if the white house blocks sondland or sondland himself refuses to comply, do you hold him in contempts a decision we take step by step. i think it's the natural order that we would move toward, but i don't want to blow it all up if there's any hope. i may be wildly optimistic, but we're here and ready to listen. this is obviously a critical witness. i think if i feel anything after today is, i feel a sense of panic in the white house. for the first time, the public mood about this has changed. for the first time, it's not just smoke, it's the fire that the public can see. and i think the president's reacting as such. >> speaking about the mood in the white house, jim acosta has new reporting from someone familiar with the discussions inside of the president's impeachment team. the days of playing nice are done, unquote. so what do you think then, congressman, let's fast forward to friday when you're to hear from the former ambassador to ukraine. what do you think portends for the possibility of that testimony happening? >> i smile because if they have been playing nice so far, as sure

sondland was a big rnc donor and a jeb bush donor.esident came into office, he had to work to show that he was loyal to the president. he worked steve mnuchin, jared kushner, reince priebus. he'd eventually get that ambassadorship. once he received that ambassa r ambassadorsh ambassadorship, sondland was willing to be very loyal to the president. he managed to take over the, crane portfolio. working outside the national security counsel. going through mick mulvaney and the president to handle ukrainian issues and gordon sondland became a key player in this role through initially giving lots of money to the republican party. then after he made some anti-trump comments during the campaign, repeatedly ingratiating himself with top advisers to convince them to give him a post in the administration. and now playing the key role in all of this. >> we are -- folks at home, we just have a copy now of his testimony that manu was referencing here. i want to read a section again here. this is a remarkable break between the eu ambassador sondland

what do you make of the late breaking news that sondland was talking to trump, sondland who is ambassadore eu, so still puzzled as to why he was involved in this to start with, but talking to president trump and talking to the acting ambassador to ukraine on an encrypted app. >> hearing it actually from you guys, it is unbelievable. but again, knowing this administration, it is not unbelievable that something like this would happen. >> that is what stephanie keeps say, i don't know why we're all surprised by this. but you did get up thinking that you were going to who got up this morning thinking he was going to testify then that all changed. what are the rest of us who aren't in politics supposed to think b about that? >> well, i mean i would think there's a lack of transparency. excuse me. there's obstruction. interference. i don't think we should be surprised about that either. even though he agreed to testify. 12:30 a.m. there's a voice mail that he isn't. it's just for the obstruction of the inquiry. >> so what do you do about that? because you could say the it's inappropriate, obstr

sondland didn't do that. sondland turns them over to state. and so those are things the committee desperately wants to get at as well and it will now have to fight for. in that white house today it suggests it's going to be a and a brutal fight. >> there's a bunch of evidence about them. not allowing congress to see them. thank you very much. >> i'd like to matt miller, an msnbc justice and national security analyst and former national security advisor and representative to the united nations. when i first started to see this story i thought to myself i must be missing something. why is the ambassador to eu the one in the middle of this? ukraine's not in the eu but the more i'm learning the more it seems it had nothing to do with his portfolio. and everything to do with his relationship to the president. is this a strange setup? >> it's very strange. ambassador sondland was new to the game, got sucked in to the awe of being in the trump's orbit. this is someone he could get to do his bidding. the president has got the authority to tell him to

manu, tell us why democrats wanted to hear from sondland. >> sondland played a key role in discussions about setting up a meeting and having discussions after president trump talked to the president of ukraine zelensky about the president's desire to investigate joe biden, have the ukranians investigate joe biden. around that conversation the president had with zelensky, someone engaged with individuals about moving forward in setting up both a meeting with the ukranian government and the president of the united states. that meeting had been put on ice. the ukranians had raised concerns about that. also he was involved in discussions about why military aid was withheld. he said in one of the text messages with another diplomat that there was no quid pro quo and then there were more messages in that text message exchange. someone said, call me. he told that to bill taylor on capitol hill. they also wanted to see these text messages of his own that had not been turned over yet to capitol hill. adam schiff came out after this was announced, that someone would not appear, and made it very

