Pressure a foreign country to investigate a political rival . Did they try to withhold u. S. Military aid to that country in the middle of a war until that investigation was announced publicly . If democrats dont make their case today right out of the gate, it will only get more challenging in the coming days and weeks. As for republicans, they hope to poke holes in the testimony shifting their strategy fromce undercutting the substance of the democratic narrative. Were covering all the angles on this historic day as these hearings are set to begin. Lets go to our senior Congressional Correspondent manu raju. Hes live on capitol hill. Lets talk a little bit about what we can expect the format. Its going to be very significant. No question about it. Both sides recognize the significance of this moment believing this could set the stage for how the public understands what the president did and whether his conduct is impeachable or not. Yesterday behind the scenes, democrats and republicans strategized for several hours apiece trying to figure out their best lines of questioning. Democrats want george kent and bill taylor, the two witnesses today, to detail the full timeline of events. What they witnessed in the concerns that they raised about the president enlisting his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to carry out ukraine policy, essentially urge the Ukrainian Government to open up investigations into the president s political rivals. Expect bill taylor to make clear what he said behind closed doors, that he believed he was told that the ukrainian aid, roughly 400 million, provided to ukraine to combat russian aggression, that that was tied to the ukraine publicly announcing those investigations. Also george kent making clear that he also believed that a visit at the white house with the new president of ukraine, zelensky, was contingent on that public announcement of investigations. Now republicans will push back and make the case this way saying they these two witnesses had no direct knowledge about exactly what the president was doing. What he was thinking. Thats going to be a consistent theme throughout as they try to undercut the credibility of this testimony. But right from the start, wolf, expect adam schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman to make it clear. Lay out the scope of this investigation. Make clear what he believes is the president s misconduct and detail why it was critical for ukraine to get this aid to combat russian aggression. So the tone will be set from the top as we get set for two weeks of intense public hearings that could set the stage for this president to be just the third in American History to be impeached, wolf. And manu tell our viewers why this hearing is about to begin will look different than previous congressional hearings where you have the fiveminute rule. Today its totally different. Totally different because democrats want to get into the substance of the allegations right from the top. Typically as you said, wolf, member after member get five minutes apiece to ask dwes. Often times members devolve into speech making and dont ask those pointed questions. Thats going to be different in this round because there are two staff attorneys from the democratic side first and the republican side who will begin that round of questioning. Thats dan goldman on the democratic side, the chief counsel in charge of the investigations on democratic side who will be asking the questions for 45 minutes. Then adam schiff will work in questions with dan goldman to ask those questions. Then it will be kicked over to the republican side, and thats steve castor, the attorney for jim jordan, the top republican. Castor will be asking those questions for about a 45minute round. Then well get into the fiveminute rounds of questioning from member, from member to ask those questions. So expect this to be a lot different to how weve seen impeachment hearings in the past because democrats hope that theyll be able to draw out this narrative for 45minute question and answer session. Allow these witnesses to get into real detail about what they witnessed and what they saw and republicans hope that their 45minute round will allow them to push back. Wolf . Its going to be very significant. Manu, well get back to you, especially as the witnesses arrive and members arrive as well. Gloria, this process, daniel goldman, the House Intelligence Committees director of investigations, former u. S. Assistant attorney, hes going to be focusing in on these two witnesses, getting them to say said in closed door sworn eady depositions that there was this socalled quid pro quo, that the president of the United States was using his political advantage to get dirt on potential political a potential political rival. And i think the first thing hes going to do before that is have them talk about who they are and how unimpeachable they are as witnesses. Their credibility, their years of Public Service. You know, i think george kent has been in Public Service his family has been in Public Service for decades. And i think hes going to try and show that these are people without political motive. But actually, people who are devoted to the country and to the state department. And then have them in tandem in a way describe what they saw and how u. S. Foreign policy had run amok and how money that had actually been appropriated this is important appropriated by the United States congress was being held up for brazen political purposes by the president of the United States and how Rudy Giuliani was effectively running Foreign Policy as opposed to mike pompeo. Wolf, you know the public nature of this is what democrats understand is so important. What have americans heard about the deep state, about allegations of a coup from the president and his supporters . Instead were going to find dedicated Public Servants in the diplomatic corps