Sondland is not your typical diplomat. Kurt volker has been someone in that realm for years and years. Gordon sondland is a hotel magnet. He is a large trump donor. He was appointed by the president to be ambassador to the eu. He was deeply involved in these Text Exchanges setting up this meeting or trying to set up this meeting between the leader of the ukraine and the president of the United States. One of the things that last stood out from the beginning is that ukraine is not part of the eu, so it didnt make sense why he would be involved in these Text Exchanges. People were excited specifically democrats about sonde laugh speaking to investigators behind closed doors and this morning it was canceled. So lets clarify the players. Gordon sondland ambassador to the European Union ukraine is not in the European Union. And then ambassador to the actual u. S. Ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor. And then there is kurt volker who was the special envoy to ukraine. You say why is there a special envoy and an ambassador . They have different roles. The special envoy is not an official state department position. It is not a paid position. It is sort of a parttime person who is involved in this thing. These three guys were involved in a discussion about why the aid was being held up to ukraine. And one of the reasons people were enthusiastic about hearing from sondland today when they were going back and forth in the Text Exchange discussing quid pro quo, he was the one who said no more discussing this on he said there is no quid pro quo, but no more discussing this on text, lets call. Without a doubt the number one question would have been why did you need to get on the phone. And between the time that the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor, texted Gordon Sondland about this and the time that he responded via text, some time went by and that has become what is central to what we are learning now. Lets go to Josh Letterman who can shed some light on what happened. There was a conversation with these three people and then you have news on what happened after that. Reporter yeah, we now know that ambassador to the eu Gordon Sondland was in frequent contact directly with President Trump about ukraine, including in that period of time after he got that text message from bill taylor the acting ambassador in ukraine saying it is crazy for us to be linking military assistance to ukraine with help for a Political Campaign. Four or five hours had passed before sondland responded to mr. Taylor and in that time we now can report that sondland phoned the president , spoke to him about ukraine and then later responded and that is the message in which he kind of shuts down bill taylor, says i think that you are incorrect about the president s intentions, hes been Crystal Clear no quid pro quo and he also says i think that we should take this conversation off line, stop putting it in text message. And so lets just make something clear. The administration did not block kurt volker from speaking last week. We dont know if they are going to do the same with the other testimony scheduled on friday. But to the best of your knowledge, Gordon Sondland was the only one who was speaking directly to the president regarding ukraine . Reporter we also know that kurt volker had occasional conversations with the president and was senl ha certainly in with the white house. The white house couldnt really block him from testifying because he resigned, he was no longer part of the u. S. Government, so it would be harder for them to direct him not to testify which is exactly what the state department did in a call last night at 12 30 in the morning to ambassador sondland according to his attorneys. And as you mentioned, that other person were really watching to see whether or not she will now testify, former ambassador to ukraine, maria yovanotivch. If she gets told by the government not to testify, she might have to comply with that, because lawmakers eager to hear from her about why she was pulled out of that job by the administration several months ahead of schedule. Has anyone articulated that . The most weve heard from the president is that i heard she did bad things. Do we know anything more than that . Reporter we know that the president in that call with zelgs ca zelensky called her, quote, bad news. And Rudy Giuliani has spoken publicly about the fact that he was encouraging the president to get rid of her because of what he said was her efforts to obstruct what trump was trying to do in ukraine and what he described as her bias against the president. And i want to ask you a that stephanie has been asking. We know who the other participants in the Text Exchange were. One is the acting ambassador to ukraine, that would make sense that hed be involved in a conversation. The other is kurt volker the special envoy, it would make sense he is involved in the conversation. What was Gordon Sondland who is the ambassador to the eu doing in that conversation in the first place . Because as much as you might like to be and it is attached to eu countries, so maybe that is what makes it relevant, but it is not a member of the European Union. Reporter and that is the Million Dollar question weve been trying to answer. We know a few things about that. One, ambassador sochndland was someone who had frequent being a test to President Trump. He said in an interview with ukranian television that trump had asked him in addition to his eu duties to get involved in ukraine. Now, why . Were not exactly sure. We spoke to a senior u. S. Diplomat who said there are a lot of issues that the eu is concerned about having to do with ukraine including energy, corruption, other pan european issues. But as far as sondland getting involved in this bid to do the ukranians to investigate