international diplomatic editor and has more on the reasoning behind the move. ni nic, why is this happening now? reporter: it appears in part because of normal transition between two battle aircraft carriers in the gulf. hitting a hiccup. the incoming main battle carrier has an electrical issue onboard the ship. so it can t make it in on time so the only obvious backup is put an aircraft based on land plus the, you know, plus the forces to go with them to man them. this is quite a sufficient kit ratcheting up and one of the reasons, clearly, because most of the u.s. offense and in addition to saudi arabia the last few months or so have been defensive. they have been to, patriot missile batteries and the troops to man those. this is clearly an offensive capacity and, of course, we know
situations where he had recalled ambassadors for cause. cnn s sunlen surfougerfaty is o capitol hill. the second time the trump administration tried to block from speaking to congress. also gordon sondland. this is pretty stunning. reporter: certainly is, brooke. certainly significant of a development. so much speculation leading into this morning whether marie yovanovitch would show up, allowed to show up or not essentially leadi ining into th moment we re seeing arriving on capitol hill and she centered the room here where she s meeting with lawmakers. the dramatic back story learning what went on behind the scenes is stunning. according to the three house committees here speaking with her, those chairs saying it came to their attention that the state department at the direction, they say, of the white house directed lett eed h
reached a substantial initial trade deal with china. the comments comes just in after meeting with china s top trade negotiator. president trump said that the deal amounted to the first phase of an agreement, according to the reporters in the room, we should learn more about the deal soon. but as we check the markets in the wake of this, you could see news positive, dow up around the 400 mark with about 9:00 to go in the trading day. fire season has returned to southern california with avengence. the saddleridge fire is shutting down interstates and forces thousands of people to evacuate. it has already claimed the life of one person and scorched nearly 5,000 acres and burned dozens of homes. sara sidner is our constituent in the suburb of porter ranch and so have firefighters made any headway? reporter: they have. and you could see some of it behind me and you could see all of the area burned right up to
this issue, of course it comes at a time of heightened tension and that had an impact on oil prices today. of course. nic robertson, thank you. in that region also we covering the turkish offensive against the syrian kurds. the united nations says 100,000 people displaced because of the military action there. many are sheltered in host communities or shelters, and as turkey escalates its attack along the border the white house threatened very significant sanctions against turkey if it refuses to pull back. i want to emphasize at this point we are not activating the sanctions. these are very powerful sanctions and we hope we don t have to use them, but e were had shut down the turkish commit if we need to. visiting a u.s. base in syria to find out how those protecting the base feel about what s happening. here is our reporter clarissa w5rd with exclusive reporting from northern syria. reporter: so even though u.s.
firm must now comply with house democrats demands for eight years of his tax documents. his legal team just lost an appeal to stop a congressional subpoena. we begin with our cnn justice correspondent. the myriad setbacks, i guess, facing this administration. talk to me about what you know? reporter: right. the one that happened this morning, brooke, was just about the president s financial documents, the fact he will have to hand over eight years worth to the house oversight committee. but really despite their win this morning, house democrats likely really won t see the financial documents anytime soon. that s because the president s personal attorney jay sekulow has vowed to fight this, saying they will be exploring all appellate options and they have about seven days to decide whether or not they re going to appeal this to the full d.c. circuit. that s because the d.c. circuit decision this morning was only from three judges. they have the option to appeal to the entire circuit.