didn t think it mattered. look, you don t even know this guy. meaning the president. you ve never even been with him. you didn t speak to him, et cetera, et cetera. i ll tell you who i m thinking of as i m watching this. this may sound like an oddity. i keep thinking of chief justice john roberts. in the end i m wondering are we going to hear from mulvaney? are we going to hear from bolton? from giuliani? i don t think during the house process we will hear from any of them. but if and when we get to a senate trial, i have to imagine that there s going to be some effort to command their testimony and maybe a ruling will have to be made by the chief justice providing over a senate trial. because it will probably take one of the big three to say something that will finally move the needle. otherwise i think people are just going to retreat to their partisan lens. this is a rorschach test 30 years in the making. and if you watched cable last
sondland what president trump thought about ukraine. ambassador sondland responded that president trump cares more about the investigations of biden which giuliani was pressing for. and i think you said that after the call when your staff asked ambassador sondland what president trump thought of ukraine, his response was that president trump cares more about the investigations of biden? is that right? and burisma, yes, sir. and i take it the import of that is he cares more about that than he does about ukraine? yes, sir. that s right, ukraine, at war with russia. taylor says that he reported this information through the proper channels both at the state department and the house intelligence committee. that aide who overheard the phone call, david holmes, he s going to provide his own closed-door testimony on friday. joining our conversation now with their insight, samantha vinograd, a former senior adviser during president obama s administration.
want to take a step up with the 30,000 foot view of what we ve seen with bill taylor and gordon sondland who have roughly 400 years of diplomatic experience between them. what does it show, their level of concern, that they testify to in public yesterday, their level of concern with the actions of the president and administration going forward. they both have served democratic and republican presidents. and they ve done it to execute u.s. foreign policy. and what they saw here was basically a shadow campaign to pursue political goals running parallel to legitimate u.s. foreign policy. and at one point, bill taylor says that there is no good reason that he saw to withhold the lethal aid to ukraine. and that he also saw that they were that it was being withheld for reasons that would benefit president trump politically. george kent testified that he believed giuliani was trying to
is all just hearsay and nothing directly connected to the president. come to order. reporter: the first day of public impeachment hearings beginning with a startling revelation for investigators. top diplomat to ukraine bill taylor describing a phone call between president trump and the u.s. ambassador to the european union gordon sondland. overheard by his aide one day after the july 25th phone call with the ukrainian president. mr. sondland told president trump the ukrainians were ready to move forward. following the call with president trump, my staff asked what president trump thought about ukraine. sondland responded that president trump cares more about the investigations of biden which giuliani was pressing for. reporter: trump denying that call. i know nothing about that. first time i ve heard it. reporter: but house democrats says this helps make their case that trump abused his oath of office even stronger.
but what this call indicates as other testimony has indicated is that the instructions are coming from the president on down. reporter: taylor and deputy assistant secretary of state george kent describing what they encountered as using military aid and a meeting at the white house as leverage for ukraine to begin investigations for the president s political gain. to withhold that assistance for no good reason other than help with a political campaign made no sense. it could not be explained. it was crazy. reporter: concerns about rudy giuliani s involvement in u.s. relations with ukraine. including helping lead a smear campaign against then-u.s. ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch. i became alarmed as those efforts bore fruit. they led to the ouster of yovanovitch and hampered efforts in ukraine. reporter: house democrats asking about giuliani s intent.