the president s political opponents, we have no real clear indication for why that would be a just fil just filed mo justified move. All right. Stick around. Now lets bring in annie karni and glenn kirshner. Glenn, i know that you are just hearing this news real time as we are. How do you interpret it . It seems like it gets closer and closer to the president if we now have sondland being directed by the administration not to appear, not to talk. And we also know that he was involved in a personal conversation with the president when taylor was calling out the obvious impropriety and sha nanny begans that were going on here. And then of course you almost have to chuckle at that legal disclaimer that will they issue saying, oh, the president says no quid pro quo, nothing you know what, you can see that that did not come from the president personally, that was them trying to cover the tracks. And ill tell you, they are piling up i think fodder for adam schiff to roll this information into an article of impeachment for covering up, for disobeying subpoenas or being ordered not to provide relevant information to now an impeachment hearing, not just an oversight hearing. And annie, i think it never hurts to go back up to 5,000 feet because the average person reading your stories or watching us can get very mixed up in the number of people involved. There is a current ambassador to the ukraine, former ambassador to the ukraine, special envoy to ukraine, there is Gordon Sondland who is not your typical ambassador and he is the ambassador to the eu involved with President Trump. The white house has obviously given a lot of thought to whether or not Gordon Sondland was going to testify and made a late breaking decision. They didnt say no initially, they said no this morning. What are we supposed to make of this . Yeah, i mean it was a late breaking decision. Sondland had flown to washington from brussels in order to testify. His lawyer put out a Statement Today saying he is very disappointed he doesnt get to do it. But what we can conclude right now from the white houses decision is that they are making a calculation that we dont know what the out come is, that the house going for an obstruction charge, another arm of impeachment of article of prooechlt charg proo on obstruction, they think that is a better calculation. We dont know how that will play out and if there really be another charge of obstruction for impeachment. But that is the game plan that this white house which really has no strategy around impeachment at all has made at the 11th hour at 12 30 a. M. Last night. Glenn, help us with a legal perspective here. Because we watched jim jordan and the president s other supporters on television this morning saying until adam schiff releases the entire volker testimony, the entire transcript, we dont feel like we have to participate. This is a Kangaroo Court. When we all know that the white house hasnt released the full transcript of the president s initial call with the president of ukraine. So fromperspective, does either side have a standing to get the other one do anything . Because nobody wants to come to the table. Subject of an investigation doesnt get to set the terms of the investigation any more than a defendant in court gets to set the terms of a prosecution. And i think legally where this is going to end up, one need only look at article 3 of the nixon impeachment articles of impeachment. The nixon disobeyed four congressional subpoenas and those four subpoenas ended up as article three of the nixon articles of impeachment. You can see that with the white house saying dont comply with ise es with the white house sayg dont sit for volunteer interview, with the white house refusing to done over written materials, Text Messages, emails, that sure look like they may be criminal in nature, this is all going to be rolled any predict to an article of impeachment. Lets bring in garrett haake. Stephanie just alluded to a lot of back and forth that has been going on, the president tweeting about a Kangaroo Court referring to congress on their investigation. There have been calls for adam schiff to be impeached, that is a loose use of the term impeachment. And jim jordan and the president s allies have been out there undermining the investigation. What is going on in congress about all of this . Reporter a lot of that is noise quite frankly. There is a lot of sound and fury around the edges of this while the investigative work continues. Or at least the compiling of evidence. And i separate the two because as glenn alluded to, i think that there is a distinctive possibility one growing by the day that lot of the subpoenas sent to the administration will not be complied with. And democrats have made it clear that they are not interested in having a proceed tract theed fight in the courts. They would rather take whatever is not complied with and put it in another file that says this is obstruction and that that could indeed become another article of impeachment on top of whatever they come up with. Remember, democrats feel like they have a pretty strong hand here. They have the memo of the phone call. They expect to get testimony from the whistleblower still. Those are still negotiations that are ongoing. They have the Text Messages already from volker and the other parties you talked about. There is a lot of primary source evidence that exists already making some of this additional interviews and Additional Information ultimately superfluous to what they are doing. It is still unclear what the actual consequences are. I mean, the president is essentially daring nancy pelosi to bring this to it a vote and democrats havent yet moved. Reporter there are two different things. What he is daring her to bring to a vote is an impeachment inquiry, not an article of