who have served republicans and democrats. These are not partisan people. Of course, some of the people who are very uncomfortable were in fact, political appointees by this president. I think thats going to be quite impactful. The larger question, the larger context about whether its impeachable will, obviously, be debated. But i think to glorias point, who were seeing for the first time is going to give a face to the notion of faceless bureaucrats and whistleblowers going after the president. I think democrats understand they need to chip away at that right away. Its a problem potentially for the republican counsel steve castor. The House Oversight gop counsel but hes been detailed over to the Intelligence Committee to handle the questioning in all of this. You have these two experienced diplomats, ambassador bill taylor and deputy assist angt secretary george tent, and i assume hes going to try to undermine their credibility which could be problematic. It is problematic because of who they are and because of their records in Public Service. Bill taylor, west point grad. Served in vietnam for instance. Theyll probably try to do that. I think probably more effective line of questioning will try to get at the fact that they never talked to the president , right . That this is essentially hearsay. And its also their interpretation of what they thought was going on, right . They dont have any sort of firsthand knowledge that this was the president s directive. So i think that is the line of questioning theyll get at. And its a fruitful line of questioning. Its a powerful argument. They can insulate the president from some of their claims and say essentially, you know, these were people who werent really in on what the president s thinking was. This is just their interpretation. Something else thats intangible when we look at this is how they appear on tv, right . I mean, this very much is a show, right . And they, obviously, have impeccable resumes. But do they appear credible on air . Do people believe what they say . Do they seem steady under pressure . That will be something else, i think, people are going to be watching for and sort of intangible. We dont know how these people appear on air. Weve seen their statement so far and well see how they appear and how people interpret their credibility. How they deal with what could be some crossexamination by the republican counsel thats coming up. Our senior White House Correspondent pamela brown is getting new information at the white house. The president has been busy tweeting already. He has been very busy tweeting already. He is gearing up to watch the morning portion of these hear,s before his meetings begin with turkish president erdogan. In the tweets this morning, hes going after the democrats involved in this and even the witnesses, wolf, calling them never trumpers. These two witnesses are still in this administration. Theyre career diplomats. Theyve worked for administrations on both sides of the aisle. But the president s tweets give you a glimpse of the white house strategy today. Focusing on these witnesses, they are going to be quick to point out they were not on the call in july with president zelensky of ukraine. That they never spoke to the president directly about ukraine. So part of the strategy here is to really undermine the witnesses credibility. As one official i spoke to here at the white house said, they are expecting these witnesses to say things about this president , about the white house, the ukraine policy that are not flattering, but they do not believe it will be a clean shot for the democrats because of the distance from President Trump. But there is going to be a Rapid Response approach at the white house with legislative affairs, the White House Counsels Office and Communications Teams working together monitoring the developments in realtime. Sending out notes to surrogates and talking points, and this is a very busy monumental day here at the white house, wolf, because not only do you have these public hearings, the first set of public hearings in the impeachment probe but you also have the meeting with the turkish president erdogan, a month after the president pulled u. S. Troops out of syria paving the way for the turkish invasion there and really causing this backlash from congress. And so that is also going to be a big focus here today. Now there will be a joint press conference at 3 10 p. M. Eastern time where we can hear from the president for the first time on his thoughts on whats transpiring. Stand by, pamela. I want to bring in kylie atwood. Shes been doing some reporting on todays leadoff witnesses. Two seasoned career diplomats. Why is their testimony so crucial . Well, wolf, weve heard from democratic aides that the expectation is that these are the two witnesses who were witness to the full scope, the full story line of what President Trump was doing here. Now lets look at who they are. So we first have bill taylor. He is the top u. S. Diplomat in ukraine. And he told lawmakers behind closed doors that it was his understanding that the ukrainian asks to the u. S. Were explicitly tied to the ukrainian president zelensky announcing investigations into President Trumps political rivals. So that there was some sort of connection there that he was made aware of. He was alarmed that the u. S. Security assistance to ukraine had been put on hold during that time. Now bill taylor is a decorated, very widely respected diplomat. He has served he actually had to be pulled out of retirement to take this job. Secretary of state mike pompeo encouraged him to take the job even though he was wary of taking it because ambassador yovanovitch had been pulled out of the job abruptly because she lost confidence from President Trump. Hes also a west point graduate and a vietnam war veteran. Now the other person who is going to be seated next to him in todays hearing is george kent. And