the following day on september 8th, ambassador sondland and i," meaning ambassador sondland and bill taylor, "spoke on the phone. he said he had talked to president trump. during our call on september 8th, ambassador sondland tried to explain to me that president trump is a businessman. when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said the businessman asks him to pay up before signing the check. i argued that the explanation made no sense, the ukrainians did not owe president trump anything and holding up military assistance for our domestic political gain was crazy." gordon sondland told bill taylor that after he spoke with president trump he then spoke once again with the ukrainian president and with the ukrainian president's assistant. "ambassador sondland said that this conversation concluded with president zelensky agreeing to make a public statement in an interview with cnn. after that call with ambassador sondland, i expressed my strong reservations in a text message to him stating my nightmare is that they, the ukrainians, give that interv

then vindman and hill confronted sondland.ted 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 something the nsc was going to get involved in or push, vindman testified. dr. hill then entered the room and asserted to ambassador sondland that his statements were inappropriate. >> he heard ambassador sondland tell the ukrainians that to get a white house meeting, that they needed to deliver on investigations into vice president biden. that, anderson, is a "that for that" in other words, a quid pro quo. >> >> reporter: but when sondland testified, he offered a different version of events, saying if ambassador bolton, dr. hill or others harbored any misgivings about the propriety of what we were doing, they nifr shared them with me. he also said he was not aware that burisma was connected to the bidens until much later. bolton encouraged hill to report what she had seen to a national securi

according to a person with knowledge of sondland's planned testimony, sondland will say that he called the president in the interim and that it was trump who was the source of his language that there was no quid pro quo. sondland will reportedly say that he relied on the president's assurances in good faith and passed these along to taylor. the news was first reported by "the washington post" which reports that sondland's language in the text was relayed to him directly by trump in a phone call, according to a person familiar with his testimony. for "the washington post," he also plans to testify that he has no knowledge of whether the president was telling him the truth. that at that moment, it's only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth. well, joining me now to discuss, david corn, msnbc political analyst and co-author of russian roulette. cynthia oxney and paul butler, both former federal prosecutors and legal analysts. david? >> well -- >> your thoughts? >> this is a classic case of someone jumping off the ship before he believes the ship goes down because he'

they're speaking under oath and it's directly contradicting what sondland also said.id that fiona hill and no other national security official raised any concerns with him and didn't say anything he was doing was acting improperly, that's his word for it and vindman told congress today that he directly said and fiona hill directly said to sondland's face that he was acting inappropriately. there's no daylight between inappropriate, there's no other way around it. >> and they expressed those concern, abby, so strenuously that they reported it to the lead counsel of the nsc. it wasn't like, he shouldn't have said that. it was very formal and very specific. ambassador sondland is the person in all of this, and not just is his testimony sort of on an island. he is very close to the president. >> yeah. i think that's what makes his testimony so important and why getting to the bottom of what those differences are and why they seem to exist is really important. sondland is the only person who has testified so far who has had extensive, direct contact with the president on t

sondland, mr.olker, to what extent was secretary perry a very important member of that triumverate? >> william taylor and gordon sunday mand a sondland are in a credibility clash. saying 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. t

sondland says, call me. now we know, and we don't know if it was this call or other calls during that time period, but now we know according to bill taylor's testimony, sondland said i believe it has to do with these political investigations and, gloria, what you say is something else the white house is quick to point out. >> what is your assessment we're seeing come out of the hill today? >> as a former prosecutor i would look at bill taylor as a very good witness. contemporaneously made sure he written documentations what he was hearing. it wasn't the first time sondland said call me yet he koch continued to put things in text record making a record. i wouldn't be surprised if he memorialized this in another way and in congress i would be asking is there some other memorialization. doesn't necessarily get to the problem he wasn't speaking directly to the president, but remember we know by the time he's having the conversations with sondland about these, about this entire withholding of aid, there's already

and i think sondland has a lot of explaining to do.t's worth pointing out 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, and about concealing what kwyoue 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. they are about teamwork, about long-term service of our country. and that's what's the inspiring part, but we've got the sordid. and i put sondland in that category, quite frankly. he bought an ambassadorship. he wanted to please the president. he had no long-term commitment to what the ukraine policy has traditionally been and even one buy john bolton supported to root out corruption in ukraine and defend it from foreign aggression. so sondland has got a lot of explaining to do, but he was clearly doing the bidding of the president. >> we all know it was public information that sondland was offered the standard opportunity in