impeachment. Back when bill clinton was impeached, the inquiry meant something different. These committees have more power unilaterally to issue subpoenas, to have depositions led by staff, than they did in the late 90s. So Nancy Pelosis democrats dont need any Additional Authority to continue doing the investigating that they are doing. But if they were to follow precedent and hold an impeachment inquiry vote to open this formal procedure, then you might have perhaps lawyers for donald trump involved in some of these depositions, you would give republicans a little bit more wright to subpoena things on their own. Democrats dont have to do that and they think that it is politically foolhardy to do so. So no reason do an up or down vote right now from a political perspective if you are democrats. All that does is subject your members to another difficult vote. They would rather have one vote some point down the line on specific articles of impeachment. Perhaps one related directly to the substance of the ukraine call and the ask to china, and then one related to obstruction. And every time that the white house says were not complying with a subpoena, that is the another piece of evidence that they can put in that obstruction file. And annie, garrett mentioned the ask to china. This is really hard to keep track of because the president either on phone calls or otherwise has now decided that the way to confuse everybody about this is to ask everybody to investigate joe biden and his son. He did the china ask very publicly the other day. China has actually responded according to nope. No, were not actually doing that, we wont investigate the bidens. But at this point, we are getting new developments in the conversation about the president s dealings with ukraine on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. Based on what garrett has been talking about, about the process that Congress Wants to employ, how do you see this playing out . I think the point about the president making that demand of china in public is part of the way that he does these things. He is aware that, you know, the biggest power of a secret is that it is a secret and if he does it out in public, it is like look, i have nothing to hide. What are you even looking at . It takes away the power of these investigations. I think that that is his m. O. With doing that. His own advisers like larry kudlow said that he wasnt sure if the president was joking or not. So the messaging is a little all over the place. But i think that Going Forward i think that the Clear Strategy the white house wants to take is stonewa stonewalling, calling the investigations illegitimate and they think that politically this will be wrapped up probably by next year, politically it shouldnt hurt them, they still feel very confident about their reelection campaign. And that it will look like this is what the democrats have been trying to do since day one. But here is the thing, glenn, we could be offended all day long, stonewalling work. You take you to the president s taxes. Were two plus years in and we still havent seen them. The president has been stonewalling us on things that he didnt want to put forward since he started running in 2015 and it has been a great strategy. Although there was a ruling yesterday from the Manhattan Court that the president may have to come up and what happened . Emergency appeal. Youre right, stonewalling seems to work. When i heard the reporting that sondland was told by the administration do not appear, you know what popped into my head . That somewhat famous steve carell line in one of his movies where a cop is writing him a ticket every day over and over again. The cop walks up to his window and he goes you know i have to write you another ticket and steve carell says put it on my tab. That is what you get the sense President Trump is doing. He is telling congress put it on my tab and ill bet that he is telling congress to put it on his tab because he believes that the Senate Republicans will never make him settle up on that tab. Well have to see. So just to bring everybody up to speed about what is happening that is a really good analogy. Yeah, that is what it is. Pile them up. Josh letterman might still be around, but josh has reported just before the top of the hour that Gordon Sondland who is the United States ambassador to the European Union, he works out of brussels, he thrflew back today now the white house says hes not testifying. A whole lot of questions including why the ambassador to the European Union of which ukraine is not a part was involved in a Text Exchange with the acting ambassador to ukraine and with the special envoy to ukraine kurt volker. The news that we have now is that in the intervening time between when volker and sondland were texting, sondland himself was communicating with the president possibly on an enkrichlencryp encrypted app. So was sondland getting the line from the president directly that there was no quid pro quo because that seemed to be something that volker was concerned about. That is the news that we have. I want to bring in joel rubin into the conversation. And joel, you worked at state. I sort of think that we need to understand, why this have been a normal course of events for an ambassador to a place that isnt ukraine to be involved in this conversation, to put the special envoy on hold, on text basically, and go check with the president about what the real story was or what story the president would like to have out there, and then communicate that, and then tell everybody lets get off text so that this is not memorialized . Wow, you just laid out everything that could possibly be wrong and this is all wrong. And you know, i testified to the Benghazi Committee when i served at state in 2015. And i remember a time when mike pompeo who was