one person who clearly is paying close attention is the president himself, as he ramps up his attacks on the witnesses. and with the start of a new week comes what appears to be a new strategy for republicans trying to defend the president. one star witness in all of this is eu ambassador gordon sondland. the man who changed his testimony after he met behind closed doors with house investigators weeks ago and the man now at the center of the surprise twist of last week. a new phone call. this time, between gordon sondland and the president, so loud, we re told, that it was overheard at a restaurant by other u.s. officials. so, a call where the president asks about the investigations, into his political rivals, and a call that sondland did not disclose to investigators. so what is going to happen on capitol hill this week? let s go there to begin. cnn s manu raju is covering it all. manu, what are you hearing from there right now? yeah, a hugely sequential week. tomorrow will have of
because three people who are testifying tomorrow are actually on that july phone call between president trump and president zelensky, in which trump urged the ukrainian president to open up those investigations, including into the bidens. and each of those witnesses have different levels of concern. some more serious than others, alexander vindman, for one, raising some significant concerns about the matter, even taking it up to national security council attorney. also worried about the implications on national security. but that s not the same level of concern that tim morrison had, for instance, who also served on the national security council. also was on that phone call. he was more concerned about the perception is if the transcript were to leak. tomorrow s testimony will put more pressure on gordon sondland, because morrison has already testified that he was told by gordon sondland that the president was pushing for those investigations, at the same time as that aide, that milita
proposed it directly. even a little thing like, i didn t realize that burisma was connected to the bidens. he s been contradicted on that by various other witnesses. he s only fudgie ining the trut away. as you re laying it out, that adds to that there is talk that he could come before the committee and plead the fifth. what are the chances of that happening? i don t think it s likely, but i think he needs to think hard about it. because he s got potential exposure here. a, for perjury. if his testimony has been shown to be intentionally false. and like we said, one lie is one thing, but a whole string of them is something else. so he could take it if i was advising him, i would tell him, you should take the fifth. now, there s optics issues here, right? it s going to look really bad for gordon sondland to have an ambassador that is not good. it s going to look terrible for him and for trump. so i don t think he s going to take the fifth, but he s walking a narrow path he
president trump, spending yesterday and today attacking some of the witnesses, taking aim specifically at jennifer williams, a longtime state department employee, currently detailed to vice president pence s team. the president calling her a never-trumper on twitter. and an important note here. williams closed-door testimony was released over the weekend, during which she called the president s july 25th call with ukraine, quote, unusual and inappropriate. and an even more important note, i guess we would argue, donald trump s attack comes as she is slated to testify publicly tomorrow. cnn s boris sanchez joins me now. boris, this clearly is not the first time the president s attacked the witnesses in this inquiry. many of them, though, still working for the government, like jennifer williams. some in the white house. what is the white house saying about this? well, kate, effectively, the white house is saying that these tweets speak for themselves. a spokesperson for vice president
testimony, gordon sondland said the president only cared about the investigations in s into t bidens. this is the take place we obtained on friday night. i heard president trump ask, so he s going to do the investigation? ambassador sondland replied he s going to do it, adding that president zelensky will do anything you ask him to. i asked ambassador sondland if it was true that the president did not give an s about ukraine? ambassador sondland agreed that the president did not give an s about ukraine. and he goes on to testify that the president only cared about the, quote, big stuff. big stuff meaning the investigation into joe biden, specifically. so we ll see how much ambassador sondland reveals about that conversation. other conversations. if he changes his testimony in any way or if he does not recall a number of these conversations like he did earlier behind closed doors. kate? big stuff, not meaning the assistance that was long promised and the support of ukraine that ha