exchange for the meeting and a security assistance hold being lifted. a republican source tells cnn that several members of the gop were privately shaken by his closed door testimony. david hale, the highest ranking state department employee to testify so far, saying after hearing that the aid to ukraine was halted, hale said he wanted clarity on who ordered the freezing. he testified it took him two days to get an answer before omb stated on the record that it was the president through chief of staff mulvaney. reporter: first round will be vindman and williams to testify. that will be at 9:00. they ll be side be side, a democratic aide telling me the format is the same as last week because they felt it was very effective. it maximizes on momentum, allows the process to go as quickly as possible. it also allows them to tell a story that compliments one another putting together a piece of the puzzle that forwards the case for impeachment.
clearly asking for personal favors and using united states assets as collateral is wrong. there s just no two ways about it, so if you re seeking some kind of personal gain and you re using whether it s american foreign aid or american weapons or american influence, that s wrong, and i think everyone understands that. everyone understands that. that s wrong. there are no two ways about it. that s rex tillerson who at one point we believe called the president a moron behind closed doors among other things, but does this mean maybe general mattis will come out? does this mean maybe more people who have left the administration on not so great terms will start speaking out about this? i wouldn t hold your breath in anticipation. tillerson has said other colorful things in interviews with reporters. i believe last time he said he many times told the president he shouldn t do something if he thought it was illegally. i don t think we re going to see
watch yourself. on the president tweeting, it may not be witness intimidation, the question is it counterproductive? because we almost have seen the president doing the opposite of what he might want to do. he s elevating jennifer williams. he helped elevate marie yovanovitch. right, so now you re asking me a different question, which is if you were his lawyer first of all he d never listen because he s his own attorney, but would you tell him not to do it because it s counterproductive. yes, i would make that argument, although those tweets set the narrative for the whole spin machine that defends him. hey, john, take a look at the cause and effect between his tweets and what you ll hear on fox at 9:00 p.m. you know, there s the time line between the two. yep. michael smerconish, thank you very much for giving us what you are watching for today and beyond. well, nancy pelosi said it directly to president trump. she said all roads lead to
weekend, and we ve heard the allegations from democrats that this constitutes witness intimidation. you don t see it quite like that. why? i don t think that the president s intent, and it s hard to get into his head but from the sidelines, i don t think that his intent is to deter or to influence these witnesses to discourage them from coming forward. i think instead it s to discredit them. i think that he views this as he s got a first amendment right, and he needs to defend himself and that s what he s seeking to do, and john, he doesn t just treat his impeachment opponents that way. he treats every opponent that way. it s totally in character for him to constantly be on the attack, so i don t think that s where he s coming from. of course it s impossible to know for sure. what are you watching for today, michael? well, i want to get in on the david holmes conversation that you ve been having because what
ukraine, and we saw that from yovanovitch, we saw that from taylor and kent last week. it s what you re going to see from all of these witnesses when they re going to be asked why is it so important that ukraine receive that aid, why was it so important that zelensky have a meeting with president trump and it lays out the narrative for the american people as to why u.s. foreign policy, u.s. national security was on the line because it countered the president s actions counters what our traditional national security policy was when it comes to ukraine. rudy giuliani tweeted late last week, you know, where s the crime? where s the victim? there doesn t have to be a crime and the victim was ukraine, and our policy, and our efforts to stem russian influence in ukraine and around the world. so we ve seen some aggressive moments from republicans on the committee leading up to today. i think it will all pale in comparison to what you will see in a couple of hours. republicans are gearing