whistle-blower that led to these impeachment proceedings against the president. and express his own alarm at what he saw on that call and of the president's behavior. more to come. stay with us. because getting older... should mean being healthy enough to act young. because farmers should be able to use less water to grow their crops. because having heart issues... shouldn't mean you can't scream your heart out. at bayer, everything we do... from advances in health to innovations in agriculture... is to help every life we touch. at bayer, this is why we science. here's the thing about managing for your business.s when you've got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds- things can get a bit cloudy for you. but now, there's the dell technologies cloud, powere

careful question being his claims to me is just assinine. >> there are too many people on the national security council. the national security council is a vehicle for the president. this is a gentleman who served his country effectively. we should thank him for that and send him home. obviously in the white house he overstepped higgs bound. the president don't know who this guy is. never heard his name before. and the fact he's up there testifying, i know better than the president does on this ukraine policy. lou: that's essentially the message here. to think that he referred to the interagency which is effectively the dope state or could be part of the deep state depending on your construction of it. the interagency as if it's a monolith with immense power. he put that above the president of the united states and his executive power. it's crazy what he said. if anybody just steps back and looks at it, this guy thinks this collection of agencies and its so-called consensus is more important than the president of the united states and his orders. it's bizarre. >> how would you like to be a president, k

days later in a regular national security council secure video conference call stalear says, "i heard a staff person from the office of management and budget say there was a hold on security assistance," meaning military aid to ukraine, but could not say why. "toward the end of an otherwise normal meeting a voice on the call, the person was off screen, said that she was from omb, the office of management and budget and that her boss had instructed her not to approve any additional spending of security assistance for ukraine until further notice." taylor says, "i and others sat in astonishment. ukrainians were fighting the russians and counted on not only the training and weapons, but also the assurance of u.s. support. all that the omb staffer said was that the directive had come from the president. from the president to the chief of staff to omb. the following day, two senior national security council officers including fiona hill spoke by phone with bill taylor. "they gave me an account of the july 10th meeting with ukrainian officials at the white house. specifically they told me t

national security? >> no, it doesn't have to. the national security council varies in size. aries depending on what the president wants the national security adviser's job to be, what the national security adviser and staff, what their priorities are. for example, under the bush 41 administration, it was down to roughly 50 people. they had a very small council. now it's in the hundreds, so the size of the council, there is no direct relationship between the size of the nsc and national security. depends on what they're being asked to do. >> then if this is related at all to this whistle-blower complaint, the question might be did the former national security adviser have any connection to what we're seeing today? there's a lot of ifs there. >> if the president and the current national security council staff are deciding it's time to reduce some staff, that's one thing. generally i don't think the president really understands what the nsc does i don't think he understands what the staff does. and so it does raise the question, is he doing this because he's angry about leaks an

what she saw and what she was told by ambassador john bolton was to go talk to the senior national security council lawyers that rudy giuliani and others were run ending a run at running an endgame around the national security council and that they were engaged in improprieties things that shouldn't be happening and i think that she laid this out and she went forward and i think she basically said that both the removal of the u.s. ambassador to the rain on the pitch and other issues were done over the objections of the national security council that meant that the n.s.c. was advising trump not to take any of the actions he was taking he ignored them i want to just finish up with again a bit of a bigger political life a view of what we're saying we don't know the trump of said this is a witch hunt this is it true he famously said in the lead up to him to the election that he could shoot someone did on 5th avenue that wouldn't affect his bus is this the sign situation does he regardless of what happens in the house with the impeachment voters ultimately does he go to the next election embolden saying

with the substance of what vinman is alleging under oath. >> is hefledged member of the national security council it's interesting you raise that point because what we've seen through this ukraine episode is that the daily decision making is happening outside of the national security council even though there are these patriots, these career civil servants, public servants, people serving in the intelligence and national security apparatus. >> let me ask you this. the president is saying there's nothing wrong here. people are say iing there's alsa quid pro quo in foreign policy and it changes from administration to administration. just underscore what is different about this particular case than another president coming in and saying i don't agree with the policy that we're pursuinging in this country and we're going to change it. >> it's more than just a policy. but there was aid for ukraine by congress. it wasn't just a big picture policy view, but it was a sense the administration was obligated to do based on the law. >> one of our colleagues is was able to catch president zelensky today and a