george kent is a Top State Department official. And he worked with bill taylor over the past few months on ukraine policy. He will be able to corroborate a lot of what bill taylor said. And behind closed doors, he told lawmakers he was told by other u. S. Officials that President Trump specifically wanted president zelensky to go to the mics, announce investigations and to say the names in that announcement of his political rivals, biden and clinton. And its important to note, however, that george kent has worked on ukraine policy for multiple administrations. He was in the obama administration. He was at the u. S. Embassy in kiev from 2015 to 2018. And during that time, he did raise concerns about hunter biden and his business interest because he was on the board of a ukrainian business while the Vice President , joe biden, was in office. So that will be an interesting part to watch as well. But george kent, another widely respected top diplomat at the state department who has worked on policy for years with regard to ukraine and will be able to speak about how that has changed during the Trump Administration. Wolf . All very, very significant. Kylie atwood, stand by. Well get back to you as well. I want to get back to our analysts. Carrie cordero, you are a legal and National Security analyst. I assume adam schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, the democrats, they picked these two diplomats as their leadoff witnesses because they assumed they were the most effective, most credible in making the democrats point. I think they have a number of credible witnesses. These being two of that group. So i think, really, many of the witnesses were going to hear from over the course of the next two weeks all have experience and all are credible. Bill taylor, i think, is a critical witness, though. And hes someone whose testimony i was most interested to read his transcript from his by the way, you see ambassador taylor walking in right now. Top u. S. Diplomat in ukraine. An experienced american diplomat going back decades. He is. And i think what were going to see is that he is going to be incredibly well spoken, well prepared. As a diplomat, he is someone who is a communicator. He is someone who is going to know how to communicate this to the public and the fact pattern here is actually not that complicated. Hes going through security right now as hes entering the building. But go ahead. The fact pattern that hes going to be describing and that george kent are going to be describing is not actually that complicated of a fact pattern. Its whether or not a white house meeting and defense assistance were held out in exchange for the ukrainians conducting investigations into a Conspiracy Theory regarding the 2016 election and the bidens. Thats it. Its not actually an overly complicated fact pattern, and bill taylor really was witness to all of the behind the scenes conversations and interactions that were going on within the white house and the state department. You hear the president , ross garber, you are an expert on impeachment. But you hear some of the president s supporters suggest these career american diplomats are never trumpers, that theyre deep state. I dont know if the republicans are actually going to go that route in the course of their questioning today. But thats what the point that theyre trying to make in undermining their credibility. And thats going to be very interesting to see. The president has been tweeting out, even this morning, about sort of the never trumper angle. Id be surprised if the republicans on the committee and in particular the republican lawyer for the Committee Goes down sort of that never trumper angle. One, because i think it would be hard to do. Two, because its probably not their most effective point to make. I think what the republicans are going to try to do is show that, yes, these witnesses had information, as carrie pointed out, but they didnt have it from the president , and so they didnt know what was in the president s head and what was key here, i think what were going to come down to is the president s motivation. And where we wind up from the republicans in the white house is the notion that these witnesses dont get us very far on that. Well, well see what happens because its going to be dramatic. Suzanne malveaux is up on capitol hill. You are watching the witnesses come in to the capitol. Youre watching the members come in. Set the scene for us where you are. Sure, wolf. Well, i just threw a question to bill taylor moments ago. We just saw him pass us by behind and walk into the building. I asked him if he felt this was a legitimate exercise. He did not respond. Also asked him as well what does he hope to accomplish. And that really, wolf, is going to be the key challenge here is for these hear,s to unfold and adam schiff, the chair of the Intelligence Committee, acknowledging for americans themselves to see this process play out before their own eyes and make that determination. Whether or not these are credible witnesses and the stories that they are telling sound and ring true to them. A number of republicans, as you know, wolf, are not going to be here. Theyre not going to be paying attention to this. Weve heard from senator Lindsey Graham over and over. Senator john cornyn and ted cruz and others saying that its a flawed process, a partisan process, even a circus. There are other more moderate republicans, however, senators joni ernst and susan collins, rob portman saying theyre not going to experience this the way some americans experience it from gavel to gavel or the way were going to experience it. They are busy. They say they have work to do. But they will send their representatives or theyll take a look at perhaps a recorded version of it or an excerpt at some point at a later date to make their determinations. And finally, wolf, you have senators like john kennedy, republica