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

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

ambassador sondland responded asking me to call him, which i did. during that phone call, gordon sondland told me that president trump told him he wants president zelensky to state publicly that ukraine will investigate burisma and alleged ukrainian interference in the 2016 u.s. election. ambassador sondland also told me he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a white house meeting was dependent on a public announcement of an investigation. in fact, ambassador sondland said, everything was dependent on such an announcement, including the military assistance. he said president trump wanted president zelensky in a public box by making a public statement about ordering such investigations. it's important that you say it out loud. if the whole point is to use them for your re-election effort, then people have to know about the investigations, right? you need a public announcement. within a week of that, he says, disturbing conversation, ambassador taylor received another readout about

so he can join ambassador sondland in that arena. but certainly, sondland, of course, is in a bit of trouble, because it looks like he may have misled congress when he went up to testify. >> and jonathan alter, to stress to the audience, since the republicans have been lying about this, tomorrow's deposition is -- there's 48 republican members of the house who have a right to be in that deposition, listen to ever word, and ask every question they might want to ask of colonel vindman. there are republican staff members in that room. and so this is their chance to talk -- their first chance, to talk to someone who actually listened to the trump phone call. >> and i don't think they're going to do anything to knock him down. there's no indication that the republicans have laid a glove on any of these other people being deposed. they know that their president is in a pickle. and what eventually a lot of them are going to do is just say, well, this doesn't rise to the level of impeachment. they're not even going to try to contest the fact

and this is what sondland -- this is sondland from last week.scussions with any state department or white house official about former vice president biden or his son. nor do i recall taking part in any effort to encourage an investigation into the bidens." but taylor described sondland relaying trump's insistence that president zelensky go to the microphone and say he is opening investigations of biden and the 2016 interference and that president zelensky should want to do this himself. given that discrepancy, will you again subpoena gordon sondland to clarify his testimony? >> yeah, that's above my pay grade, but listen, i think anybody who comes before congress and swears an oath should tell the truth and if they don't, they should be held accountable. and if they have some concerns about the veracity of their testimony, maybe they should come back in and clear it up, because the evidence we are going to put together is going to round out the real facts about what this president did, who helped him, why they did it. and it's because of guys li

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

quoting sondland. and i assume you want sopd -- sondland so come back for more testimony. >> sondland needs to come back and answer some questions and it is clear on what did the ukrainians know and when. and i think in the documents on your website it makes it clear that the ukrainians did not know about the aid issue until after the phone call whose transcript was provided by the white house. now, again, i think there is two lines of effort here. is this the way diplomacy should be conducted and was there a -- a crime and was there a committing of a crime. think people made it clear if you try to use federal resources to benefit yourself, whether that is getting information on an opponent, that is a crime and so this is something that there are still more questions. this is why i've been supportive of the hearings. to try to understand these questions. but also i'm going to make sure that we're hearing everything out and turning over every stone. unfortunately some people have already made a decision

taylor said sondland quote, president trump said it was not a quid pro quo. ambassador sondland said that he had talked to president zelensky is his assistant and told them although this is not a quid pro quo if president zelensky did not clear things up in public, we would be at a stalemate. i understood stalemate to mean ukraine would not receive the much needed military assistance. so again, it was not a quid pro quo, put if president zelensky didn't do exactly what president trump wanted him to do, manufacture dirt on his opponent, announce it on american television, then ukraine would not get the military aid passed by congress and signed into law it so desperately needed to defend itself from a russian army occupying a part of the country. actually, there's another way to describe that kind of arrangement. it's extortion. nice country. it would be a shame if something happened to it. joining me now are two congress people who attended bill taylor's deposition today. i are understand the normal rules of engagement here you will not talk about testimony p