he says he raised concerns twice with the national security council about what he heard. and he believed this was improper, this was the president of the united states trying to undermine u.s. national kurt. is it going to be difficult for the house and for the republicans to undermine this testimony? >> yes. this is a witness that will be difficult for the republicans to try to undercut. this is an iraq war veteran, a purple heart recipient, someone working in the white house who had direct knowledge about the calls. and not only had concern about what the president was doing. but also, that he took the concerns, at the time, up the chain of command, to his superiors on the national security council. the fact that he was concerned at the time and he took the concerns to his superiors, shows that -- in opposition to the president saying this was a perfect call and nothing concerning happened. people that work for the president, were concerned about the president calling for these investigations. and the fact that mr. vindland will be able to corroborate more information i

fbi assistant director for counter intelligence and a senior director in president obama's national security council. what is going on at the white house? >> reporter: this second whistleblower deepens the controversy for the president, for this administration. it deprives them of the argument that the allegations against them are based on hearsay. of course, we have the notes from the transcripts so people were able to see what president trump said to the president of ukraine, at least the notes of that phone call with their own eyes. but that is why you have president trump taking aim at the whistleblower, the press secretary stephanie grishom trying to dismiss the significance saying it's part of

national security. those are powerfully severe violations of the constitution. >> lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, the top ukraine expert on the national security councilnk he is still being deposed right now behind closed doors. what strikes you based on what we know, his opening statement for example, what strikes you about his testimony? >> what struck me about his testimony, wolf, is first of all his personal story of coming to this country, loving it, a career military officer, 20 years, with everything to lose and nothing to gain by coming forward in the way he did, after complaining privately to the counsel for the national security council and, of the qu testimony is, "this would all undermine u.s. national security." after he goes through the details of how pressure on the president of ukraine for the president's own personal benefit would undermine our aid to ukraine and our own nation's national security, those two points really struck me. >> as you point out, an incredible personal story that he shared with members of the committee. he and his twin brother were only 3 years old when his father and his grandmother -- his mother had died in u

national security perspective. ned price, msnbc contributor, former national security council spokesman. frankly, if he were there now, he'd probably be subpoenaed. >> glad i'm not. >> chuck rosenberg, msnbc contributor. former u.s. attorney. former fbi official and who knows you would be in the middle of either subpoenaing people or not if you were in the middle of it. >> subpoena him. >> the host of the oath podcast where he talks with former public officials about this pivotal moment in american history. all right. i want to start with this issue of kupperman. and this is a classic separation of powers question. you could be arguing the government's side of this or you can argue congress's side of this. what do you think is the white house's strongest argument from preventing? >> first of all, i'm glad you framed it as a separation of powers issue. it's not a republican/democrat thing. it's the legislative and executive branch and the parties could have been flipped and in the exact same position. so i don't blame mr. kupperman or his lawyer for asking the courts to resolve it. i mean

national security advisor be one of those people? >> typically yes, and actually, joy, there are not lots and lots. there's a handful of national security councilsually the national security advisor and/or the deputy national security advisor, somebody like fiona hill who's responsible for the office that was placing the call and one or two of her staffers and a couple or three people who were note taking in the situation room. >> and who then would have custody on the transcript of such a call? and i ask you that because we now know from the whistle-blower that this particular call to the president of ukraine, the transcript of it wound up in this super secret classified system where normally highly classified material goes but this transcript went there. who would be in charge of putting stuff in that database, in that server? >> well, normally a presidential call even one that is classified up to the top secret level would be stored in the normal national security council system that cleared staffers who have a need to know would have access to. to move it as apparently the case in this instance to a highly classified super secret server whi

