>> these are the people with supposedly the firsthand knowledge who gave the whistle-blower the information that formed the basis of his complaint. >> reporter: now this makes clear, this opening statement, how uncomfortable taylor was about accepting the job originally and how concerned he was about the back-channel diplomatic efforts and in his opening statement he continued to note that the back-channel diplomatic channels through rudy giuliani were the ones that appeared to be taking over rather than what the top diplomat in ukraine was trying to do on behalf of the u.s. jake. >> sara murray, thanks so much. let's chew over this. and phil mudd, let me start with you. is this testimony significant? if so, why? >> yeah, for a couple of reasons. the big ticket item is, we knew at the phone call, the president was squeezing the ukrainians for opposition research and the question was fuzzy but this gets us more than one step closer and i think mr. sondland has more questions to answer based on my