ambassador taylor telling congress that multiple senior administration officials informed him that the president personally blocked military aid to ukraine and refused to meet with that country's new president unless ukraine agreed to investigate joe biden and the 2016 u.s. election. >> that is big. we will lay it all out for you this morning. meantime, cnn has learned that members of the president's inner circle are urging him to accept the fact that they believe impeachment is coming and that it's now time they say to focus on attacking democrats and on the whole impeachment process itself. all of this is two more top u.s. officials are expected to testify this morning on capitol hill. so let's begin there. let's go to manu raju who joins us on the hill. let's talk about bill taylor's testimony. your reporting this morning is that there were audible sighs and gasps as taylor read that opening statement. >> yeah, and in one specific passage in particular, one in which the -- for the first time