on that committee went crazy about the idea of possible email communications that they werent getting. And these were email communications at the time that were on the state department server. So this is hypocrisy of the highest magnitude, off the books communications, encrypted Text Messages. This is the tip of the iceberg. There must be so much more underneath. And the danger here is that President Trump would rather hide that information and be impeached ra eed rather than ac come clean to the American People. And lets read some of this on the screen. It is actually with bill taylor who is acting ambassador to ukraine. Sondland says in the second part of this text, the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is going to adopt the reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. I suggest we stop back and forth by text. If you still have kens, concern give lisa or s a call to discuss them directly. Annie karni, i just want to put it out there, there have been times when you can be texting with somebody be and the point is not getting across, and it might be more easily solved with a phone call. Is it possible that that is what is happening here . Sure, but it looks very much like he knows that this conversation is creating a written track record that makes the president look bad and cuts it off. One point i want to make about sondland, youve made the point why is he involved in this at all. And i think that is critical to how trump runs his Foreign Policy. First of all, he has an off the books Foreign Policy through his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that is going on. And second, he has people functioning outside of their regular specific lanes and that creates this is according to my reporting over the weekend about Foreign Policy officials, it creates a blurry area where no one knows the full picture except for donald trump. Different people are performing roles for him that really are outside of their purview. And that is how he runs his entire Foreign Policy that is disrupting the established ways of doing things. So critical to the whole story that sondland, a trump loyalist, Campaign Donor to him who has nothing to do with ukraine, is at the center of this story. So to that point though then, weve seen true trump loyalists show up and testify and put on a performance for an audience of one. Im talking about corey lewandowski. Since sondland is the one person in all of this that would most likely paint a different picture and side with the president , why wouldnt the white house want him to show up and tell possibly the president s side of the story . It is a good question. I think that is not clear yet. Clearly it was a last minute decision and calculation of theirs that they potentially dont want to create the precedent of complying at all with there investigation. One thing sondland could do which were not seeing, a lot of House Democrats have called on him to resign. And like kurt stroll kerr who d kurt volker did resign, so he would be free to speak to these congressional hearings. Kerr who kurt volker did resign, so he would be free to speak to these congressional hearings. He has not chosen to do that sgln and wh. And this isnt the first example of shadow diplomacy. To the extend that President Trump does what he does so it normalizes it, he has in fact created a world both on the defense front and on the diplomatic front where there is sort of the shadow activity going on, people who arent officially in the process who ar advising the president and doing these things. Is that typical, do you recall that in your experience . No, not at all. And what it does, it creates plausible deniability potentially for the president to say that these people that he is engaging with were operating off the books or that the policymakers who are engaged like kurt volker was and other, they are carrying one message, but he really behind the scenes is doing Something Else and they can say that they didnt have the authority. There is a lot of manipulation here the president is engaged in and that is not something that the state Department Responds to well. But i also want to mention one thing in the texts that i think is important to point out. At the end of that last text that you read, the letter s. S stands for secretary of state. Secretary of state mike pompeo is in the loop and has been for months. This is clear in the texts. And so there is a lot more here that needs to be uncovered and clearly that is critical. And i realize we are living in the age of hypocrisy, but just a moment ago you were talking about the benghazi hearings and the communications that mike pompeo didnt have and was furious over not getting to see. How is it that were just a couple years since the president ial election when we know that there were so many issues rooted in private servers, email exchanges, emails getting hacked. And here we have diplomatic agendas, Foreign Policy being conducted via Text Messages and whatsapp . It is unexplainable and dirty. And we see from the white house as well rumors about Jared Kushner engaging mohammad bin salman in whatsapp. And then where official communications are hidden away in a code word safe. So clearly a lot more that they dont want to reveal. The lesson that we learned and that all of us learned from 2015 16 in terms of Good Governance and even engagement and sharing information that frankly the House Republicans, they enjoy beating up on the obama administration, beating us up aggressively. They are thousand actually flipping the script and engaging much more aggressive partisanship in the other direction. And they are violating the oaths of office to be transparent with the American People and with the congress right now. Garrett haake, do you have any information as to why Gordon Sondland would