today, he tweeted an hour ago, i want sondland to testify, but it's a kangaroo court.hat's all huey. that's all huey. this is all hiding the truth, hiding the facts and dodging. >> before you go, congressman, we have new reporting from our pamela brown saying it is clear that the white house counsel's office is directing other government agencies, it advised sondland's office to block testimony. what's your reaction telling the state department that this ambassador cannot testify in defiance of congress? >> well, the white house counsel has done this over a period of time, and they've filed proceedings on behalf of trump. the court in new york basically said the claim that they were beyond being investigated or being in the state court was just huey and was repugnant. what we saw with trump saying he had the great of the wisdom or infinite wisdom, we're seeing the "the wizard of oz" playing out for the american public. he thinks he's thew wizard said and great. powerful and terrible. trump saw "the wizard of oz" once too much. he's more like the scarecrow than the wiza

sondland says, call me.all, ambassador sondland told me that president trump had told him that he wanted a public announcement. there it is, right? no? >> yes. first of all, a subtext here. sondland, volker, maybe others, are now in hot water. and it's going to be a favorable dynamic for congress because they're going to have to try to exculpate themselves. but it's as you say, if you believe taylor, and why wouldn't you, as frank says, an honest, earnest guy with no motive to lie, it's game over. as a prosecutor the question is do you put him up first or do you put him up last. it's overwhelming testimony. here's one piece you haven't read. trump said no quid pro quo but he did insist that zelensky go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of biden and 2016 election interference and zelensky should want to do this himself. you don't need to know latin to know that's a quid pro quo and exactly what they were talking about. the facts of the matter will now be 100% clear and it will fall to repub

>> sondland is not a normal ambassador. he's a million dollar donor to president trump's campaign, 2016. he was acting as the president's surrogate in ukraine even though he had a special envoy in kurt volker. a diplomatic staff in kiev. he gave license to sondland who was supposed to be representing the united states in brussels to be an uber diplomat. not a member at all. so it was an unusual circumstance to begin with. to have the president personally interacting with the president on this is is unusual. he like to pick up the phone and talk to people. in that sense, it may not be that unusual for this president who likes to engage with people outside of the normal channels of a process that other presidents have respected. >> joyce, can you give us the entire process of what it will take for democrats to get so sondland to sit in front of them? >> i'm nout sure democrats really care about getting this testimony. the president announce d his strategy was to tone stone wall, to fail to comply with every subpoena acceptabi

we've known for days that sondland was going to testify. the white house decided last night to block this testimony. so something happened last night where they decided to change their strategy. and our reporting is that it's because they've decided that they are no longer going to play nice with investigators. now, the house democrats can move towards subpoenas. but subpoenas may not even end up forcing this testimony either. because we've seen the white house using all kinds of convoluted legal arguments to prevent documents from being procured. but listen to what adam schiff said. he was very clear. we will use this as evidence of obstruction that can become an article of impeachment. it's very possible, kate, that democrats might just add this to the pile of things that they want to create for articles of impeachment and simply move towards that vote. >> elie, why do you think adam schiff revealed when he spoke earlier this morning that the state department is in his view withholding a personal device with text messages of sondland's wi

pacific.4:00 this is adam schiff reacting to the news that corey soundly and sondland is barred from testifying in the house impeachment inquiry. good morning. we were informed about an hour and a half ago by the attorney for investors on lind that the state department would refuse to allow him to testify today. this was after a conversation -- after conversations well into yesterday afternoon and evening whichhe legal advisor, there was no indication the abbasid or would be a no-show -- ambassador would be a no-show. not only is people -- are people being deprived of his testimony, but we are also aware the ambassador has text messages or emails on a personal device, which have been provided to the state department, although we have requested those from the ambassador. the state department is withholding those messages as well. those messages are also deeply relevant to this investigation, and the impeachment inquiry. i want to just explain, for the public, the significance of this witness and significance of the decision by the secretary of state and president or president or both

sondland has problems.e has to come in and either recant or he may be prosecuted. >> do you think the justice department what should investigator, i mean in what way? >> well, they -- when they -- when this case was referred initially they tok a pass saying they don't see anything amiss here. that's just -- that's absurd. their not investigating is almost aiding and abetting the conspiracy. the fact that barr knows they are not investigating in and turned it down. it got turned down apparently at the assistant attorney general level in the criminal division and did it obviously because they knew the center of the conspiracy is the president of the united states just like the watergate cover-up. >> that's what's so extraordinary about this story, is that at the core is not what i see as a crime. you know in the sense of a violation of federal law. it's an abuse of presidential pow this seems like classic quichement case. because everything flows from the president's apparent decision to condition aid to the

