ad nauseam that there s no quid pro quo here. that s essentially impossible to do when the white house says, in fact, there was, just not what the white house was focused on. that s what we ve seen in other cases with this white house, essentially normal i d behavior and dare democrats to do something about it. garrett reporter: we will see now how democrats respond to this admission. i m sorry to interrupt. the president is speaking about syria. let s listen for a moment. the kurds were great. great day for the kurds. it s really a great day for civilization. it s a great day for civilization. so i just want to thank everybody. mr. president, doesn t turkey get everything? [ inaudible ] well, sanctions won t be necessary, because turkey s doing what they re doing. i didn t need congress for sanctions, because, i can do sanctions that are tougher than congress and i was prepared to do that. i just want to thank and congratulate, though, president erdogan. he s a friend of
time with such great discord and tension. let me ask you this. mitch mcconnell said he wanted a stronger resolution in the senate than the house, condemning donald trump on syria. is that still going to happen now that there s this cease-fire? you know, it i would imagine that there is such a rare, but very strong bipartisan agreement that this was a catastrophic mistake by this president. the house spoke out in a profound bipartisan way. i do think we will move forward. we also heard the president today say that he would drop any intention to pursue sanctions. i doubt that the congress will agree with that. and you know, we can t turn our eyes away from the fact that there is a very serious situation unfolding in northeast
meeting in the white house, as well as the holding of funds. but right there in the plain log of the telephone call, we know that he was pursuing both information about the 2016 election and information about his political rivals in the 2020 election. you don t buy it that it wasn t about biden? he said biden was just a hypothetical. i certainly think there s specific evidence that he was looking at finding dirt on a political rival. but regardless, he was putting himself, his political his politics above the country. it is congress s responsibility to put the country first, and that s why i support the impeachment inquiry. and we should never you know, the president has obstructed that investigation and nobody is above the law, including the
let s turn now to the inquiry. acting chief of staff mick mulvaney just addressed reporters at the white house a few minutes ago. and on ukraine, he basically admitted to everything. hold that thought, though. let s catch you up. it is day 24 of the impeachment inquiry. and here s what s happening. at this hour, gordon sondland is in a closed-door deposition with congress. sondland, a wealthy hotelier turned donor turned eu ambassador is a crucial figure in this inquiry. according to nbc reporting, he spoke to the president before donald trump called the president of ukraine and he will tell congress the quid pro quo text was basically dictated by the president. what s more, in his opening statement, sondland told congress that rudy giuliani was doing the president s bidding. quote, my understanding was that the president directed mr. giuliani s participation. that mr. giuliani was expressing the concerns of the president. sondland s testimony follows fiona hill s. the new york times
responsibility for dealing with ukraine, which is not part of the european union and what his testimony and some of the others that congress has been hearing from over the past few days has shown is how these officials who shouldn t really have any role in overseeing and driving policy on ukraine, separate from the national security council, had been doing that with giuliani as the president tried to pursue these political ends. mika o yang, you ve been in these rooms during testimony like this. can you pull back the testimony and see what exactly the democrats are doing and what case are they trying to build? what you re seeing, we ve known the general outlines of this investigation from the beginning, from the first revelations of the whistle-blower complaint, that the president was asking for something of value from the ukrainians and withholding military aid from them. what we re seeing now is the context and how that actually happened. which players were involved? sondland, vo