not testify, why he was stopped from testifying and why to annies point that he wouldnt choose to figure out a way to testify . I can add to that a little bit. Sondland had said that he wanted to testify. We know the white house didnt want him to, state didnt want him to. But after we found out that he wasnt coming this morning, a group of House Republicans came and spoke to reporters and they made the argument that while they too want to hear from sondland, they dont want to do it in this format. They are trying House Republicans in conjunction with the white house, trying to paint this entire inquiry as totally irrelevant, inappropriate, unfair. And i think that they feel as though if they say that across the board Going Forward with everyone, they dont have to make delicate arguments into whether this witness they think is going to be good for them or someone who is bad for them. If they say the entire process is illegitimate, they dont have to make any specific arguments about the quality of the testimony. And that is what we heard from the House Republicans saying this is a Kangaroo Court, adam schiff is running it in a totally unfair way, so we dont want anybody to come in front of this no matter what they might have to say. That is the argument by which they are allowed to essentially skip over any of the additional facts he aany of the witnesses t supply. Thank you all for helping us with this breaking news as were following it. We learned in the last 30 minutes that one of the reasons Gordon Sondland might not have testified today or the white house prevented him, was he was speaking directly to President Trump between all of those Text Exchanges, between the special envoy, special assistant to the president of ukraine, son land was speaking to donald trump. So that takes away ones plausible deniability about maybe i misunderstood. It sounds like the evidence indicates that he was busy talking to the diplomat bill taylor, the acting ambassador to ukraine, puts him on hold for a while, says call me, gets on with the president , gets the story the president wants and pushes it back out there. And in that email we learned from joel when he writes s, he means secretary of state. Secretary of state mike pompeo who has changed his story on number of times in the last week about his knowledge and his direct involvement in this situation. Okay. That is not all the breaking news we have. We have other breaking news right now, a brand new bipartisan report on russian interference in american elections. Ken toddilanian will join us ne with the details. And the Trump Administration will give a top secret level briefing to senate staff today at 4 30 on the Current Situation in northeast syria. Three congressional sources tells this to nbc news, this among growing outrage from both sides of the aisle on what is happening at the syria turkey border. Well dive into what is going on and who the president is serving in his aboutface on this Foreign Policy issue. Ssue a wealth of information. A wealth of perspective. A wealth of opportunities. Thats the clarity you get from fidelity wealth management. Straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, taxefficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. Fidelity wealth management. There are lots of people who are confused about which medicare plan is right for them. Hey, thats me. I barely know where to start. Well, start here with me, karen. Im a licensed humana sales agent. Well, its nice to meet you, karen. Im john smith. Hi, john. At humana, we know youre unique. So you have different needs from other john smiths. Yeah, ive always thought so. 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And what they found, to be clear about this, because donald trump has continually denied it, that this social media manipulation by the russian troll farm was designed to hurt Hillary Clinton and help donald trump. And they also determined that black voters with are targeted more than any other demographic in an effort to suppress the vote. Are targeted more than any other demographic in an effort to suppress the vote. Dont forget donald trump thanked black voters for not turning out for Hillary Clinton. And there are also a series of recommendations, that is what is new here. Some of these findings had already been issued by private researcher, but now we have how the senators want to address this. And one thing they are proposing is legislation for example to require the disclosure of who is paying for political ads on line, the same way we can find out who is paying for tv ads. Facebook supports it, google has been ambivalent and Mitch Mcconnell has not let that bill move. So this is one of five reports, they have already put out one on election security, well get three more including one on the intelligence assessment into how the russians attacked the election which is now under some cloud because we all know that attorney to investigate that. So it remains percolating behind the scenes and this is the only bipartisan inquiry into how the russians attacked the 2016 elections. So lets pivot. Attorneys for the department of justice told a federal judge this morning that the House Judiciary Committee has not gone through the correct Legal Process to obtain material that was redacted in the mueller report. What does that mean . It means that the Justice Department is taking the position that the house cannot have this material unless they vote for a a formal plooeimpeac inquiry. The only resident back in watergate, the judge ordered that material be turned over to a house impeachment inquiry. And that is what democrats say is handing now, but there hasnt been that formal vote to open it and that is something that republicans have been calling to. Now you have the Justice Department saying you the House