gordon sondland, who was trump's ambassador to the european union, trump plans to tell them it was sondlandenied to do anything of any kind when they denied pressure they were putting on ukraine. and sondland is expected to say he didn't know if trump was telling the truth at the time. jeremy diamond is with us. jeremy, any reporting on the white house of this upcoming testimony of sondland? >> reporter: remember, it was the white house that previously directed sondland not to testify in this impeachment inquiry. that was before this subpoena came through and now sondland will testify, and they have not heard from the white house that he will be directed not to testify this week. especially as it relates to the questions about the quid pro quo in the ukraine matter, he will not be the only official testifying in this matter. fiona hill was the top adviser to the russia security council. she actually stepped down a few days before that call with the ukranian president back in july, and you will have top officials testifying this week in capitol hill. they are not just testimonies in this imp

now sondland previously was supposed to testify last week. state department and white house blocked his testimony but now under subpoena, he says he will testify and he was the one of those ambassadors who was wrapped up in those text messages that show there was some concern, particularly from the united states top diplomat in ukraine who was a career diplomat that there was some kind of quid pro quo afoot and sondland, a political donor to the president and a business man who was apointed ambassador to the european union, dismissed those concerns. in one of these text messages, as i said on the phone, i think it's crazy to withhold security stance for help with a political campaign. that's bill taylor. sondland replies, bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been crystal clear. no quid quos of any kind. now according to the "washington post," sondland will testify it was the president who spoke with him on the phone and told him directly there was no quid pro quos, but get this, sondland will

gordon sondland. the view of the white house and state department is house democrats aren't playing by the rules and established procedures and once they do that the administration would be willing to cooperate on some level. the reason gordon sondland matters the september text messages he exchanged with a top u.s. diplomat to the ukraine bill taylor. they read taylor, are we now saying security assistance and white house meeting, reference to a meeting with the ukrainian leader and the president are conditioned on investigations? sondland said call me. the next text. as i said on the phone i think it's crazy to withhold security assistant with help with a political campaign. the president said no quid pro quo of any kind. he is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. in advance of what was anticipated to be this transcribed interview this morning we heard from republicans and democrats who laid out

gordon sondland. quote, during that phone call, he told me that president trump had told him that he wants president zelensky to stay publicly that ukraine will investigate alleged ukraine interference in the election. sondland also told me he recognized he made a mistake by earlier telling ukrainian officials that a white house meeting was dependent on a public announcement of investigations. in fact, he said everything was dependent on such an announcement. including security assistance. ukraine's involvement in 2016 is a conspiracy that's been proven false and barisma is the energy company who hired hunter biden. >> you could hear a pin drop as the ambassador has laid out in his opening statement. >> a source familiar with sondland's testimony said he was only speculating about the political investigations. sondland also told taylor the aid may have been frozen because of corruption or because of the europeans weren't getting enough money to ukraine. taylor's testimony fills in the gaps with other

gordon sondland. quote,on trump told ambassador sondland he was not asking for a quid pro quo. but president trump did insist that president slin szelenskiy do this himself. he was insisting that he publicly announce investigations into hispu political rival, an t again which is itself an impeachable offense. sond land spoke to trump and cleared things up saying, quote, president trump said it was not a quid pro quo. they keep saying it like it was a magical indication. ambassador sondland said he talked to president zelenskiy it was not a quid pro quo. p if they didn't clear this up in public, we't would be at a stalemate. i understood stalemate to mean that ukraine would not receive the much needed military assistance. so, again, it was not a quid pro quo, but if president zelenskiy didn't do exactly what president trump wanted him to do, manufacture dirt on his opponent,ur announce it on american, television, then ukraine would not get the military aid passed by congress and signed to law that it so desperately needed to defend itself from ade russian army occupying part of

