bigger and not smaller. as you investigate. some people, sadly, have jobs. right. yes. but, i mean, the real question is, did people were expecting some sort of bombshell right. was it that kind of an impact today? let s just say that these two witnesses in their demeanor are professional diplomats. they re not bomb throwers, so you re not going to get that generally, they dismantle bombs. that is exactly what they do, but what we heard from taylor in his own quiet way was shocking news which does draw the line between the president and this policy and i think we re going to have to hear from sondland. the story gets more and more interesting because don t forget, ambassador sondland, who, by the way, is the ambassador to the eu, so who knows why he s involved in this at all, he s the trump whisperer. he s the go-between in this big story between the diplomats and the ukrainians
the president s defenders, meantime, sought to impugn the testimony relying largely on four key talking points, at least one of which might go out the window given what we learned today about that new witness. we ll talk about all of that. the president s reaction and more. first, krrn s scnn s sara m starts us off with the key moments from the testimony today. impeachment inquiry into donald j. trump, the 45th president of the united states. reporter: the hearing s big bombshell was dropped early in the proceedings by the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine, bill taylor. the member of my staff could hear president trump on the phone asking ambassador sondland about the investigations. ambassador sondland told president trump the ukrainians were ready to move forward. following the call with president trump, the member of my staff asked ambassador sondland what president trump thought about ukraine. ambassador sondland responded that president trump cares more about the investigations
witnesses who could exonerate him, who were directly in communication with him, like mick mulvaney or john bolton, he should allow them to come testify. the fact that he s blocking them from testifying, i think, means that they can t help him. if, by the end of this, the testimony that s scheduled so far, if there has not been a breakthrough moment or an a-ha moment for a lot of people, could you foresee an extension in which you wait to go through the courts to see if you can get bolton to testify? because bolton does seem to have direct knowledge. no. the a-ha moment is really the presidential call record where ambassador taylor said this, he d never seen a president do anything like this before, ask a foreign government to investigate a political opponent. you know, we have john dean here today and he would, you know, tell you that much of watergate was about the cover-up. here, the actual underlying act, you know, the shakedown, $391 million of u.s. taxpayer dollars, that s muc
not a matter of politics, that how important ambassador sondland s testimony is going to be next week because, you know, i think the republicans made some legitimate points about the secondhand nature right, yeah. of the information i agree with that. that the two witnesses today had. but sondland was in direct contact with the president including this phone call we just learned about today. now, we ve all heard that taylor s aide was in the room, but sondland was on the phone. right. i mean, he s the one the question is which sondland shows up? well, that s the question. i mean, sondland is a peculiar witness but a very important we got to take a quick break b. a lot more to talk about including the man both witnesses today said was looking to dig dirt up on the election, rudy giuliani. more ahead. (burke) at farmers insurance, we know a thing or two because we ve seen a thing or two. even a- (ernie) lost rubber duckie? (burke) you mean this one? (ernie) ru
pundits on tv, i still think it s going to be largely based on what you say you believe and whom you say you believe. that s why the democrats started with the two people they did today, bill taylor and george kent. taylor, look at the pedigree. he s got a career of service. remember, this guy was done, retired. secretary of state pompeo recruited him, asked him to come. he s no creation of some deep state machine. they asked him to do this. he did that even knowing ryan lochte rudy giuliani and company had run out the last ambassador to ukraine. they you ve got kent, an expert on corruption in ukraine, a guy who raised concern about hunter biden when it was happening. let s talk about what this means, the credibility of these two people, how that stands up in the case, what that tells us about the strength of it going forward. i couldn t ask for two better people to do it, investigative genius minds, andrew mccabe and