Judiciary Committee cant have that grand jury material until there is a formal vote to open an impeachment inquiry. Ken, thank you for that. Well pivot again because there is a lot of news going on, most of it surrounding President Trump, all of it important. Lets talk about the kurds and turkey. President trump is drawing once again bipartisan backlash against his desire to pull u. S. Troops out of northern syria. The concerns there center around the kurds and the potential for conflict with turkey. Lets talk about this for a second. The kurds are an ethnic and Linguistic Group and they are spread about 74,000 square miles. That is the important part. It is not just any 74,000 miles. They live in an area that spans about five dozen sorry, about half a dozen, five middle eastern countries. About 10 million live in turkey, roughly 20 of the countrys population. Another 2 hmillion in northern syria, some in iraq and some in iran and a small population in armenia. There was hope after world war i that the allies would carve out a country. But when the treaty recognizing turkey was signed, there were no provisions for an independent nation. Now, many kurdish independent movements have sprung up since then. The pkk or Kurdish Workers Party was established in 1978. It advocates an independent kurdistan. And so Turkey Associated most kurds with this group. Labeling any Kurdish Force terrorists. Now, in syria, the kurds control much of this area, the northern border with turkey sorry, let me bring that back. It is important to note that turkey considers the kurds a much bigger threat than they ever regarded isis. American presence in northeastern syria keeps turkey from bochling tmbing the kurdis occupied areas. And important to remember Kurdish Forces were instrumental in beating back isis. The kurdish ypg, a different group, the Peoples Protection force, is really the main component of the u. S. Aligned Syrian Democratic forces. This group was key to the victory over the isis capital and final battles of isisheld territory. Joini joining us now is jane harman from the Woodrow Wilson center. Jane, thanks for being with us. This move by donald trump to suggest after a phone call once again with the turkish president has alarmed people on all sides saying we really depended on the kurds in this fight that donald trump likes to claim as his own over isis. Right. Well, first of all, kudos to richard burr and mark warner for for doing something bipartisan this the senate and courageous in issuing that report on russian interference. That is one point. You are right on this, your History Lesson is always very informative. And the sad part is the tweet from donald trump came at 11 00 p. M. I think eastern time, maybe it was middle eastern time, saturday night after everyone working for donald trump thought they had a strategy that could work. And that is to create a safety zone between turkey and syria. A 30 mile deep 300 mile wide safety zone, where with u. S. Air cover and these courageous fighters that we have on the ground, we would protect turkey from this threat that it fears will happen. That was the much better outcome. Without consulting anyone, the president went rogue, he didnt consult the state department, he didnt consult his envoy to syria, jim jeffrey, he didnt consult the defense department, he didnt consult alley looks who also have assets on the ground in the region. And he changed the policy. And what is worrisome let me finish with this is now weve created a vacuum as we withdraw, that means the likelihood of Turkish Military action on the ground there, there are prisons in that area that house isis fighters, the Turkish Border has always been porous to isis and now we have increased i think the threat of isis attacks in europe and maybe through europe to us. Then if we havent found one single u. S. Stakeholder who is happy about this, who is . Youd have to guess president erdogan of turkey and also president putin of russia, president assad, im sure youve been putting on the the airwaves these horrible pictures of the syrian deaths caused by the assad regime, and possibly iran. No one in the u. S. But one more point. What about congress . Mitch mcconnell just said a supermajority in the Senate Condemns this action. Why doesnt the senate come back from recess and act to block the action. And then if erdogan likes this, we need to remind our audience, do you know who else erdogan likes . The trumps. Back in 2012, ivanka trump sent out a tweet thanking erdogan for attending the celebration when they built trump towers in istanbul, the president spoke about rours in trump tower in a interview with steve bannon. Lets take a look. If you are elected president in prosecuting the war, what do you do with turkey, is it a reliable partner . Well, i always have i have a little conflict of interest because i have a major, major building in istanbul. And its a tremendously successful job. Its called trump towers. Two towers instead of one. And trump towers in istanbul still exists fwoeas to wouldnt president still be conflicted . I dont really want to speak to that. What worries me though is remember the attempted coup against erdogan and the enormous crackdown and the blame against a turkish turk in exile in the United States and so forth. There are lots of consequences that flow from this one action again taken without consulting anyone. That is the scary part. We seem to have a noprocess Foreign Policy. And what i worry about here is years of trying to put isis and other terror groups in a box. Weve just created a giant opening for their access to the west. I know were out of time, but to that very point, where are republicans . When the president was running, he stood on the podium time and time again and said i and i alone. So what he is doing is exactly what he said