A new policing bill. And well hear from those displaced by south sudans worst flooding in 20 years and the people trying to help. In just under an hours time witnesses in the u. S. President Donald Trumps impeachment inquiry are expected to testify publicly for the 1st time these hearings could lead to an Impeachment Vote in the house of representatives so only these 3rd time in the history of the United States and then a trial in the u. S. Senate patrick or hain sets up our coverage. For a most the 1st day of his presidency there have been calls for Donald Trumps impeachment. But for the 1st 2 years with his party in control of congress it was more a longing from the left than an actual possibility until. The. Democrats won back control of the house of representatives in the 28000 election and some of the most left leaning members made clear their intention because were going to go in there were going to. That was not a sentiment shared by the speaker of the house nancy pelosi who resisted all calls to start an impeachment proceeding. Or after the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mullers investigation which left it up to congress to decide if the president acted appropriately in regards to russian interference in the 2016 election but that changed in Early September of this year when a whistleblower complaint came to light in it the still Anonymous National security official wrote of more than a half dozen officials who knew about a phone call between President Trump and the president of ukraine and they found it deeply disturbing the allegation was that trump was Holding Hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid meant for ukraine which is fighting off russian aggression intil the ukrainian president promised to investigate trumps potential political rival Vice President joe biden and his son hunter who had worked in ukraine in damage control mode the white house released notes from the call it did more damage because as the notes point out as the ukrainian president is promising to buy more u. S. Missiles trump responds quote i would like you to do us a favor though he goes on to ask for investigations into a debate Conspiracy Theory about the election and later brings up the bidens the president must be held accountable no one is above the law thats when democrats announced an impeachment inquiry would begin along with the president s almost daily defense of the call i made a call the call was perfect there was no way rove was there would have. No idea how they stuck me it didnt help in the president s own acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney went on camera and seemed to admit it had. Happened and i have news for everybody get over it theres going to be political influence in Foreign Policy he later tried to take it back well the white house made clear they would not cooperate define subpoenas for testimony and documents attorney bruce fein says that could backfire i was there at nixon what we did is ok that itself the defiance itself is an Impeachable Offense i will try yourself because the impeachment process becomes farcical if the president can simply withhold and block access to the relevant evidence some members of the Trump Administration have gone to court to ask a federal judge who they should listen to the president who says dont go or the congress that subpoenaed them to show up but while that will take months to work its way through the courts democrats are pushing ahead the 1st 3 to testify in public 3 long Time State Department employees they testified behind closed doors that the president did withhold hundreds of millions in military aid to ukraine because he wanted to debunk Conspiracy Theory and his political opponent investigated republicans have been struggling to defend the president but many seem to be settling on one strategy and i would make the argument that every politician in washington other than me virtually is trying to manipulate ukraine to their purposes menendez tried it murphy tried it biden tried it trumps tried it theyre all doing it they are all trying to manipulate ukraine to get some kind of investigation either and investigation or started investigation the everyone does it defense except no other president in the history of the country has been proven to do what trump allegedly did a slim majority of americans now support impeaching the president and removing him from office both sides we watching to see if that changes with public hearings the results could determine the president s fate in office and in the history books. Washington. White house correspondent kimberly hell kid standing by for us in the states 1st lets go to Heidi Jo Castro whos on capitol hill heidi just talk us through whats going to happen today. Well peter the star witness of this impeachment inquiry thus far is expected to take the stand in public this morning and that is Ambassador William Taylor who is the acting ambassador currently in ukraine and if this were a movie of the impeachment inquiry democrats would surely cast taylor as the protagonist theyre trying to get the public to see this situation through his eyes he has said before in closed door testimony that when he was asked to come out of retirement and take on that position and he of back in june he found himself in the middle of a mystery what he called weird circumstances his predecessor had been ousted with unexplained reasons and he knew that the president s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was meeting with ukrainian