were not expecting gordon sondland to testify to what he testified to earlier today. the president latching on to those comments as you saw just a short while ago. but remember what gordon sondland said during his testimony. that everyone was in the loop. this was not a secret. the president is trying to make the case tonight i think, wolf, that everybody was in the loop but himself. wolf. that is an important point indeed. stand by over there at the white house. evan, the president was denying any quid pro quo in that phone conversation with gordon sondland. shortly after the whistle-blower s complaints were released, there was deep concern at the white house, deep concern up on capitol hill already, the public was beginning to learn all about this. so it is not surprising that the president would say no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo. and also, my question is when were the notes written? were they written before he went to the cameras today or not? and to jamie s point, i think
secretary pompeo in the sense that we knew he was aware generally of what was going on. what his ambassadors were doing, what his envoys were doing. but now we have some more direct knowledge of some of those specific things that he signs off on because we have email that gordon sondland brought to the meeting to lay out the things he was working with the kreerns and that was pushing them to come out and make an announcement they are doing these investigations and secretary pompeo signed off on all of those things never holding him back or reeling him in. i want to go to our chief white house constituent jim acosta. the president is in austin, texas, weighing in once again on all of the dramatic testimony today. that is right. the president just spoke to reporters down in austin, texas, touring a manufacturing facility with the ceo of apple tim cook. and the president was once again as he was on the south lawn of
made clear rudy giuliani was not entirely freelancing here. this is something we re seeing emerging as a republican talking point as if whatever rudy giuliani was doing it is not attributable to the president of the united states personally. what sondland is saying, no, the president told us to talk to rudy. he made clear to everyone around him that rudy giuliani was speaking for him on these matters. that is especially critical because the other big element and consistent theme of sondland s testimony today was there was a quid pro quo and driven by the president personally and even if the president didn t say it expressly, every single person around him, all of his staff and the ukrainians understood he was exchanging these official acts of military aid and a white house meeting in exchange for investigations. and jamie, he also made it clear in his lengthy testimony, he was there for hours and hours, that everyone, every senior official from the president on down to the vice presi
on. listen to this. in august when you worked with rudy giuliani and a top ukrainian aid to draft a public statement for president zelensky to issue including the announcement of the investigation news burisma you understood that was required by president trump before he would grant the white house meeting to president zelensky? that is correct. and the ukrainians understood that as well? i believe they did. and you informed secretary pompeo about that statement as well? i did. so what do you think? well, what were the first words at the beginning of the day that we knew were a bombshell? he said everyone was in the loop. and that is what we heard all day long. pompeo, pence. but just to put in context, we re seeing the president twice say he gets very excited, you see on the phone call he said i said no quid pro quo and yet throughout this testimony he is
that the president is saying go talk to rudy giuliani, he knows what i want. and so it is hard for you to distance the president from where this is. and a big republican argument is that sondland doesn t have a lot of credibility left but you saw him bring text messages and emails that he with the secretary of state, the chief of staff, several of their top deputies talking about this and none of them asked when he said hopefully the ukrainian president will be what breaks the log jam and pleases president trump and no one acted surprised at what he said and they all seemed to understand what he was saying so maybe it wasn t explicit but if they are presuming the president wants the same thing you have to ask why do they all operate under the same mentality. and this is one of the most significant and striking things that happened today. the republicans started out thinking that sondland was going to be a friendly witness. we saw this reversal occur which all of a sudden the democr