he was going to do. So it is not really a surprise. Well, you can say that but congress has tools. I just said, they are on recess. There is a briefing papadopoulogoing on now by a junior staffer because senators arent there. So kind of a free shot to not take back and take any steps to stop it. Jane, thank you for joining us. Jane harman from the wilson center. Promise me you wont start referring to i referri referri referring to its stand bull like that. I never want to be an elected official until i hear about their schedule. I wasnt their schedule. Trump Administration Blocks a top diplomat from being interviewed today as part of the house impeachment inquiry. Coming up, well talk to a democratic congresswoman robin kelly who is 00 o who is on one committees who was supposed to hear his system. And again chinas attempt to strong arm here in the United States. The fight with the nba, next. States the fight with the nba, next Maria Ramirez mom maria Maria Ramirez. Mcdonalds is committing 150 Million Dollars in tuition assistance, education, and career advising programs. Prof Maria Ramirez mom and dad Maria Ramirez to help more employees achieve their dreams. Welcome back. Just moments ago we learned that former special envoy kurt volker who is the special envoy to you ukraine, the Eu Ambassador Gordon Sondland this man, and diplomat bill taylor acting ambassador to ukraine used the encrypted messaging app whatsapp to communicate with each other. And a person with knowledge of the situation confirms that sondland spoke to the president by phone on september 9th before responding to the u. S. Ambassador to ukraines text about it being, quote, crazy to link ukraine assistance to help with a Political Campaign. All of this is highly up or though dox for state Department People to go to an encrypted app to Start Talking about things. And if you see on the scene at the bottom of it, it says if you still have concerns, i recommend you give lisa or s a call to discuss them directly. And we have heard that the a refers to the secretary of state mike pompeo. Now, all of this comes as earlier today chairs of three house committees announced their plans to subpoena Gordon Sondland, he was supposed to testify today, but the Trump Administration blocked him from testifying, art s part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Joining us is one of the democrats serving on the House Oversight committee, illinois congresswoman robin kelly. Thank you for joining us. What do you make of the late breaking news that sondland was talking to trump, sondland who is ambassador to the 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 dont know why were 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 arent in politics supposed to think b about that . Well, i mean i would think theres a lack of transparency. Excuse me. Theres obstruction. Interference. I dont think we should be surprised about that either. Even though he agreed to testify. 12 30 a. M. Theres a voice mail that he isnt. Its just for the obstruction of the inquiry. So what do you do about that . Because you could say the its inappropriate, obstruction, but as far as the news cycle goes, if Gordon Sondland was going to share information today that would be damaging to the president , well never know it or at least we wont know it today. Thats a win for the president. Well, not necessarily. I think that people are look in at ta he has something to hide. I think it depeptides on what lens youre looking at. People who support the president , his base, may think a win for him but those who do not support him dont think its a win. They think hes obstructing the impeachment inquiry that hes hiding. Hes not being transparent. I just think its you know, how you look at the president and what hes been doing and from the polling, it looks like more and more people you know agree with what were doing. It rises it seems like every day. So i think it makes, its negative. Its not good for him. So the president continues to be called congress a Kangaroo Court today. He says adam schiff should be impeached. He has a lot of names for all of us. Got names for all of you. But in his view, one would assume, the further he can stay away from congress, the more he can keep his people away, the better. Democrats have a different view. The obstructing of the investigation should be seen by people as an obstruction of the impeachment, of the actual investigation and that should have its own consequences. How do you articulate that to your constituent sns. Well, were in recess so its our district work period. Ive withbeen all over my distr and what people have whispered to me, i had a census briefing last night and people whispered in my ear impeach, impeach, impeeach. I hear that over and over. Not everyone, but people feel hes hiding. Hes not being transparent. Par for the cost hes obstructs. Its not new and the name calling and lying is not new. Thank you for joining us, congresswoman robin kelly. Movinge ining on to a story s to do with business, politics, Foreign Policy and free speech. And my favorite topic. Sports, yeah. Today, adam silver is defending a general managers now deleted tweet that snowballed into an international incident. We are not apologizing for darrell exercising his freedom of expression. The long held values of the nba are to support freedom of expression. And certainly freedom of expression by members of the nba community. And in this case, darrell as the general manager of the rockets enjoys that right as one of our employees. Which sounds really correct. What he said sounds like what most people would understand to be freedom of expression. Adam silver is talking about this tweet. This image tweeting outside by the general manager of the Houston Rockets in solidarity of months long protests in hong