officials trying to drum up these conspiracy theories that clip that involved trumps political opponents now taylor said he was very concerned by this he was a career diplomat with decades of experience in the Foreign Service so he went about immediately trying to figure out how this situation arose and to judge how concerned he should be and what he discovered he said was very alarming he said that through other conversations with other state Department Officials he discovered this was part of a Shadow Campaign that was sanctioned by President Trump and led by his attorney Rudy Giuliani with the purpose of getting these ukrainian officials to agree to publicly smear trumps political opponents at home by launching investigations into these conspiracy theories now the danger to all of this taylor said is that it would endanger ukraine who was a key ally to the u. S. In its effort to hold off right. And when taylor discovered this he also knew that the leverage that the Shadow Campaign was using to get this Public Statement on the investigations from ukraine was a white house meeting invitation that was dangled toward the newly elected president of ukraine and to make matters worse he says in his closed door testimony it got more insidious with time that instead of just the white house visit as the leverage he feared became the u. S. Military aid to ukraine the close to 400000000. 00 that ukraine was counting on to fund its resistance or to russia in the russian backed elements that was breaking out in civil war in ukraine and that is what elicited taylor to say in the most clear terms that we have evidence of in the text message to his fellow u. S. Diplomats he said i think it is crazy to withhold Security Assistance for help with a Political Campaign democrats are hoping that is enough to be the smoking gun in a sense to convince the public that what happened was wrong that there was a quid pro quo and that trump was involved here heidi thanks very much can be held following other developments for us to do with this evolving story today kimberly what are we expecting mr trump to be doing today. Now we expect that he will be watching these impeachment proceedings very carefully and we know that the president is already pretty agitated about whats taking place he has taken to twitter as he often does to try and set the news cycle hes also had his war room sending out emails to reporters to essentially make the case that this is a situation of the never trump Person HoldingCongress Hostage if you will that this is a partisan sham run by a corrupt politician the president tweeting not just never trumpeters but also read the transcript the transcript of his july 25th phone call with the ukrainian leader that he believes clears him of wrongdoing but in the midst of all of this well his war room is tweeting emails or rather sending emails saying that this is a divisive and distraction for the American Public theres another distraction peter thats taking place for the president well he might want to watch this in the comfort of his armchair inside the residence of the white house hes hosting the turkish president at the white house today and not only will he be is sort of taken up with those formalities but there will be a joint press conference now this is kind of unusual given the fact that the president needs bipartisan support right now as these impeachment hearings are taking place but he does not have bipartisan support when it comes to his syria policy particularly when it comes to the 5th fact that many in his own party believe that he greenlighted allowing the turks 2 to go in attacks the kurds that have worked alongside the United States to combat eisel so while the president needs all the support he can get today he is greeting a leader that many people feel the president was should not be so cozy with right now if you will so theres going to be a joint press conference peter theyre going to be some questions about syria policy but there are also going to be even more questions about impeachment what this essentially does is put the president. Or a microscope when it comes to his Foreign Policy certainly maybe not the day that he might like to have that happen kimberly many thanks so if it comes to impeachment how does the process actually work well it begins in the house which debates and votes on whether to bring charges against the President Donald Trump if that vote is successful a trial of sorts prosecute over by the chief justice of the u. S. Supreme court is then taken to the senate the 2 thirds majority vote is required in the 100 Member Senate to convict and remove the president historically impeachment is rare of the 35 attempts only 2 president s have been impeached and neither removed from office a 3rd president Richard Nixon resigned whilst the proceedings were underway Michael Isikoff is chief investigative correspondent yahoo news keeping us company here on aljazeera michael great to talk to you again whats the case that the democrats have to make here. They have to make the case that the president s dealings with ukraine constitute. Bribery high crimes or misdemeanors which is the standard way down in the constitution for impeachment of a president now as weve discussed before those words are open to many interpretations the and thats why you have heard over the last week or 2 the democrats sharpening their rhetoric dropping the words quid pro quo and using instead the words bribery an extortion sort of suggesting that there was pure criminality in