a shrinking field of democratic contenders and we ll talk about with cory booker joining us live this hour. and anonymous warning, excerpts from an unnamed administration insider new book paint a damning picture of president trump and top aides so disturbed business hi behavior they considered a mass resignation. i m wolf blitzer and you re in the situation room . announcer: this is cnn breaking news. breaking news. this hour significant new details of discussions inside of the white house ahead of president trump s controversial ukraine call. newly-released testimony shows white house officials alexander vindman and fiona hill describe president trump s blatant push for ukraine to investigate political rivals in exchange for a white house meeting. and they testified it was acting chief of staff mick mulvaney who
him refresh his memory. george kent testified under oath that gordon sondland told him that donald trump, quote, wanted nothing less than president zelensky to go to a microphone and say investigations, biden and clinton. those were the magic words. those were the words donald trump had to hear before he would hand over military aid to ukraine. investigations, biden and clinton. ukraine s survival depended on those three words investigations, biden and clinton. but as george kent s testimony shows, president zelensky, even though he was new at his job realized how wrong it would be for him to say those words. president zelensky s staff made it very clear to george kent that they understood how wrong it would be for president zelensky to be forced to say those words and how wrong it would be for president zelensky to be forced to investigate
lead to putin. not only would we be screwing fowl zelensky and his government which was under duress but helping the people who put him under duress, putin. and this is the use of national security policy and most people in the trump administration support pushing back on vladimir putin and supporting the ukrainians. the second thing you just read, chris, is really important. one of the arguments out there is there was no pressure on zelensky, no quid pro quo. and what that testimony shows is they were feeling the pressure. they knew they were getting dragged into the muck of the 2020 re-election effort, and they didn t want to have anything to do with it. that s what ambassador taylor said before but what we released
there was no involvement from the white house in this event and, of course, beyond that they had no comment on the situation that was developing on capitol hill. what about also manu talked about bill taylor s testimony from yesterday and just in, hearing for the first time president trump responded eed tweet. tweeted never trumper republican john ballinger represents never trumper pshgs bill taylor, pr n parentheses who i don t know, in testimony before congress. do nothing democrats allow republicans zero representation. zero due process. and zero transparency. the testimony shows, francesca, quid pro quo without a doubt. reporter: also he says they need to stop hiring never trumpers. sound like he might need to put in a call to his secretary of state mike pompeo. the reason bill taylor was even
matter, his top diplomat for the european union makes very clear he was disappointed, in his words disappointed the president had directed him to talk to rudy giuliani and then learning later rudy had an agenda that could help president trump s 2020 re-election campaign. now, essentially what this testimony shows is that the president put on hold this effort to strengthen this key alliance in exchange for them reaching out to giuliani to get giuliani to do what he was pursuing which was this investigation into the bidens as well as this investigation into the 2016 elections. given some of the specifics here is that earlier this year in may after president zelensky of ukraine was inaugurated, gordon sondland and other top u.s. officials briefed the president about the fact that zelensky wanted to strengthen relations and have a meeting with the president. he said no thanks.