if ambassador sondland or dr. hill or vindman uttered impropriety he never said them to me then or later. not only does it run counter to tells of vindman and hill who were in that meeting but they felt it was so outrageous what he did they went to the national security council lawyers to report it. brooke? >> that's right. the lead counsel and the incons. not just july 10th but later after the phone call, july 25th. thank you very much. analyze this. dana bash is cnn's chief political correspondent and also the served on the bush and obama national counsel and ladies, dig in and start with you, i want you to underscore vindman's character may be unparalleled so far in this whole inquiry. talk to me more about his background and how that speaks to who he is. >> yeah. i mean, he is a military officer, and he not only is that, he was an infantry man, in the army and was serving in the iraq war when he was injured because of a roadside bomb. and he got the purple heart after that incident. after that, he worked, star

now what bill sondland, gordon sondland says in this testimony is that essentially that he was not aware what giuliani was up to, but what he could be doing when we potentially attempting to help the president's 2020 re-election campaign. some democrats are raising some concerns with what sondland said because he has distanced himself dramatically. one democrat of california says that he has a case of quote selective amnesia because he was not aware of this. but this testimony is expected to go on for several more hours as one key appointee here acknowledges troubling acts by the president and rudy giuliani. >> all these witnesses have been testifying seven, eight, nine, ten hours over the mast several days. >>> mulvaney's admission appears to be b the roll out of a new legal strategy to fight the impeachment inquiry. evan perez is working that a part of the story if r us. it came as a surprise to justice department officials. zwl. >> this was a test drive of a legal strategy and it immediately ran into a ditch. mulvaney's mention tieing what he says giuliani, the president were doing ab

sondland is a trump megadonor with no diplomatic experience. hill told house investigators during her testimony that she was concerned about sondland's cell phone use according to abc's mary bruce. >> hill said he would frequently use his personal cell phone for diplomatic affairs, potentially leaving him vulnerable and reportedly took it upon himself to invite foreign officials to the white house. david, hill was so concerned that she reportedly raised this issue with white house intelligence officials. >> reporter: sondland has defended the president against accusations that trump was withholding military aid to the ukraine until ukrainians agreed to investigate joe biden and his son. in text messages already turned over to house investigators, america's top diplomat in ld security assistance for help with a political campaign. sondland responds, the president has been crystal clear. no quid pro quos of any kind. according to "the washington post," sondland is expected to tell congress today that that response was essentially dictated by the

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

nbc news confirmed sondland, only sondland, the guy that issued this response spoke to donald trump on a phone call right before sending this response to the u.s. ambassador to ukraine. moments ago, speaker nancy pelosi had this to say about sondland suddenly not testifying on capitol hill today. >> this is very serious for our country and must be treated with respect and solemnly, somberly, again, we have to conduct how we go forward to be worthy of the constitution that we are trying to protect from the abuses of this president of the united states. >> joining me from capitol hill, msnbc's garrett hague, and from the white house, nbc's hans nichols. this is hard to follow, we're going to do it as orderly as we can. hans, let's start with you. now we have new information from rudy giuliani. >> reporter: the president's personal attorney is indicating he is not going to appear before congress without a fight. he is not totally ruling out the idea that he would testify before either a house committee or whatever lindsey graham is offering, but he is saying that he can't be compelled to

both of those statements contradict sondland because sondland said this under oath in his deposition. if ambassador bolton, dr. hill or any others harbored any misgivings about the propriety of what we were doing, they never shared those misgivings with me then or later. >> problems here, one, because the testimony corroborates the whistle-blower complaint, of course. contradicts many statements by the president and others but sondland in particular because he swore under -- he testified under oath. raises the question whether they bring him back to reconcile this testimony. we have elie honig and retired rear admiral john kirby. the democrats are basically playing this out like a legal case. so you had sondland say, they never came to me with any of these concerns, one, but now vindman is saying not only he and others did. do democrats bring back sondland and say, how do you reconcile these two? >> i think you do. i'm not sure sondland should go back in. he may have potential exposure here. if i'm his lawyer i say we might be needing to take the fifth amendment here. it's two against