--losed-door hearing national security council official who will express concerns about president trump'saine phone call and thursday, presentmocrats will current procedures of the impeachment inquiry and .stablishing new ones

week is going to reveal rudy giuliani and eu ambassador gordon sondland circumvented the national security council and white house process to pursue a shadow policy on ukraine. and this comes as "the washington post" is reporting that least four national security officials raised alarms about the trump administration's attempts to pressure ukraine for political purposes both after and before the infamous july 25th call between presidents trump and zelensky. and that is where we begin tonight with greg miller who broke this story. he joins me by phone. greg, what have you learned? >> well, what we've learned is, you know, i think it's significant that there were alarms being raised inside official white house channels well before the whistle-blower complaint is even submitted to the intelligence committee inspector general. starting in july, early july, even before the july 25th call you just described as infamous, you know, there are people going to the national security council's top lawyer expressing alarm and concern about what is happening on ukraine, citing a series of developments over the p

he's, in fact, the national security council's top expert on ukraine.ording to vindman's opening statement, he considered the president's ask for investigations of political rivals of ukraine's new president, he considered that so damaging to american interests that he reported it twice to his superior out of what he called, quote, a sense of duty. joining me right now, democratic congressman, dan kildee of michigan. thank you for coming in. >> thank you very much, kate. >> what was your reaction when you read the opening statement from colonel vindman? and let me just read it one more time. there was a lot in there, but this one line is key. i was concerned by the call, he wrote. i did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen, and i was worried about the implications for the u.s. government's support of ukraine. >> well, my first reaction is that i was reading the words of a true patriot. a person who's dedicated his life to the national security of this country, who himself serves in uniform, put himself i

next week, tim morrison, a top adviser on the national security council is scheduled to speak with congress. he was on the ukraine call with trump. he may be preparing to back up bill taylor's explosive testimony from earlier this week where taylor said there was a quid pro quo with ukraine. >> tune out the noise. listen to the testimony. it's moving forward. there could be more corroboration coming from another key witness. former national security adviser john bolton. "the new york times" reporting that impeachment investigators are negotiate with bolton's attorneys for him to testify as well in private. and as the impeachment inquiry continues, centered on a request by the president for a foreign country to investigate his political opponents here at home, we are learning that

you're going to see an increasing effort to taint the cia, the fbi and the entire national security counciln terms of the detailees there because they represent a clear and present threat to the president and his agenda. >> and there's a letter that you're on from 90 former national security council members that says in part, he or she, the whistleblower, has by law the right and indeed the responsibility to make known through appropriate channels indications of serious wrongdoing, being a responsible whistleblower means that by law one is protected from certain egregious forms of retaliation. there have been a lot of threats from the president of retaliation and claims against the whistleblower and now a second whistleblower has stood up apparently according to the whistleblower's attorney. also this report by jennifer jacobs that we have not confirmed frankly that the president has ordered all of these detailees, so many from the national security council staff, the people who do listen on these calls and take these notes, not cia but others potentially to be removed, to be sent back to t

this is -- this is -- so you have the national security -- the head of the national security council raising all sorts of concerns. has no control over what's going on here. right? >> and at a certain point donald trump can't keep saying this is just a partisan whistle-blower. oh, wait, this is just who partisan whistle-blowers. maybe three. we have more and more people coming forward and it's going to be harder for him to discredit this. it's impossible already. >> you've got the national security adviser reportedly from "the new york times" involved in this. gordon sondland, a trump donor turned ambassador to the european union. you have the acting chief of staff involved in this and the president's personal attorney reportedly involved in this. i mean, okay. >> layers and layers and layers. >> we've got more breaking news that i want to talk to you about, frank. "the wall street journal" is also reporting that rudy giuliani's bank records are now being examined and witnesses have been questioned about his role in ukraine since at least august. how much trouble is giuliani in? >> i

. >> there are positions you have had in government and the first is the national security council under president clinton for you had the crisis of somalia with black hawk down 18 servicemen were killed in 1983 and then the crisis nearby in rwanda where a hundred thousand were killed in a country the size of vermont and that was just staggering. so first of all what you learned with dealing with a crisis and issues of when you engage whether the slaughter of humankind and why president clinton said that in the end. >> i was 28 years old it was my first job in government. my title was directed for international organizations. i had oversight and insight into issues of africa and asia and europe so in addition to that. of what i focus on this book but also haiti and cambodia with a whole series of major challenges for the united nations and peacekeepers were involved. somalia and rwanda were particularly at a crisis in my professional development and in somalia black hawk down was the culmination of the administration's decision to go after those that were killing somali civilians and we

