things have just gone from very, very bad to much, much worse. reporter: so one of the other things chairman schiff has said is it s very apparent to him that this july 25th call between presidents trump and zelensky didn t happen in isolation. this inquiry is trying to fig yaur out what happened before the call and after. next tuesday house investigators are set to hear from bill taylor, the state department official who said in that text chain said, it would be crazy for the president to try to hold up ukraine military aid for a political ask. geoff, let me get your thoughts on what we heard from gordon sondland s testimony. i know you tried to doorstep him as he made his way into congress. they were grilling him yesterday. what, if anything, did they learn? the main takeaway, ayman, it was president trump himself who delegated rudy giuliani to run
it eventually happens, he could have an enormous amount of insight and be able to express some of his concerns about what he understood to be happening and the things he didn t understand to be happening. you can see that play out in those text messages between gordon sondland and mr. taylor and kurt volker where taylor keeps trying to have the conversation on the text chain so that it becomes part of the record and gordon sondland keeps trying to pull the conversation from the text chain. we have that. i just want to share that real quickly so people can remember the reference here as he was asking about the security assistance and the white house meeting and if they re conditioned on the investigations. this is why you were saying sondland is so important because all we hear from him is call me. there was another text where he said let s take this off the text essentially. yeah, that s right. so those two are important figures for different reasons. but fiona hill, the first one
president s personal attorney with the adviser yarmak and served as arizona state university s mccain institute. he is not hyperrepublican. he is in touch with yermak, the presidential adviser part of the text chain who volker put in contact with rudy giuliani. a couple of critical texts, one happening before president trump s phone call with the ukrainian president. on july 19th. this is kurt volker. he says he had breakfast with rudy giuliani and he is texting the u.s. ambassador to the rurpen you know as well as the u.s. diplomat bill taylor saying teeing up call. yermak monday. most important for zelensky to say he will help investigation and address any specific personnel issues if there are any. then on the morning of the call before the july 25th call, the
shutdown this year. the first one was january 20th. the second one was february 9th for just one day. and now add midnight on 12/22. and all these shutdowns, the republicans have controlled both houses of congress and the presidency. so i mean what gives here? why this at the last possible second? for two years, they ve had the white house, the senate, and the congress. reporter: an interesting thing. i m on a text chain with congressional staffers where the actual question today is where does this rank in the history of dumbest shutdowns because there is often an understanding with both parties on capitol hill that shutdowns are a pretty bad idea and don t make a lot of sense. i think the reality in all of these shutdowns, there have been different reasons, different dynamics at play. the biggest reason right now is just the uncertainty about where the president stands on things. and the recognition that republicans don t want to undercut the president. what i ve been told explicitl
and now add midnight on 12/22. and all these shutdowns, the republicans have controlled both houses of congress and the presidency. so i mean what gives here? why this at the last possible second? for two years, they ve had the white house, the senate, and the congress. reporter: an interesting thing. i m on a text chain with congressional staffers where the actual question today is where does this rank in the history of dumbest shutdowns because there is often an understanding with both parties on capitol hill that shutdowns are a pretty bad idea and don t make a lot of sense. i think the reality in all of these shutdowns, there have been different reasons, different dynamics at play. the biggest reason right now is just the uncertainty about where the president stands on things. and the recognition that republicans don t want to undercut the president. what i ve been told explicitly is this. house republicans will not move forward on anything the president doesn t explicitly suppor