sondland, i think, is almost certain to be called back.t want to call him a person perjuror at this point. sondland should be given another chance to refresh his reflection and maybe testify more extensively than he did before. >> everyone, stick around. much more to discuss about the events on capitol hill today and tomorrow and another big day in testimony will coincide with that big vote on the impeachment resolution. if you have moderate to thsevere rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. humira can help stop the clock. prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your

sondland asked the president what do you want?rce says president trump responded that he didn't want anything. that there was no quid pro quo. and, in fact, that was what was texted back from sondland to taylor. there was no quid pro quo with the president. just getting that out there. it's there has been a lot of reporting today. fox news can confirm it through our own john roberts. debating from john roberts sources here from fox news. i want to, if we can just also talk about what's happening with impeachment as a whole. because, david, you were talking about the strategy and how it could work for republicans yes or no. what's working for democrats? or not? >> i think public opinion is moving towards them but even just going back through this, you know, this new text message thread with sondland. the worry from the democratic party side is that this gets strung along too long and it gets sort of months and months in the weeds and they lose their focus. and that you get committee hearings and they start going down all these diff

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sondland's statement is very kind to sondland as you might expect. he says that, in fact, there was kurt volker and rick perry who did most of the work through giuliani. but he describes himself as disappointed that giuliani, the president's personal attorney, who again has absolutely no actual role in the united states government, was essentially deputized by the president directly to run ukraine policy. he describes his frustration at the way marie yovanovitch was tweeted. says she was an excellent ambassador. he goes counter to the state department's official narrative on this issue here. and that is just in his opening statement alone. lawmakers will be picking apart his conversation with the president which sondland says the president repeated to him several times no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo. all of this before the phone call that started this whole impeachment inquiry which by the way sondland says he knew nothing about the actual content thereof but knew the president was interested in rooting out corruption more broadly. he appears in th

gordon sondland, call me. let's stop texting about this.here may be an explanation, but if you just look at these text messages, gordon sondland realized, let's stop texting about this because this is a problem. >> he was also not a long-time diplomat. so one of the questions that would have come up today had he fwlen, what was his role exactly? was he also trying to pressure members of the eu to also withhold aid? i think that's something still to be asked. we have to remember who he is, but he was here in washington, and the white house blocked that this morning. >> the other witness they hope testifies frichlt the state department could say no gn. he was a donor for the trump campaign to go in and manage this situation because the career people like bill taylor, like the ambassador and they're saying, wait a second, you're asking us to do something we're not comfortable doing. >> and the president was the one spe specifically pushing yavonovitch's ouster. to the point rudy giuliani had to get involved to remind the president about how sh

you hearing any interest in having sondland back? >> reporter: absolu've heard fr democrats who say sondland m cen up some of his testimony. remember, he told the panel here originally that he had turned over a lot of his text messages and things like that to the state department on the hopes that state would then turn it over as part of the inquiry. that has not happened yet. who knows if there's anything exonerating or could possibly be beneficial for sondland's side of the story in those text messages, documents, whatever else he might have turned over. yes, as matter of fact, that has been one of the few things that we've heard fairly consistently from democrats coming out of this -- these locked up meeting rooms downstairs that, yeah, gordon sondland may be making a return appearance. >> i want to give you the last word, neal katyal. where are we today? >> well, i think we're in the middle of the investigation and i think there's still other stuff and i think the reason why there's other stuff is this. the evidence so far is rea

gordon sondland was supposed to show up but was blocked by the state department. it was sondland that texted the president of ukraine that president trump wants the deliverable. that suggested a link. if ukraine investigates joe biden and his son, the white house will set up a meeting between ukraine and the president. >> he didn't think there was a quid pro quo for the president to release security aid to ukraine. "the washington post" suggests that the gist of that text was guinn to sondland by the president himself. sondland is expected to testify that he has no knowledge if the president was telling the truth. >> he didn't understand at the time the president wanted an investigation into the bidens. and the source says sondland is pushing back on the idea that national security advisers were alarmed about a possible quid pro quo. their meeting was supposed to be about syria and turkey. according to a senior democratic aide, the president called james mattis, quote, the world's most overrated general. he claimed fewer than 100 isis prisoners, the last dangerous

trump diplomat gordon sondland wa

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