kong. Lets read the tweet. Fight for freedom. Stand with hong kong. Thats it. Not that caomplicated. The chinese b Basketball Association is suspending cooperation with the rockets and state broadcaster, cctv and ten cent, the nbcs right hold er i china anoubsed it will not air nba preseason games. Now one might say if you dont know much, as i do, about sports, all right, so. This is not a so. This is huge, huge money. The Houston Rockets are the most valuable team in china. Ming, a former Houston Rockets player, now serving ties with the organization. The tv rights were just in the last few months extending were talking about billions of do dollars. Now up in the air. This controversy is exposing a huge issue for companies doing business with with china. Not just sports companies. Not just the nba. Everybody who wants growth. Every American Company. Needs to look at china. Join iing us now, nbc news senior reporter. To that point if im now the ceo of name the company. Delta, apple, pepsi, disney. Any of them, am i not sitting on pins and needles thinking if any one of my tens of thousands of employees, any basic tweet defending the values of democracy, i could lose tens of millions, maybe billions of dollars worth of business from china . Yeah, you are. Thats absolutely right and there are Many Companies amongst several of the companies you named that are grossly overexposed in china. And thats very a simple reason. For 1. 5 billion reasons that china has. Which is the leverage that it has and the power that it exerts over American Companies and increasingly american politics. And this is a huge issue. Like you said. This is not just about basketball. This is not some you know, one off issue that adam silver has to deal with. This is an issue that every single American Company is running into and the question is what do you value more . Your money or your morals . If you are trying to grow a Global Business in this day and age, if you care about revenue and shareholder value and things of that nature, you have to be engaging with china in some way, shape or form. The nb arknba has done a masterb of engaging with chip. The entire league. Thats why there are preseason games taking place in china right now. They have capitalized on that Growth Market but what theyre running into is the same problem google has run into. Facebook. Apple is always at risk of running into, which is the fact that china not only has a different set of values than the United States of america, but it is looking to assert its economic mite and flex its economic muscle in order to force their values on to the United States. But in terms of masterful, thats how we have described silver and the nba on a number of social issues. Whether it was removing the owner of the l. A. Clippers after he used racial slurs. That the nba didnt have to face the take a knee controversy in the nfl. Members of the nba, whether its lebron james, coach of the golden state warrior, steve kerr or pop veitch in texas, theyve been outspoken on social issues, but issues that werent necessarily going to cost them billions of dollars, so is it right to say what you u got to say now, boys . If you were involved in the nba, an executive, even a fan. I think you were sort of waiting on pins and needles between the nbas initial response to this issue which seemed grossly out of step with the way that they have tolerated and celebrated free speech here in this country. What adam silver said today is admirab admirable. He was being forced to come down on one side and he came down on the side of free expression. I think the concern i have, many wont be able the quick lly can decide. Now to new developments on the 2020 president ial race. Moments ago, we heard from democratic candidate and vermont senator, Bernie Sanders speaking with reporters on his way to meet with a cardiologist. This comes a week after he suffered a heart attack while campaigning in las vegas. Since then, his campaign has been facing tough criticism about how his health could affect the race. Thanks. Feeling good. Getting some work done. Doing some walking. Getting stronger. We planned to release them and we have many r medical records. How do you envision this . Could this help your campaign as a way to talk about . I dont think it helps or hurts. Ill tell you one thing i look forward to doing. I must confess that i was dumb. I was born and thank god, i have a lot of energy. During this campaign, ive been doing some cases three or four rallies a day. Iowa, new hampshire. And yet i am the last month or two than i usually have been. I should have listened to those symptoms. So if theres any message that i hope we can get out there is that i want people the to Pay Attention to the symptoms. And when youre hurting and fatigued, pain in your chest, listen to it. All right. Thank you for watching. Thats it for us. Im going to see you back here at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Ill be back here tomorrow at 9 00 a. M. Right now, katy tur back in ncc. Good afternoon. Im katy tur. The its 11 00 a. M. Out west and 2 00 p. M. In washington where new nbc news reporting connects the president himself with back door efforts to get ukraine to investigate his political rivals and then coffver it up. It is day 15 of the impeachment inquiry and heres what we know. Nbc reports that ambassador Gordon Sondland spoke to the president in that mysterious five hour window between these two Text Messages. After diplomat bill taylor said it was crazy the with hold aid for help with a Political Campaign and before sondland responded, no quid pro quos. Nbc news also reports there are more texts we have yet to see. Sondland was supposed to appear today on the hill, but early this morning, the state department
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