>> you know, like you mentioned, i served in two national security council staffs under two differentnts, and i have to say that if i had been the national security council staffer on ukraine and i had been listening in on that call, i would have had the exact same reaction as the whistle-blower sources. i would have been pretty much terrified that the president of the united states was potentially extorting a foreign country to investigate his political rival. that's not normal behavior. i think any staffer or career civil servant would recognize that as not normal behavior, and i think it's really important that whistle-blowers be protected, that they are able to follow the process of the law, and that they don't have to worry about the consequences for coming forward when they see wrongdoing like that. >> ambassador, you wrote an op ed last week about the situation with ukraine, and you basically said, whether or not the president gets impeached is a sideline. we need to do -- our government needs to do a better job defending our own institutions and the people who work with them.

. >> and we have today, coming in, tom morrison from the national security council, garrett. onsum excuse me, tim morrison from the national security council, who saidun last night he's resignin and he'll clearly be free as he's testifying today. there's no's opening statement t he's validating what bill taylor testified to, that mr. morrison said he had a sinking feeling after learning about this conversation from ambassador sondland, according to mr. f morrison, that president trump told ambassador sondland that he was not asking for a quid pro quo but president trump did insist thaten president zelensk go to a microphone and say publicly he's opening investigations into biden and thebi 2016 election interferenc. >>16 morrison's deposition he's tighter lid on it than many of these othersan have. his attorneys didn't release his opening statement. it has not thus far leaked out. members whoed i've spoken to th morning have been much more cautious about describing what he has to say. but morrison, fittingly, is much closer to the seat of power than a lot of these other witness

the only reason somebody like john bolton would tell fiona hill to go to the national security council legal advisers is if they were concerned about criminal wrongdoing. we're seeing evidence, clear evidence, that the president was not pursuing national interests here but pursuing his own personal political interests and that people around him at the time were very, very concerned about the harm to u.s. national security, and also whether or not potentially laws were being broken. >> and we'll keep in mind and put the period at the end of this on giuliani, that while this all happened giuliani was working for trump for free while collecting major money from shadowing figures to conduct policy. giuliani told reuters, it was half a million dollars. michael, leave with this looking ahead to tomorrow. sources say michael mckinley is testifying resigned to secretary of state mike pompeo ending a 37-year career. this amid growing concern among career diplomats how the administration handled this inquiry and treated career sieve's servants asked to testify. what would you be listening for fr

then is a member of the national security council the expert on ukrainian affairs and he is an important witness in this impeachment inquiry because he is the 1st who was actually on the phone call to listen then when donald trump spoke with the leader of ukraine in july and it is that phone call that launched this impeachment inquiry in the 1st place trump asked a lot of years olinsky the president of ukraine during that call to launch an investigation into democrats and then to buy into joe biden who is one of trans political adversaries in the united states elvin that the witness who is testifying behind closed doors today we obtained his opening statements and in it he says i was concerned by the call it i did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen i was worried about the implications for the u.s. government support of ukraine i realize that if you quene pursued an investigation into the bidens and it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in ukraine losing the bipartisan support it had thus far ma

earlier this week when he said that he was concerned about a national security concern and even took those concerns to a national security councilorney. while mr. morrison said today he did not raise concerns with the national security council instead was concerned the transcript of that call could be leaked and the reason he was concerned it could be leaked, i'm told, is because it could impact a polarized washington, also could undermine bipartisan support for ukraine. also could hurt perception of the, by the cynthukrainians of united states. more concerned about the contents and didn't see anything wrong with it and we know he corroborated what bill taylor, top diplomat for ukraine said last week. taylor referenced morrison throughout that testimony and even said taylor was terned that the president had withheld ukrainian aid in exchange for those investigations and backs up what he said. a difference on minor details but ultimately corroborated that. democrats will likely point to the corroboration and republicans say, he said there was nothing wrong with the call. brooke? >> got it. corroboration, but not concerned. manu,