the president s conduct with the ukraine now they could you know theyve got a very sympathetic witness to start out the hearings today mr taylor the charge daffaires in ukraine a west point grad a vietnam vet a career diplomat somebody who is trying to implement what was really the bipartisan policy of the United States to support ukraine against russian aggression and then was essentially kneecapped in his efforts to do so because of the meddling of Rudy Giuliani and these demands that political investigations be announced by president s alinsky in exchange for a white house visit and military aide what we can look for from the republicans today is to try to poke holes in the case its not clear theyre going to be able to get much ground attacking the credibility of mr taylor but they could raise questions such as did you ever speak to the president did you hear anything directly from the president that most if not all of what mr taylor knows is 2nd or 3rd hand coming through. The president s intermediaries ambassador sohn wind embassador volker so you know i think that the republicans will try to raise some questions about taylors testimony going down that lane but if they go to road the people that weve already heard from that the significant thing from them surely when it was behind closed doors was these were not wild card people giving testimony these work urrea diplomats these were career military individuals who were in the room they were the grownups in the room at the time of the process whatever the process may have been at the time that they were doing their jobs. Exactly and thats why the democrats are starting out with mr taylor who has an impeccable reputation theyve also got a 2nd witness today george kant who is the state Department Official overseeing ukrainian policy and hes going to support much of what. Mr taylor says but here is where its going to get interesting when republicans get the chance to question george cant because if you read his closed door testimony he did raise a did talk at times about prior concerns within the state department about hunter biden service on that board as a member of the Advisory Board of that company boris mudd that Rudy Giuliani and the president wanted the ukrainians to investigate now its going to be really interesting when republicans if they go down that road will adam schiff the chairman the democratic chairman whos presiding allows some latitude for the republicans to make that line of questioning about the bidens and i think you could. See some fireworks when that happens michael as you were talking so as were monitoring pictures coming to us from inside the chamber there on capitol hill im intrigued as to how you think we will frame this in the future you know hindsight yes of course its 2020 i think it was gerald ford who who leslie in his political career referred to the run up of the political demise of Richard Nixon as being a National Nightmare brackets but we didnt know it at the time will what were just seeing the beginnings of now be that level of political or quickness and soul searching for america. Look that is the question thats why so many people are going to be tuning in watching these in these hearings because we really dont know how theyre going to play with the American Public thats the challenge can democrats make the case to that small segment of the American Public that has not made up its minds about what Donald Trumps fate should be there we already know close to half if not a little more than half of the American Public believes he should be impeached and perhaps removed from office but you know its probably not quite enough when you have solid Republican Opposition in the house the ultimate jurors are going to be in the senate those Senate Republicans and can Public Opinion can the Public Opinion polls which now show Something Like between 49 and 52 percent of the public supporting impeachment will those numbers go up after these hearings over the next 2 weeks to the point where if its 5556 some of those republican senators who will be the jurors in a senate trial will start to abandon the president we dont know the answer as we sit here this morning well find out those answers im sure in the coming days and weeks Michael Isikoff in washington thank you so much quits talked. A lot more still to come for you here on aljazeera including a new interim president takes control the deal but theres a strong source of good to be exiled president able marlice. I know that most likely conditions throughout much of central and eastern china sunny clear skies along that south coast is going to just work its way into shanghai time which is a little bit lower 17 celsius its a warm day in hong kong at 26 at the range where he further to the south were watching this latest Development Across into the philippines that will head west as we go through friday could produce some flooding rains across into much of luzon and then we have got this case continuing slightly in shanghai feeding call the nice with a high of 20 celsius and was secure and fine across into india a little bit more activity across the fall northwest across into were dashed. Some showers on sunday across into pakistan for the next couple of days. Well into the fall south of india and across into show lanka and also by friday that sunny pushing towards new delhi but it should be a dry day unfairly wall with a high of 27. 00 and then the Arabian Peninsula temperatures have been coming down his deadly fighting pretty good set in the Morning