opinion, but that is about it. >> dana: just about the process of things and you worked at the national security councildo you think you follow the process as far as we know he was on the call and have concerns, took it to the national security council, is that all seem like it is supposed to be done? >> well, i think so, we are in unchartered territory here, but what bothers me about the way that schiff is running this, the president can't have his counsel they are to understand what is going on. and that is just a basic fairness issue. >> dana: let m me also ask you about syria, a wonderful story about the canines help, but i also wanted to help you you wrote a book called "warrior diplomat" the next step is there a role for diplomacy going forward? we will get a lot of intel from this rate and the killing of baghdadi. what next on the performance he front? >> well come i mean come i think we saw diplomacy at play to enge the syrians, the turks, and the russians and get them to basically step aside in terms of their sophisticated air defenses and getting in, to get and baghdadi was huge win for diplom

national security going? >> yeah. i mean, it's certainly looking like there is going to be a big cut to the national security council, something that had been talked about for a long time. i think it does reflect to a certain degree the white house's paranoia the feeling these people can't be trusted. you're right. these are the folks that do make government run and make our foreign policy run. >> greg, thank you very much for making yourself available to us by phone. greg jaffe of "the washington post." here for our lead-off discussion on a thursday night, and it's a lot, robert costa, national political reporter for "the washington post," moderator of washington week on msnbc. berit berger, former u.s. assistant attorney with the eastern and southern districts of new york, and nbc news correspondent carol lee. good evening and welcome to you all. and carol, i need to start with you here. your reporting on fiona hill, two things. what might she be able to speak to? and tell us a little bit about her and how she stood out among members of the trump crowd. >> sure. well, first, she was someone who is seen as a real ru

the national security council's top expert on ukraine, who still works in the white house. he's wrapping up ten hours of testimony tonight. he testified that most of what is revealed in that rough log of that july 25th call between president trump and ukraine's president, where trump pressured the ukrainian leader to investigate joe biden, tried to shake him down, that it's accurate. but "the new york times" is reporting that colonel vindman told investigators that at the point of the transcript where the third set of ellipses appear, okay, that president trump said there were tapes of biden discussing ukraine corruption. and he reportedly told investigators that the transcript omitted crucial words and phrases, and that his attempts to include them failed. of course you'll remember that when the white house originally released the transcript of that call, they specifically told cnn -- and i quote here -- the ellipses do not indicate missing words or phrases. hmm. well, vindman testified that he gave his transcript edits to timothy morrison, the national security council's

vindman told the national security council lawyer what the president did was wrong.erg proposed a step that other officials have said is at odds with other white house protocol -- moving a transcript of the call to a highly class y classified server. i want to know broadly speaking how important is the handling of these notes to you? >> let me just say -- i can comment on that. i was white house staff secretary. i spent three years in the west wing. i had a code word, top clearance. it is unusual what was done here. one explanation is this is a consciousness of guilt. there is awareness that there is a problem. obviously it has become on enormous problem. to cover it up, to deep six it in some code word national security database which would never include something as banal as a call memorandum even if it was confidential is a red flag for me. by the way, there is reporting out there that there were other call transcripts put in the database. i would like to know what the reason for that was since it seems to be where you try to hide the president's misconduct. >> la

he's one of president trump's top advisers on the national security council. and his testimony notably marks two significant firsts here. and when we're talking about the line of witnesses who have appeared up here on capitol hill, he will be the first official from inside the white house to testify in this probe. he also will be the first person who was actually on that now-infamous call between president trump and the ukrainian president on july 25th. so potentially providing some insider accounts of what he heard on that call. his name also notably appeared 15 times in the opening statement of bill taylor. the president's top diplomat in the ukraine who testified up here earlier this week who essentially laid out the quid pro quo. and sources tell cnn that morrison is expected to corroborate a lot of those claims that bill taylor made. but he is also expected to say that he did not see anything wrong with what the administration was doing. and that important to note there also negotiations in the works right now for potential testimony for former national s

public opinion. >> basil, another one we were watching out for is laura cooper as well as national security councildirector of european affairs. national security council. >> not a lot of happy people. >> can't be. i answer that by attaching michael's point. if you remember a couple weeks back, the fox poll said that 51% of this country thought that this president was more corrupt than any other president in history. what seems to be happening is americans are starting to connects the dots. and the democrats have done a pretty good job up to now in helping that happen. and i think when you have national security advisers and all these others coming to create this testimony, this is moment where democrats can really deliver the case for the american people. >> noelle, 15 seconds. >> what a lot of republicans are looking at as we go into election year, how does this translate into votes? >> charlie, is that true? are they communicating it well there in the beltway? 15 seconds to you. >> well, these are hearings taking place behind closed doors, unlike 1974. that means it's leaks and snippets. we have

reported my concerns to the national security council's lead counsel. complained once after speaking with ambassador sondland. let's bring in david gregory and cnn political correspondent abby phillip. what i'm so struck by in this long statement of what he's going to say today is how unambiguous it was to so many people, people who are the experts, who are the ukraine experts, who are in the national security council meaning national security experts, they found it unambiguous what the president was asking. it wasn't like i kind of wondered if the president -- no, they said i was completely uncomfortable when i heard that. >> yeah, they were uncomfortable with the call. they were uncomfortable with the push that giuliani was making to denigrate ukraine to the president which he also says in this statement was contrary to u.s. foreign policy and american interests. so when he heard that call, and i noted a couple of things. first of all, he was on the call. he was the person who actually verified the transcript, so there have been a lot of questions abo

coming into sharp relief today from national security officials who served alongside john bolton, a current senior official from donald trump's national security councils behind closed doors this hour after announcing yesterday that he plans to step down to pursue other opportunities. that official tim morrison corroborating what is largely thought to be among the most incriminating accounts delivered to date. that's the testimony of diplomat bill taylor who described under oath last week a quid pro quo directed by donald trump himself from "the washington post" report on morrison's testimony, quote, morrison said that he alerted taylor to a push by trump and his deputies to withhold both security aid and the white house visit for the ukrainian president until ukraine agreed to investigate the bidens and interference in the 2016 presidential election. that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. from "the washington post," national political reporter robert costa. former chief spokesman for the department of justice matt miller. with us at the table, nick confess ori, political reporter for the "new york times." a.b. s

inside the national security council, they believe it is a crime. they talk to white house lawyers about it. that doesn't appear to go anywhere. but now we have learned that inside the national security council, they also believe this was a national security risk and a counterintelligence danger. and that was reported to intelligence officials inside the white house. and that appears to be the new plot that is opening up now. i mean, if the house wants to impeach trump for trying to wheedle a foreign government into giving him help against his democratic opponents in the next election, they got that already, right? that is done and vested. to the extent there was a cover-up, an effort to cover-up that crime in the white house, a lot of that evidence is already fairly clear as well. you could imagine they could very easily draw up an article of impeachment about the crime of trying to use a foreign government to help in his election. that's one article. another article can be the cover-up. right? the hiding of the notes from the president's call to uk

so vindman reported those concerns to the lead lawyer for the national security council after that call. i want to just emphasize that that is not a small thing to do. colonel vindman is a 20-year veteran, he is the national security's top ukraine expert. he testifies as an active-duty military officer the command structure is extremely important to me. he's choosing to report what the president of the united states did on a phone call as inappropriate was not a small decision and his testimony today, of course, totally refutes what the commander in chief continues to insist. >> the conversation was -- was perfect. %-p. a perfect call. >> this was a perfect conversation. >> but vindman did not only raise concerns about that call in trump's behavior on it. vindman also reported a meeting that he had with trump's ambassador to the eu gordon sondland, a meeting in which he testified, quote, i stated to ambassador sondland that his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate biden and his son had nothing to do with national security. that damning statement contradicts son

as you mentioned, he's an army officer assigned to the national security council. his opening statement tells house investigators that he listened in on the july 25th call in question between presidents trump and zelensky and was so disturbed, andrea, by what he heard on that call that he reported it to the nsc legal council. it wasn't just one instance. there was another instance. on july 10th, he says, gored sondla gordon sondland was in a meeting and according to his account, sondland brought up this request for investigation into the bidens. again, vindman says, he flagged that to the nsc counsel. to refresh people's memories, gordon sondland is one of the officials who allegedly, apparently, according to several testimonies, was deputized by trump to run this ukrainian pressure campaign outside normal state department channels. that speaks to the substance of what house investigators are learning from lieutenant colonel vindman today. politically, though, andrea, his appearance is significant too. he was subpoenaed but is appearing willfully. there are other o